Council denied the request to establish the McCarty Ranch planned development district at 31575 Highway 281 North. The result is established by an independently reviewed segment of the official meeting recording.
For residents near the tract and drivers along Highway 281, the request centered on standards for lot layout, streets, grading, trees and riparian buffers. The city’s meeting packet details the proposed departures from those standards across the roughly 387-acre property.
The decision means the applicants did not secure the requested planned-development rules before later engineering, master-plan and plat reviews. Council and staff discussed required master-development-plan studies and confirmed that relief granted through the PDD could not later be withdrawn during MDP review.
What the filing proposed
The tract carries R-2, R-3, R-5 and C-2 zoning, while the filing proposed about 228 to 235 one-acre single-family lots on a 329-acre portion. It also identified approximately 13 acres for multifamily use and 45 acres for commercial use.
The single-family plan requested relief from the city’s lot-aspect-ratio rule for 22 cul-de-sac lots and 14 pie-shaped lots. It proposed increasing allowable disturbance on certain 20% to 25% slopes from 15% to 25%, allowing cuts as deep as 20 feet on six lots and fills as high as 15 feet on nine lots.
The application also proposed broader tree-removal exemptions inside defined grading areas, cash mitigation for three majestic trees and encroachment by as many as 10 lots into a riparian buffer. The buffer areas would have been placed in non-buildable drainage easements.
Council examined phased tree surveys, cash mitigation, and whether the PDD would make proposed water facilities permitted uses instead of requiring later special-use permits.
Questions before the vote
A council member identified drainage, traffic, tree, slope, site-plan, and water-infrastructure information she considered necessary before supporting the proposal. Those requests focused on details that would shape how the large tract connects to roads, manages runoff and receives water service.
A resident raised concerns about runoff, tree removal, and downstream flood risk and requested a complete drainage study before the application was considered. The reviewed recording establishes the substance of that testimony, not whether the predicted effects would occur.
The Planning and Zoning Commission had recommended approval 6-1 with seven conditions. They included preserving trees within the riparian buffer, removing a proposed $200,000 tree-mitigation cap, requiring tree surveys during individual plat phases and limiting the proposed water-treatment facility to multifamily or commercial areas.
How the proposal reached this point
Comal.News previously followed the plan’s return for a public hearing and a later tree-mitigation revision. Those earlier records show how the proposal changed before the Sept. 22 decision.
The reviewed city package does not establish a revised filing, appeal or other next step for the applicants. Readers can inspect the final agenda packet for the denied version’s staff report, conditions, exhibits and requested code changes; a later Bulverde filing or agenda would establish any renewed proposal.