City's 67 acres to stay 'mixed use' '
BY PHIL REYNOLDS SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

City council and planning and zoning commission members declined on Thursday, Sept. 7, to change their minds about 67 acres of land the city owns fronting the Corpus Christi Ship Channel.

The property was the subject of a joint workshop between the council and commission requested by City Manager Michael Kovacs. Kovacs pointed out that the city is nearing the end of its work on a land use segment of a comprehensive plan. If the council wants to change how the property is to be used, it should do that before the land use plan is finished, Kovacs said.

The current draft land use map labels the 67 acres as "mixed use," which gives the city the widest possible latitude in what it wants to allow to be built there. The property is now vacant land.

Several council members were uneasy about even discussing possible uses of the land, saying they didn't want to talk about any potential city projects while three bond issues are pending voter approval. Bond elections on two street and drainage issues as well as an issue to repair and expand the city hall-civic center complex will go before voters during the general election on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

"I'm a little worried about confusing (voters) or overloading them with this marina project," council member Bubba Jensen said.

However, Kovacs said the council wasn't expected to decide on specific projects for the property, only

' on whether it wanted to change the potential types of use for the land.

The 67 acres is just beyond the end of Port Street, adjacent to the ongoing Charlie's Pasture Nature Preserve and facing the Corpus Christi Ship Channel. When the city bought the land in December 1992, it carried a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permit for a marina; that permit has since been renewed four times, most recently in August of this year.

One factor in the discussion was the role the property played in an abortive proposal that began in 2004 to build a marina-hotel-retail operation there. The proposal, made by developer Ralph Durden, caused controversy by initially calling for property dedicated to the nature preserve to become part of the development.

Council member Keith McMullin asked whether any of the property owned by the city was part of the nature preserve and was assured it was not.

"I went back and looked at the actual resolution to purchase this property," said the city's planning and projects manager, David Parsons. "It did not have any conditions on it.

"This property is not part of any of the properties that were purchased for recreation or park use," Parsons said. "Those properties are all farther down the channel."

The council did discuss several options for the 67 acres, including moving the existing Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) ferry operation there and creating an additional set of ferry ramps on the city-owned tract.

Mayor Claude Brown pointed out that moving the existing ferry operation would be a complicated and expensive project.

"Moving that ferry operation isn't just a matter of moving a couple of buildings, building a few ramps and we're open for business," Brown said.

"Ralph Durden was right about one thing and that is that the ferry is our biggest issue," commented planning commissioner Betsy Churgai.

"The first step is to streamline the loading and unloading, but a supplemental ferry location could also be built a little differently with longer ramps so for hurricane evacuation theirs would be able to operate for a longer time," she said.

Council member Mike Hall agreed that the workshop agenda didn't call for a decision on a project for the tract. But he reminded the council that providing for a better ferry operation wasn't one that could be put off too long.

"As the people who are taking care of the city today, we owe it to the future to identify a future ferry site, even if we don't use it for 40 years, because the longer we wait, the less opportunity there will be to do that," Hall said.

"It might be a little early to talk about it because the wounds might not have healed enough yet," said council member Rick Pratt.

"The town was pretty upset about that whole Charlie's Harbor project ... but the timing that Michael presented I think was compelling."

In his pre-workshop briefing packet to council members and planning commissioners, Kovacs noted that the Corps of Engineers was not as amenable to renewing the permit this year as it had been in the past.

"Could this be our last renewal?" he asked. "If so, we have five years of .permit value' to do something with the property."

While the council didn't change its mind about leaving the property as a mixed-use tract, members agreed that their first step should be to come up with some ideas about what to do with it, and then to ask residents what their ideas are.

"Those public comments, they may or may not tell us that they want a marina, they may or may not tell us that they want to develop the property," Hall said.

"I think they're going to tell us that they want a marina. I think there's a lot of sentiment out there. But then, how to get it is where the difference starts. Hopefully, out of the public comments we can extract what is acceptable and what is not acceptable."