On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.

San Antonio is a fast growing, fast moving community with something new happening every day.

And that's why each week we go on the record with the newsmakers who are driving this change.

Then we gather at the Reporters Roundtable to talk about the latest news stories with the journalists behind those stories.

Join us now as we go on the right.

Hi, everybody.

Thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

I'm Randy Beamer.

A lot to talk about this week.

And one of the signs of spring will be showing up in your mailbox if it isn't already there right now.

And that is your Bear County property tax appraisal or whatever county you are in.

Chief appraiser of the Bear County Appraisal District, Michael Amezquita joins us.

Thank you very much for coming in.

We were talking before about what you learned in the past couple of three years in terms of how to deal with the challenges that you get, people's appraisal, What did you learn and how are things now in terms of my property taxes, the appraisal is too high.

What do I do?

Well, you know, obviously the first thing you want to do is get to get your protest in on time, get your plan on time, May 15th, as a state mandated deadline or 30 days after the date that you receive the notice, whichever is later.

Probably the biggest thing we learned coming out of the pandemic turned into a really big convenience factor, and that is offering virtual or telephonic and informal meetings with our staff.

We had about 150,000 residential properties appeal last year.

94% of those were settled using that process and about the same number the year before.

And so, you know, we are carrying forward with that because we're able to help about 10 to 12000 more people annually because you don't have to take off work, you don't have to find someone to watch the kids, you don't have to drive downtown, you don't have to try to find.

And now that's assuming you're going to protest your property tax appraisal with the interest rates changing, with the real estate market changing, what can people expect in their mailbox in terms of how their appraisal is going to be or is anybody going down at all?

Very few.

I mean, the volume of sales is off.

You know, we look at the real estate center at Texas A&M University for our big data, if you will.

And so we look at different regions of the state and especially San Antonio, and particularly when we look at those markets that volume of sales is up, the number of sales is up, but the sale prices are still going up year over year, month over month.

For the last 36 months, we currently have about a three month supply of housing stock.

So the stock is still very tight even though interest rates are up, people are still buying and moving to San Antonio.

Now, in the past couple of years, people have just been hammered with the percentage of the taxes going up.

How much is it going up this year given all of that?

Sure.

Last year went up roughly 28%.

Countywide market values are up 15.8% countywide this year, 14.8 on residential.

The interesting thing is, is when you look at the data and you look at all the major metros in Texas, San Antonio remains by far the most affordable of all of them.

In fact, we were just rated by Smart Asset as being one of the I think we're the number nine in the nation large metro for home investment.

So I should feel better if my appraisal goes up that much still that it's less than maybe a comparable city doesn't make me feel too good.

But when you go out and talk about helping people protest their taxes, they might wonder why?

Why do I have to protest?

Why aren't you guys doing, you know, keeping it lower to begin with?

Right.

Well, by law, we're required to be within a standard margin of error, and that's very boring discussion.

But that's by and large, the reason we just passed the property values study this last year done by the state comptroller's office and they do it biennially.

So that's reason number one.

But as markets continue to go up and go down like they did in oh nine and ten, our values follow that trend.

So our job isn't to set the market, our job is to follow the market.

And your advice for people who are protesting.

You know, we believe at Bay Appraisal District that property owners know their properties better than we do.

If there's something about your home that makes it different than the average home that's selling in your neighborhood, and we are going to go down to the neighborhood level with you.

We want to make sure that we have a conversation with you to try to help you get a better quality assessment, get a more fair and equitable assessment.

And the other way we can do that is for you to help us understand what your issue maybe.

And if you help 12,000 people, if they might wonder, okay, how can you do that so quickly without me coming in?

What's the process like?

How much time do I have to spend?

The really cool thing is this.

Nowadays, it's like setting up your doctor's appointment.

So once you get your appraisal notice and you file your protest, you're going to go online to our appointed system.

You're going to pick a date and time that you want my staff to contact you by phone or contact you by Zoom.

Whatever your preference, we'll be able to have an exchange of data.

You'll see our data.

We'll see your data 94% of the time.

That conversation leads to a reduction in value or a settled appeal.

What data should I bring?

Well, again, if you have structural issues with your with your home or if you have whatever condition issues with your home, any estimates that you have from a reputable firm that gives you a dollar figure, that gives us the best data to hang our hat on.

If you've recently refinanced like a lot of people have and your value is lower than we have indicated, that's good evidence if you've recently purchased it, obviously.

And that seems maybe a little daunting to get that information for some people.

And so there are other companies that promise to help you, but you say you really don't need those.

If you can just do a little research online.

I really don't like folks using data, using companies to file their exemptions.

There are companies in town that do a good job representing tax payers on value issues, and I get that.

But you're again giving away part of your tax savings by paying someone to do.

To do that work for you.

Okay.

So if people want to file an appeal, they get it in the mail this week.

Can you go to what Bear Dawgs?

It's w w w dot BCD, dot or BCD.

And so the most important thing, Randy, besides that protest deadline or appeal deadline is when you sign that document and you file your appeal, there's a little red box.

We want you to check that that authorizes me to give you all of our data in advance of your hearing.

That's what helps move this process along.

Well, thank you very much, Michael Amezquita, who is the chief appraiser here in Bear County.

Thank you so much for coming in.

Appreciate it.

You may have heard about some of the growth issues in Boerne and about a couple of plans for transportation there that have drawn a lot more people to the city council meetings than usual, a little more controversy than we would expect in a small town like Burnie.

Joining us to talk about that is communications director for the City, Chris Shadrach.

Thank you very much for coming in.

Glad to be here.

We talked about this last week on the show.

There is a mobility master plan which is separate.

That's a city plan.

And then the thoroughfare master plan.

A lot of people were out wondering what it's going to mean for them.

Is there going to be eminent domain this in that town?

First of all, what's the difference in these two plans?

One approved last week, one that will be approved or is going to be talked about next week?

Correct.

So the mobility plan that was approved last week really focuses on, again, our existing intersections, our existing mobility connectivity within the city of Burnie.

So the worst intersection in town is half in River Road.

What does the future of that intersection need to look like to get folks from point A to point B without that choke point being so terrible as it is today?

The Thoroughfare plan is a wider planning tool, if you will, and it's kind of got the caveats of what it is and what it also is not.

So the planning tool that is thoroughfare plan is if future growth develops, the the city is able to track and say, okay, it makes sense to make sure that there's connectivity between point A and point B.

This is thoroughfare of meeting outside the city limits and not necessarily you think thoroughfare.

You may think highway, you think parkway.

What are you looking at in that area?

So these are definitely not this is not a planning tool for text or text that builds highways.

The city builds roads that we drive on every day.

So it could be a two lane road with sidewalks and bike lanes.

It could be more of a parkway that we have, which is currently half road.

That was once on the third plan that has now been upgraded to a four lane road with a grassy median sidewalks and bike lanes.

Now we talk about the extraterritorial jurisdiction and we hadn't heard about that in a long time, but it's areas that could be annexed by the city or may no longer be annexed.

So they could still be annexed by the city if the property owner requests it.

That is by function of state law.

Now, that changed in 2019.

And so in the East, we also have the Interlocal agreement, which is basically an agreement between the City of Burning and Kendall County on how to best kind of plan for this land.

And knowing that future development is likely to occur, What needs to occur in that area.

People wonder with Texas law is especially I have the right to do what I want with on my property.

You can't come in and say take my land for a road.

Is that being looked at in this thoroughfare plan or no?

And simply put, in the last 49 years that the city has had a thoroughfare plan in place, we've never once had to utilize eminent domain to go take land.

And that's that's not the function of this planning document.

This is if a private property owner sells their land, which they have the right to do, and a developer comes in and says, I want to now develop this land, we have some tools in place that says, Hey, thinking of the general good of the community in terms of connectivity and mobility, these are some of the things that we need to see.

So that way it can be the best development.

You need to see from the developer meeting what would they have to do or where does the money come from to expand the road in that.

Area.

So exactly that.

So they have to either set aside right of way for a future road or they have to build a road in the sidewalk, in the bike lanes that we need per our mobility plan.

So what this plan does is it has different areas of town, different roads.

And in some areas we're saying, hey, a two lane road with sidewalks and bike lanes is exactly what this area needs.

But if there's a larger area that we're trying to connect, it might make sense to have where down the road there could be four lanes again, two lanes in each direction.

So that way there's better flow and connectivity.

Speaking of that, what you're talking about and people have talked about a loop around Berney thinking that means a highway.

How far away are you from some kind of loop and what's it going to look like.

That is.

Is that a. Misconception?

That is a huge misconception.

And if I had to be a betting man, not in my lifetime, really.

I there is such opposition to that because of what Gateway did that it would be very hard pressed to see any type of agreement between the city and the county and Tex not to come in and do something like that because all of those entities would need to be aligned to have that occur.

What do you tell people who are concerned?

You know that there is so much growth in Burnie that there needs to be some expansion of roads, whether it's with Tech Start, Should there be an expansion of 46, that kind of thing.

We've seen some of the changes in San Antonio have taken place over 20, 30 years.

But what do you tell people who are concerned that's going to mess with my land and my kind of living?

It's out in a rural area.

I've lived here for years.

You're going to change my whole lifestyle.

So I think I would say let's look at again what the totality of this plan has been for over five decades.

And we had a lot of residents 20, 30 years ago say the same thing.

And since then, more than a dozen roads and connectivity right of way dedications have been set aside from property that has since been developed.

And a lot of those folks would have said, I'll never sell my land, I'll never develop my land, but inevitably that ownership changes hands.

So this is the planning tool that we have made available to us by the state to be able to plan for that.

And again, if nothing happens, nothing happens.

There's currently a road right now where it literally dead ends, and part of it was built by the developer who developed a piece of land.

But it stops at the property line because that next piece of land hasn't developed.

So it's not in literally dead ends.

Is it expected to be developed, do you think?

I mean.

If it can be, we do anticipate it will be in front Highway 46.

But again, because there's now a line on that map that developer would be responsible for connecting the road.

All right.

Well, thanks very much.

And again, April 11th is the next meeting there in Burnie about the thoroughfare plan, not a highway plan and not the inside the city plan.

Well, thanks very much for clearing up some of that.

Chris Shadrack, communications director, city of Burnie, thanks.

Thank you.

The problem of stray animals and dangerous animals in San Antonio has been in the news a lot recently after the death of a man mauled to death by a dogs here.

But the Animal Care Services Department has been in the process of updating its policies or plans and a budget which they're working on right now, getting a lot more publicity and maybe some pressure on that.

Joining us to talk about that is Shannon Sims, the director of Animal Care Services.

Thanks very much for coming in.

Thank you for having me.

First of all, after this dog attack and the mauling that got all the news, what are some of the changes that you put in place?

Yeah.

So we went into a phase of immediate action to kind of reallocate resources.

One of the key things that we did from a policy standpoint was we elevated bites any time that an animal's free of restraint in its involved in a bite.

Now, whether it's mild, moderate or severe bite.

Previously, officers had discretion to be able to write a civil or criminal citation.

We're now mandating that all free of restraint bites animals off their property at the time or criminal citations.

And that is important because in this case, there had been reports of dog bites in the past.

Yes.

And I don't want to say nothing had changed, but nothing had come out of it.

That's correct.

And one of the other things that we did to try to identify potential sites like Depot where we know there are problems just kind of globally at that originating from that address.

The city is actually going to be briefing today a new program called the Good Neighbor Program, where CPD, DSD Code Compliance, neighborhood Services, Access.

All of our data is being brought together to try to identify these homes early so that we can take action early.

In the hiring of animal care services.

People and particularly people are on patrol.

Where are you in that?

You say we're going to be staffing up some training academies.

Yes.

So right now we've been authorized to do some over hiring, which is going to allow us we know.

What does that mean when you say hiring people get nervous.

That's my tax money.

So we know that it takes us about 3 to 4 months to get an officer completely trained and ready for the field.

Obviously, we're leaning forward for the fiscal year 24 budget, which is an approved until October to go ahead and get those folks as apprentices right now, temp employees into the training track, get them through that training so that as those those positions become formalized, we've got ready readily trained individuals to slide right in there and be active.

Day one How important is that?

Because in the past some say I don't know how many years, decade you haven't increased in terms of the number of officers compared to the increase in population.

Correct.

We've you know, we have added once again to the officers, but nothing nothing even close to the capacity as far as how quickly San Antonio has grown over the last decade.

And so this has been in the works, some of the budget planning for long before this incident, right?

Yeah.

One of the first things that I did when I took over as director, actually with the first formal action that I took was put ourself on the in the budget with no funding associated and said we're going to redevelop our strategic plan.

And the intent of that is to identify weaknesses that we know we have.

Do the formal research, find out from the community what is their expectation and things like that.

So for the last year, we've been bringing all that information together.

Best practice research.

What does council want?

What does the citizens want?

Bringing that all together to to to build a ten year plan that tells us where do we need to be from a capacity standpoint for buildings as well as where we need to be at a capacity standpoint for officers live release staff, animals.

Capacity for animals really hasn't changed in a lot.

The strains that you take in per year, you're kind of stuck right now.

Is that going to change?

That is that is part of the the capital improvements that we're proposing is to expand our kennel space.

When AX was built, the current campus back in 2007, since then, we have not added any any actual capacity to the kennels.

And so what we're seeking to do is try to grow that capacity over the next several years through kennel space to be able to facilitate and bring more animals in while at the same time enhancing our enforcement, our live release staff, all of that so we can push the whole initiative forward, maintain a strong live release rate, but also provide additional public safety in the community.

You said there's also some legislation right now in Austin that would change some of how you deal with complaints.

People might be hesitant to complain about a neighbor's animal, as we saw in this case, sir, but that could change in terms of how that's dealt with.

What would that do?

Yeah.

Right now, in legislation, there are a couple of bills being proposed, one by Representative Luis Campos and one by Senator Menendez to actually provide some protection as a form of anonymity for the individuals that are filling out these affidavits.

We do still need that sworn statement, but these would provide some protection and they would provide the animal care authority in all these different jurisdictions to also have a little bit more capability to initiate a dangerous dog investigation.

Easier than we can right now, because.

Right now, if somebody complains, but they don't want to offend or anger their neighbor with a dog, how tough is it to get them to file that complaint?

You really need them to do that to go to the next step.

Yeah, the the only alternative without that dangerous dog designation or that affidavit is if we catch the animal loose and we can capture it, I can bring it to the facility.

They do have the ability to reclaim that animal, though.

If it's involved in a bite, I can quarantine it for ten days.

But again, like their plan, they can reclaim that animal and I can't restrict them from that reclamation.

Now, you.

Also have to deal with stray animals.

That's a big issue.

So how how is the problem change?

We're trying to spay and neuter as many animals as we can in San Antonio used to be stray dogs all over the city are a problem.

Has that changed much?

I would say.

So we did a study in 2019 and we've been able to validate it in the last few months with what we're calling our canvasing team.

As we were working through neighborhoods, checking where any animals are loose, doing their doing their business and everything free of restraint.

And what we found is, which was validated again, is that about 80 to 80 to 85% of the animals that we find free of restraint have a home.

They have an owner.

And so most of the dogs that we see lose.

Not to say there aren't strays, but the the players that we see out there, the bad you know, the bad players and everything, they tend to be owned in about 80 to 85% of those cases.

And so, you know, the the big push has to be for that responsibility, that ownership, keeping the animal on the property.

Spay neuter helps keep them wanting from wanting to go out and, you know, find a girlfriend or find a boyfriend.

That's one way to put it.

Thank you very much, Shannon Sims, Animal Care Services.

And are you going to be in the news more with the budget process coming up.

We appreciate your time.

Thanks.

Thank you so much.

On Reporters roundtable this week, we're talking business with Mattison Iszler who is a business reporter for the Express-News.

Thanks for coming in.

A lot of stories you've been working on recently, including what we talked about earlier, the tax appraisals.

But the solar farm coming to the South Side I thought was interesting because it's a little complicated how they're getting some tax breaks or at least people might not realize and opportunities.

Tell us about this.

Yes.

So opportunity zones are designated by the federal government.

There are about two dozen census tracts in San Antonio that are considered these zones.

And basically investors who put their capital into these zones for the long term can get breaks on capital gains taxes.

And so there are a bunch of zones, as I mentioned, in San Antonio, downtown Brooks.

Parts of the east side, the solar farm will be in one on the south side near Toyota.

And it was interesting to me because a lot of the projects that we've seen in opportunity zones here have been apartment projects, office renovations, a self-storage facility, an Amazon delivery station, but a solar farm is a different type of project than I had seen.

And now to be in one of these, you said it has to have X percent of the poverty level in terms of the people in that area.

And then the governor has to designate it, even though it's paid for or whatever, by the federal government.

This is different.

I mean, how does it work?

If I want to have this property in my area designated and opportunities are.

Well, at this point, you can't because the nominations have already happened.

So this was part of President Trump's 2017 tax bill.

And so people could nominate census tracts to the governor who nominated them to the federal government, which ultimately said here are the designated areas in San Antonio.

And there were certain poverty levels, as you mentioned, that had to be met for those zones.

And the point of the program is basically to encourage investment in underserved areas.

And the investment in the areas may not translate into jobs, people living in that area.

In this solar farm, how big is it and how much more is it going to add to CPS?

Energy is going to get the energy from this.

Yeah.

So it's over 800 acres, which is very large.

It's on a property, mostly property that was formerly owned by the Bill Miller Barbecue family.

And CPS is going to buy a portion of the property from this this farm, which a company in Austin and a company in Israel are co-developing.

But now, you know, Austin and Israel, it's not like local companies necessarily are going to benefit from these opportunity zones.

Yes.

Yes.

The developers or investors in these projects don't have to be local.

And how much is this going to add?

I guess that's what is figured into CBS Energy's portfolio of energy, that they were going to add so much solar.

And this is just part of that.

Yes.

Yes.

CBS has been trying to expand its solar generation capacity.

And so this will be one of the farms that it will be buying.

And we're also talking you did a story on home prices, which we kind of touched on earlier.

What's the latest on that?

It's not as huge an increase as it was, but it's still at least where it was.

Yes, the market has calmed down quite a bit since the frenzy of the pandemic.

Sales have started slowing quite a bit over the past year or so.

But prices are still going up.

Prices are still very high compared to where they were prior to the pandemic.

And inventory is starting to expand, which is another another good sign.

But as I mentioned, prices are just tough right now and that's sidelined some buyers who can't afford it.

And then so the prices are still up, plus the interest rates.

Yes.

Yes.

Interest rates are still quite a bit higher than they were at some point during the pandemic when they were historically low.

And that's part of what set off the the frenzy in the market as people trying to take advantage.

Projections yet as to where it's going to go because we're just getting more and more people coming into Bear County.

I think we're starting to see price growth moderate a bit, which is a good sign.

I don't think that we'll see prices fall, but the percentage growth in terms of it's the prices are going up 10% or 20% year over year.

I think that that will come down quite a bit because the market is really slowing down.

How about a seller's market right now?

A buyer's market is where you usually label something, or is it that easy right now to decide what to do?

This is inventory is about three months and a balance between buyers and sellers is usually considered about six months.

We haven't had a market with six months supply of inventory for a long time, and three months is about where we were prior to the pandemic.

So it's tilting a little bit back toward that six months, but I don't think that we're going to get there.

Okay.

Well, I'd like to.

Here are your crystal ball on that.

Any other good news down the road that you're going to be reporting on?

Any other good news?

Well, like I said, hopefully the price growth will moderate and so more people can can afford to buy a house.

No pressure.

Okay.

Thanks very much, Madison Iszler our business reporter from the Express-News.

Thanks for coming in.

Thanks for having me.

And thank you for joining us for this edition of On the Record.

You can see this show again or any previous shows.

You can also download podcasts.

Just go to KLRN dot org.

And we'll see you next time.

On the record is brought to you by Steve and Adele Dufilho.