The City Council will decide Monday, Nov. 9, whether to remake the membership rules for the Planning and Zoning Commission, the volunteer board that reviews zoning cases and plats before they reach the council.
The ordinance, set for a public hearing at the 6:30 p.m. meeting at City Hall, 152 N. Main Drive, would make three main changes.
Seven voting members, no alternates. The commission now has five members plus up to two alternates who vote only when a regular member is absent. The two alternate seats would become regular places 6 and 7, so every appointee votes at every meeting. A quorum would rise from three members to four.
A new residency rule. Today members must live in the city or its extraterritorial jurisdiction, with one member and one alternate allowed from elsewhere in Van Alstyne ISD. The proposal would let any member live anywhere inside the school district's boundary, while giving "significant weight" to applicants who live in the city.
The staff memo from Development Services explains the reason. Since 2023, state law has let landowners petition their way out of a city's ETJ, and the city cannot block those requests. That means the ETJ line can move without any city action, and a commissioner who qualified when appointed could lose eligibility mid-term because of a neighbor's decision.
Staff call the school district boundary more stable and easier to understand.
