Pioneer Investigation: Amarillo's Red Tape Problem Worsens

Amarillo City Hall | Photo by Noah Dawson

On December 13th, 2022, Amarillo City Council passed the first reading of an ordinance to rezone a piece of property owned by local entrepreneur Marcelino Alvarado. This approval was the culmination of months of negotiations and the issue being kicked back and forth between Amarillo City Council and the Planning Zoning Commission. Still, the issue is not yet over, as the item must still be approved on a second reading during a future council meeting.

The months of delays have not been caused by opposition by neighbors to the project, which will involve turning an empty lot at the intersection of Northeast 7th & North Mirror into a new and used auto lot. In fact, during one council meeting, Alvarado presented the council with a petition signed by neighbors expressly supporting the project. Instead, one of the two main issues were worries by the Planning Department over worries an initial version of the rezoning “would be contrary to the intent of the development type” for the area. (The proposed rezoning is to change the empty lot from being zoned for apartments to light commercial. The lot is situated along a busy street, with residential zoning to the north and industrial zoning to the south.) The other issue, which has had more broad impacts, has been a significant slowdown in the city’s responsiveness to rezoning requests. This incident has prompted The Amarillo Pioneer to investigate.

To begin, we must first take a look at the typical journey a rezoning takes as it makes its way through the city government. The first step is for the landowner to fill out an application and submit it to the city. City staff then reviews the application and notifies nearby property owners of the request. City staff then sends the issue to the Planning & Zoning Commission, which is appointed by City Council. A representative of the Planning Department presents the proposed rezoning, offers a recommendation for or against the request. Members of the public may then speak for or against the request before the commission votes. If the item is approved by the commission, it is sent to City Council. If the item is denied, the applicant may choose to appeal to City Council. The Planning & Zoning Commission may also choose to table the item for further consideration in the future.

In either case, the item then heads to City Council for a first reading. The item is presented by a representative from the Planning Department, including the findings of the Planning & Zoning Commission. The council then holds a public hearing, allowing members of the public to again voice their opinions on the matter. Once the public hearing is concluded, the council votes on whether or not to approve the request. (The council may also choose to send the matter back to the Planning & Zoning Commission, table the item for consideration in the future, or request city staff work with the applicant to amend the application.) If the council approves the item, it then has to be approved a second time at a future council meeting. This is typically done by placing the item on the consent agenda with a number of other items the city does not view as controversial, especially if the request was passed on the first reading unanimously and did not receive much discussion. At this point, the ordinance approving the rezoning goes into effect.

For our investigation, our team examined over 140 successful rezonings in the city from the beginning of 2017 to the end of 2022, comparing the number of days between the final vote by the Planning & Zoning Commission and the final vote by City Council. On average, it has taken 30.9 days to get from the final vote by the commission to the final vote by the council. More interestingly though is looking at how this number has trended in recent years.

To examine this, we broke up the last six years into three intervals. The first interval includes second readings that took place between the beginning of January 2017 and the end of January 2020. The second interval includes second readings that took place between the beginning of February 2020 and the end of December 2020. The third interval includes second readings that took place between the beginning of January 2021 and the end of December 2022. We made the separation between the first and second interval because, beginning with the second interval, the city began having “work session” meetings approximately every other week, during which rezonings were not considered. Previously, the council had full regular meetings nearly every week. We separated the third interval from the second as it was at this point that 2020’s Proposition C, which amended the city charter to reduce the number of required meetings of the council, was officially implemented. After implementation, the council ceased the work session meetings and began to meet roughly twice a month.

For the first interval, the average rezoning took 22.26 days to move from the final vote of the commission to the final vote of the council. For the second interval, the average was 39.19 days. For the third interval, the average was 42.15 days.

The contrast becomes even more clear when comparing the shortest time it took to get a rezoning through each of the three intervals. For the first interval, this was 15 days. For the second interval, this was 22 days. For the third interval, this was 27 days. Additionally, for the first interval, this shortest time it took for a rezoning to get through was the most common duration between the two votes, while the shortest durations for the other two intervals were rare exceptions. (The most common time it took for a rezoning for both of these intervals was 36 days.)

While it may seem obvious to pin the blame solely on the reduced regularly of council meetings, this should only add one to two weeks to the time. However, when looking at the averages and modes across the time periods, the gulf has become more than two weeks. In fact, the difference in the average between the first and third intervals is nearly three weeks. Another potential clue that this slowdown in efficiency is not only linked to the reduced number of council meetings is the fact that the last time a rezoning only took 15 days to move between the two bodies was in August 2018, well before the number of full meetings began to be reduced.

One portion of this issue that isn’t covered by this analysis are rezonings with circumstances similar to Mr. Alvarado, where the item has been bounced back and forth between the two bodies. For instances like that, the issue is compounded as the slowdown in efficiency is compounded as the item waits to be placed on a meeting agenda.

To summarize, it appears that the City of Amarillo has become far less efficient in processing rezoning requests. A major component of this has likely been a reduction in the regularity of meetings of Amarillo City Council, but the gulf is too large for that to fully explain the issue.

The City of Amarillo’s Media Relations Manager could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.