BILL ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 2997

By: Gates

Land & Resource Management

Committee Report (Substituted)

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE

Concerns have been raised from local municipal officials regarding the authority to regulate permitting requirements in subdivisions that does not extend to other types of development, such as land development that is not regulated in the same manner as subdivisions. It has been noted that an exemption exists for certain municipalities from platting requirements for subdivision plans under certain predefined circumstances. However, this exemption does not apply to other forms of property development. It has been suggested that the lack of similar regulation on municipal determinations for exemptions for other forms of property development creates rigid and restrictive platting requirements. C.S.H.B. 2997 seeks to address this issue by providing municipalities the authority to grant exceptions to municipal plat requirements for certain property developments.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE IMPACT

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly create a criminal offense, increase the punishment for an existing criminal offense or category of offenses, or change the eligibility of a person for community supervision, parole, or mandatory supervision.

RULEMAKING AUTHORITY

It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.

ANALYSIS

C.S.H.B. 2997 amends the Local Government Code to revise the conditions under which the owner of a tract of land is excepted from the requirement to prepare a plat for the land by changing the population cap for the municipality within which the land must be wholly located from 5,000 to 65,000. The bill authorizes a municipality, to determine whether specific developments of tracts of land are required to be platted for property development purposes, to define and classify the developments. The bill establishes that a municipality does not need to require platting for every development of a tract of land otherwise within the scope of property development regulation.

EFFECTIVE DATE

September 1, 2021.

COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL AND SUBSTITUTE

While C.S.H.B. 2997 may differ from the original in minor or nonsubstantive ways, the following summarizes the substantial differences between the introduced and committee substitute versions of the bill.

The substitute includes a provision absent from the original revising the conditions under which the owner of a tract of land is excepted from the requirement to prepare a plat for the land.