Dec. 9, 2025 – In a victory for opponents of Lennar Corp.’s planned controversial Guajolote Ranch development in northwest Bexar County, the land’s owners have withdrawn a Public Improvement District (PID) application with the county for the project at the developer’s request, under persistent pressure.
A PID would have allowed infrastructure including a wastewater plant releasing an average of 1 million gallons a day of treated sewage into the Helotes Creek watershed to be financed and paid back by new homebuyers in the development with taxes higher than what other county residents pay.
But Lennar is pivoting to something potentially worse: a Municipal Utility District, or MUD, for the development, this time through the city of San Antonio.
“Not only would it still poison our drinking water, it could strain local governments, result in higher taxes for residents outside the development, even, and shatter the illusion of affordable housing – possibly saddling new homebuyers with property taxes double or triple those of the county or neighboring cities,” said Randy Neumann, chair of the steering committee of the nonprofit, nonpartisan Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance neighborhood association.
Florida-based Lennar wants to build 2,900 homes on 1,160 acres of Guajolote Ranch, west of the intersection of Scenic Loop and Babcock roads, and discharge effluent into a watershed that directly recharges the Trinity Glen Rose Aquifer, the water supply for the immediate area, and contributes up to 15% of the total recharge of the Edwards Aquifer, principal water source for about 2.5 million people across multiple counties.
The city’s planning department will brief city council members Dec. 17 on the MUD petition, during a council work session.
A MUD is established by petition to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality as a scheme by developers like Lennar to issue bonds to build infrastructure, including wastewater treatment plants, outside city limits and impose taxes to pay off the debt. But in this case, San Antonio must formally consent through resolution or ordinance before it can be created, as Guajolote Ranch is located in the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction. And it would have more far-reaching effects than a PID, while still discharging the same amount of effluent into the watershed.
The MUD petition was filed with the city Nov. 10 (but just now came to light) on behalf of Lennar Homes of Texas Land and Construction Ltd. by the same petitioners and landowners who filed the PID – Richard H. “Rick” LePere, treasurer of for-profit Guajolote Ranch Inc. of Terrell Hills, and Sidney E. “Gene” Edwards Jr., a retired Valero Energy Corp. executive and his wife, Marcie, now living in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. It places total costs at approximately $150 million, to be financed by bonds repaid by taxpayers.
Lennar, identified as the MUD applicant, holds options to purchase the properties – approximately 1,097 acres held by LePere and his family, and about 63 acres owned the Edwardses that would provide access to the development off of Scenic Loop Road. LePere is a son-in-law of Guajolote Ranch Inc. director Diana Huntress, daughter of late family patriarch Frank G. Huntress Jr. who established Guajolote Ranch in 1969.
After the Dec. 17 work session, the measure is expected to go before the city’s planning commission in January. After that, it would proceed to the full city council for a vote before moving on to TCEQ. Meanwhile, TCEQ’s October approval of a wastewater permit for the development is still subject to a rehearing request and a possible prolonged court challenge.
Don’t MUDdy the water
After vigorous opposition led by the Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance, which represents the largest neighborhood by square mile recognized by the San Antonio Neighborhood & Housing Services Department, Lennar backed off a PID when it became clear the county wasn’t going to take it up.
But unlike the PID, a MUD likely would affect all area taxpayers and local governments, and have more profound effects on home affordability. Recent media reports have documented how MUDs have been promoted by developers as boosting affordable housing, but rather have resulted in the opposite.
New homebuyers frequently have been hit with property taxes well higher than those of the county or neighboring cities to pay off the developer’s debt, plus monthly fees for basic services from trash pickup to police protection. Many new homebuyers lured by attractive list prices haven’t been able to stay because of the high taxes and fees, calling into question the sustainability of the development.
Cities and counties have been on the hook to provide services or even maintain infrastructure of MUDs. Those costs often can’t be fully recouped, meaning taxpayers outside the development have faced higher taxes even though they don’t live in the MUD.
Those unrecouped costs borne by the city and county to expand roads and staff police departments are eventually passed along to all local taxpayers, representing an additional direct tax on existing taxpayers and property owners.
Moreover, MUDs often function like invisible or permanent local governments, but without the same level of services and upkeep, and without the same accountability, as elected board members often don’t live there and regularly meet far away.
“Essentially,” said Neumann, “developers with deep pockets can just walk away, leaving unsuspecting homebuyers and local governments holding the bag.”
And don’t believe SAWS
City Councilwoman Marina Alderete Gavito previously asked the San Antonio Water System for its position on the project, but SAWS President and CEO Robert Puente responded with an Oct. 10 letter that included false and misleading statements, followed by more of the same in a series of media interviews.
“We respectfully urge city council not to rely on SAWS’ or Mr. Puente’s word in the upcoming deliberations on the MUD,” Neumann said. “When entrusted with the protection of 2.5 million lives and the sacred aquifer beneath them, one does not get to mislead, minimize or deflect.”
At issue is Puente’s full-throated defense of nine so-called “concessions” for wastewater treatment SAWS reached with Lennar as part of a water services agreement, claiming that they “minimize” harmful effects of the project and that effluent wouldn’t reach the Edwards Aquifer.
SAWS cites no studies to back the claims, and yet Puente ignored – and later misrepresented – a comprehensive hydrological study by Southwest Research Institute, funded through the city’s own Edwards Aquifer Protection Plan, which concluded that additional wastewater systems from residential development in the Helotes Creek watershed, “regardless of type,” would “significantly degrade the watershed and the quality of water recharging the Edwards Aquifer.”
Further, the alliance contends that the purported concessions themselves are empty.
“Unfortunately, the language of these concessions is vague, lacking enforceable definitions, measurable thresholds or operational requirements,” Neumann said. “As a result, Lennar faces no clear obligations to fulfill the intent of the concessions.”
See a full breakdown and analysis of the SAWS agreement and responses to Puente’s claims, here: https://www.scenicloop.org/post/1835/scenic-loop-helotes-creek-alliance-calls-out-puente-for-false-misleading-statements-on-guajolote-ranch/
On Friday, San Antonio District 10 City Councilman Marc Whyte toured the Guajolote Ranch area, hosted by the alliance, and issued a press release afterward calling for more safeguards for the Edwards Aquifer, stating, “Even when a project receives state approval, we have a responsibility to independently evaluate its long-term impacts.”
Earlier, on Oct. 1, Councilwomen Alderete Gavito and Ivalis Meza Gonzalez filed a Council Consideration Request (CCR) to assess possible dangers or impact of the Guajolote Ranch project and evaluate possible funding sources to acquire or conserve the property. It was signed by other members in support, including Councilmen Edward Mungia and Ric Galvan, and Councilwoman Phyllis Viagran.
Alderete Gavito, Meza Gonzalez, Mungia and Galvan, like Whyte, also have toured the Guajolote Ranch area, as well as Councilwoman Misty Spears when she was constituent services director for Precinct 3 County Commissioner Grant Moody.
View the CCR here: https://www.scenicloop.org/wp-content/uploads/CoSA-CCR-2025-10-01.pdf.
And last week, State Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, signed a letter to TCEQ supporting the rehearing request for the Guajolote Ranch wastewater permit, following an earlier letter calling for it to be denied.
Previously, three other state senators also signed a letter to the commission opposing the permit, in addition to all 10 members of the state House delegation from Bexar County who signed a separate letter, led by Rep. Mark Dorazio, R-San Antonio, bringing total bipartisan opposition to 14 legislators – plus former San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg, County Judge Peter Sakai and current San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones.
With this overwhelming level of opposition, Neumann said, “We fully expect this wholly irresponsible MUD petition to be dead on arrival when it comes before the full city council for a vote, and before it can reach TCEQ.”
The Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance is a nonpartisan, nonprofit 501(c)(3) group representing the largest neighborhood by square mile recognized by the San Antonio Neighborhood & Housing Services Department, a wide corridor along Scenic Loop Road from Bandera Road to north of Babcock Road.
Scenic Loop-Helotes Creek Alliance contacts:
Randy Neumann, SL-HCA steering committee chair, 210-867-2826, uhit@aol.com
Steve Lee, 210-415-2402, text; slee_78023@yahoo.com