Salado Mayor Michael Coggin reached forward on the dais of the Village of Salado Board of Aldermen during their Jan. 20 meeting and held up a dollar bill.

He then proposed that the Village establish a Public Improvement District for the Sanctuary for a total of that $1, with a tax rate of 0.000000001¢  per $100 valuation. “This should complete our obligations with the PID Sanctuary agreements,” he said.

The formation of the one buck PID was one of six action items the Board of Aldermen approved when discussions broke down between the developer and the Village.

The Village on Jan. 6 approved an amendment to the development agreements for Sanctuary owners to sign by Jan. 15.A key point of the amendment was a 15-year lifespan for tax grants to the developer, whether in the form of sales tax grants, hotel occupancy tax grants, property tax grants or sewer impact fee grants. 

In a red-lined edit of the amendment on Jan. 14, Sanctuary proposed that the 15-year deadline could be extended twice, for periods of 10 years each, “as long as the Owners  are actively pursuing development of the Project, either by having construction in progress, development plans under review by the Village, or any expired construction permits.”

The red-lined agreement stated that the Village would collect sewer impact fees “from all users within the Project.  Within thirty (30) days of the end of the calendar month, the Village shall pay to the Owners the sewer impact fees paid by third party users within the Project.” The amended agreement provided for up to $6 million in sewer impact fee waivers over its lifetime.

It provided another $3 million in grants for any combination of sales tax, property tax and hotel occupancy tax based upon a rebate of 50% of the total new taxes generated by the development.

The red-lined amendment deleted any limits on grants. 

Then, on Jan. 19, before aldermen had a chance to discuss the red-lined amendment, Hanks emailed a brief letter to the Mayor and Aldermen:

“As you know, simply as a courtesy, months ago our family verbally agreed to make a single requested amendment to our existing contract with the Village. However, that verbal agreement was greatly altered when it finally arrived in writing, so we could not sign it, and everyone’s time was sadly wasted.

“Since we already have a long term contract with the Village, we will simply honor that contract and require the Village to do the same. Nothing new will now be needed, We have surprisingly been forced to make this decision.

With our best wishes

Billie Hanks, Sr.

Under the original agreement, the Village agreed to support formation of a PID. However, nothing in the original 2015 agreement stated an amount for that PID. Hence, Coggin pulling a dollar out.

Aldermen approved several other actions Jan. 20 regarding Sanctuary.

The board approved authorizing the Village administrator Don Ferguson to begin a rezoning process to zone all Sanctuary property that is not in current development as Agricultural land.

The board also approved a process to disannex “all non-productive Sanctuary parcels.”

The Village will no longer negotiate or use its eminent domain powers to gain easement through private property for the Sanctuary to tie into the sewer system. The Village has been working with private property owners along Royal Street to gain easement to the sewer line there.

The Village will no longer have any discussions with Sanctuary through Robert Sulaski. “They need another representative,” Coggin said.

Sanctuary proposed two Public Improvement Districts, one originally at $25 million and the other at $35 million.

The developer came back to the Village earlier this month with a greatly reduced proposal for the PIDs. Sanctuary East PID was reduced to $13 million indebtedness for property with an assessed value of $200 million when built out, requiring a PID assessment of $0.49 per $100 valuation.

Sanctuary North PID would have $8.5 million in indebtedness for property with a total assessed value of $296 million required a PID assessment of $0.23 per $100 valuation.

Instead, the Village sent a cashier’s check for a $1.

cording to Mayor Coggin.