SAN ANTONIO – Ione McGinty shook her head in disbelief walking out of the community forum held Thursday night by District 1.
“This meeting tonight was an insult to the taxpayer’s intelligence,” McGinty said to KSAT on her way out.
The forum was held to discuss the city’s transit-oriented development (TOD) policy. It’s an existing zoning classification that a task force is tailoring.
The city said the goal of TOD is to create and support housing and mixed-use development projects along new VIA Advanced Raid Transit lines.
“The big picture is affordable housing,” District 1 Councilwoman Sukh Kaur said. “Our community is going to double in population over the next 10 years and what we need to do is get ahead of that.”
In October 2023, Kaur co-signed a Council Consideration Request asking to create a TOD plan in connection with the VIA Advanced Rapid Transit (ART) North/South and East/West lines. Through the request, a task force was made.
This policy is separate from VIA’s Rapid Green Line. The Green Line is a $446 million effort to make faster bus routes between the airport and Brooks Transit Center. Construction on this project is set to start next year.
While TOD and the Green Line come from different organizations, they go hand-in-hand.
“Public transportation has been a gap in our community,“ Kaur said. “We can try to start having more housing opportunities available around public transit.”
In an emailed statement before the meeting, a VIA spokesperson told KSAT these Rapid Transit Corridors would “provide residents with new and better options.”
The city has had and has scheduled more community meetings for public discussion of the policy. Thursday’s meeting was the first for District 1.
The meeting ended with a walkout from about a dozen residents like Denise Gutierrez-Homer.
“We are no longer in control,” Gutierrez-Homer said. “We’re looking at a situation right now that’s very disingenuous to the taxpayer and to the homeowners who are responsible for the major part of keeping the city going.”
Thursday night’s concern from most residents came three-fold: the longevity of construction, a potential loss of neighborhood character and safety.
“This is a slap in the face,” resident Anne Englert told KSAT. “It seems to be they’re shoving more stuff down our throat that we didn’t ask for and we didn’t want.”
With construction scheduled, VIA’s Green Line could open in late 2027 or early 2028. Details about the public discussions for TOD can be found here.
