Linda Griffith came out the front door of her house on San Juan wearing a mask.

“It’s not what you think,” she said. “It’s that I can’t breathe since they started all of this…”

Her words stop as she points to the large mounds of rock and dirt piled just beyond her property line on the Sanctuary North tract on which work began in earnest last month.

We talk above the constant beep beep beep of the dirt moving equipment. The noise is annoying to say the least, as is the constant grind of steel against rock.

Six years after a massive development agreement was signed between the Village of Salado and Sanctuary, Linda and her husband Richard Paul Thomas are some of the first to see (and hear and breathe) the reality of what progress and development of Sanctuary means for Salado.

In Novermber 2015, then-mayor Skip Blancett and Sanctuary’s principal owner Billie Hanks, Jr. signed the Sanctuary agreements for the 300+ acre multi-use master planned development. in that agreement is the following agreed-upon Land Uses: 515,000 heated square feet of commercial, 40,000 HSF of entertainment venue, 355 rooms of lodging, 575 units of multi-family, multi-story living units, 130 multi-family townhouses and duplexes,  364 single family residences and 500 space parking garages to serve the properties. The Sanctuary Developer can make changes of up to 20% in those Land Uses without seeking further permission from the Village. So, instead of 545 apartments, more than 650 apartments could be built, offset by decreases in other land uses, such as single family living. 

These permitted land uses were outlined on page 2 of the Executive Summary of the document “Sanctuary Entitlements,” completed April 7, 2016 when the board of aldermen approved the Development and Design Standards (Ordinance 2016.09, which is not available in the list of ordinances on saladotx.gov).

The first work on Sanctuary are two residential portions. One is a 180+ single family homes off of Royal, across from the Methodist Church. The homes are on lots as small as 0.12 acre and one of the entrances feeds into Royal right at the  90° turn. Work began on this Phase with a gold shovel ground breaking in March 2020. 

Twenty months later, no roads are completed, no sewer tie-ins, no tax-paying residents.

Dirt broke on the Water’s Edge apartment development off of South Main Street last month. Where Linda and Richard used to look out over a valley dotted with trees and some man-made ponds, 210 apartments will be built.

iintoo.com, on its investment page on Water’s Edge, calls it a “high-end development project catering to working professionals.”

“The asset’s modern and efficient design, high-quality finishes, and premium amenities will cater to tenants looking for suburban rental options that can match the comfort and convenience of private homeownership,” states the iintoo.com real estate investment website (https://login.iintoo.com/US/pub/1BtWvfRr). Salado has attracted a well-educated, white-collar demographic, and many Salado residents are commuters who are eager to escape the climbing home prices of larger neighboring cities.”

Construction of Phase 1 is expected to take 18 months. According to a presentation made to aldermen Feb. 25, Phase 1 of the development will be 210 units of apartments along with a resort-style pool, a leasing headquarters and clubhouse and a dog park.

The first phase will have seven three- or four-story apartment buildings. Phase 1 will have nine studio apartments, 77 one bedroom apartments, 92 two-bedroom apartments and 32 three-bedroom apartments.

The studio apartments are 610 sq. ft. One bedroom apartments are 724-788 sq. ft. The two-bed apartments are 1,108-1,170 sq. ft. and the three bedroom apartments are 1,331 sq. ft. 

All parking is interior of the complex, not outside the footprints of the buildings themselves, according to James Zavodny, an architect with RREAF Holdings, which is building Waters Edge.

Phase 2 will be an expansion of multi-family residential with 90 units. The third phase will include the 10 single family residential units.

Water’s Edge will include a new road, Nottingham Street, that enters onto South Main Street. Edinburgh Street will connect College Hill Dr. to Santa Maria.

The latest construction plans presented the Village actually include an extension of South Main Street through the development to connect southbound traffic on Main to FM 2268 (Holland Road). Currently, southbound traffic on Main Street has to go to Baines to connect to I-35 southbound (or do a turnaround back to Thomas Arnold Rd. and then two miles to the next entrance on I-35 southbound).  

Salado aldermen will discuss amendments to the Master Development Agreement, Chapter 380 Economic Development Agreement and Wastewater Services Agreement during their Dec. 16 meeting.

Mayor Michael Coggin has worked with Sanctuary development to draft new agreements that are what he has called “more fair to the Village.”

Coggin has said repeatedly that the agreements entered into in 2015 (none of the current aldermen or mayor were on the board at the time, nor was Village Administrator Don Ferguson on staff), are “one sided” and benefit the developer more than the Village.

In particular, the economic development agreements concerning tax rebates, hotel occupancy tax rebates and sales tax rebates.

The proposed amendments make the following substantial changes.

It deletes the Hotel Occupancy Tax Reimbursement (50% for 15 years from the last Certificate of Occupancy of a Lodging property). 

Instead, the amendment proposes “The Parties hereby agree that the Tourism Marketing Agreemetn may be amended or revised by the Parties in the future without need of formally amending the Master Development Agreement.”

Like wording for the Economic Development Grants.

The new proposal caps all of the “entitlements” at $3 million to the developer, whether through sales tax rebates, property tax rebates, or HOT rebates. If the developer does not meet the standards to get to that point, the Village is under no obligation to pay the full $3 million. 

The other chief entitlement to the developer is waiving up to $6 million in wastewater impact fees. The current impact fee is $5,152 per living unit equivalent of 100 gallons per day. The Village wastewater treatment plant has a maximum capacity of 200,000 gallons per day, or 2,000 LUEs.

If the developer were to reach that $6 million in waived impact fees, then more than 1,100 LUEs, will have tapped in to the sewer plant. This could mean at least $250,000 year more in operating funds for the deficit sewer (based on the current per 1,000 gallon rate of $8 for residential and $11 for low impact commercial). Yet, with commitments to provide sewer to two other major developments, Salado could see the 75% threshold for planning for expansion of the sewer (required by Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) before the current bond is paid off.

Without impact fees squirreled away to plan for expansion of the sewer system, how will it be funded? A question aldermen should ask before waiving any future impact fees, as has been done for two of the three developments annexed into Salado. 

But these are questions that make most folks’ heads hurt and eyes roll. 

And when you look out the back door of your home across what was once a beautiful valley to see mountains of dirt and rock being pushed around for four-story apartments, questions of impact fees and future expansion seem minor.

For residents like Linda, she wonders what is happening to the soul of Salado, which truly was a sanctuary when she moved into their home 30 years ago.