Permits protect the city and citizens

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A WORD FROM THE MAYOR

Ben Briscoe

The City of Pearsall, like most cities, has ordinances and guidelines on the books. I’m referring specifically to buildings, developments, or construction projects on land inside the city limits and our ETJ.
It requires completing a permit before proceeding with any project. Depending on the project, the permit clerk then reviews the application to ensure it follows city ordinances and codes. This is for anything done on your property from building a new fence around your backyard to a new business such as Starbucks. Serious issues arise if an owner starts a project without a permit and if that project or building doesn’t follow code or is against city ordinances.
We also have a planning and zoning citizen committee for larger projects. Any application that goes through planning and zoning will then come to city council for final approval. Not every permit goes through this committee, as many projects are easy to approve.
These laws or ordinances are on the books to protect the city and the citizens. The city is made up of zones where certain things are permitted; residential zones, business zones, industrial zones, and multi-use zones. These are in place to keep the integrity of each zone, so that as an example, you can buy a home and rest assured that a new Walmart will not be built right next door.
It becomes even more critical with any new commercial development or residential subdivision. Roads, sewer lines, water lines, new curbs, gutters and drains, sidewalks, and or streetlights must be engineered and approved long before the first load of dirt is moved on the project. I say engineered because if the street is not built correctly, ie: to handle potential traffic flow in conjunction with roads it intersects or connects to, or to handle rainwater drainage, it will create huge and expensive nightmares for the city in years to come. New water and sewer lines have to meet code and have to be adequate enough to meet the needs of the users and, where applicable, meet the need of any future development.
I say this because there are areas in our community that were not properly developed. There is no real record of city oversight, and in those areas today, the roads specifically, are a mess. I’m talking about before many of us were born, but we now bear that burden today. Regardless of what efforts the city does to patch or repair roadways, the next rain, due to lack of drainage, wipes it all out. We are working to correct this but don’t want to create more of these issues in the future. By holding fast to these ordinances, we can limit these future problems.
There are complaints about this process, and we strive to do a better job, but compared to other cities our process isn’t difficult or overly expensive. Citizens, however, need to understand that it’s a process and the key and requirement is to get the permit first. Don’t move into a modular building or home, sell an unapproved, un-platted lot, subdivide, build on, or develop property without getting an approved permit first.
God Bless the City of Pearsall, the County of Frio, the State of Texas, the United States of America, and You.
Ben T. Briscoe
Mayor of Pearsall