Opinion ID: 2834394
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The City Says Arbitration Is Possible “Only Under the Narrowest of Circumstances”–Namely, When a City Volunteers

Text: The City’s view, at its core, is that a landowner entitled to request arbitration is never entitled to receive arbitration. Rather, subsection ( i ) is “an essentially consensual remedy of limited applicability,” something vested in the City’s absolute discretion. [22] I disagree that cities are only subjected to arbitration if they choose to be. Section 43.052( i ), like the identically worded section 43.056( l ), grants an actual remedy, not a “consensual” one and not merely a request for one. The Court’s “consensual remedy” holding endorses a path by which cities may circumvent the legislatively preferred three-year plan: “Just Say No”— deny everything and arbitrate nothing. Under this view, if a city (for reasons I cannot imagine) wanted to cede some of its planning authority, it would ignore the petition. But if a city wanted to retain unfettered control, it would deny the petition. Given how cities prize and safeguard their municipal annexation authority, [23] no rational city would ever renounce power by ignoring a petition when it could redouble power by denying it. If the Legislature intended only to authorize cities to volunteer for arbitration, then no statute was necessary as home-rule cities already possess “all the powers of the state not inconsistent with the Constitution, the general laws, or the city’s charter.” [24] A city that wants to arbitrate something does not need a statute granting it permission. Because “the legislature is never presumed to do a useless act,” [25] we must presume that it intended something more than voluntary arbitration. More revealing, though, is the City’s argument that all this sound and fury about arbitration and inclusion in the city’s annexation plan signifies nothing because the fast-track nature of (h )( 1) annexations will quickly moot the entire dispute. As the City noted at oral argument: “If the landowner asks to be included in a three-year plan, the city sits on it, that remedy or rather any consideration of whether it should be in a three-year plan is lost [once the area is annexed].” The underlying facts illustrate the City’s position that all landowner action under subsection ( i ) is ultimately futile: $ the Estate proposed to the City a high-density housing plan in the City’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ) $ five days later the City directed its staff to begin expeditious (h)(1) annexation (goal: to bring the property within the City limits so it could impose low -density development restrictions) $ the Estate then petitioned for inclusion in the City’s three-year plan (goal: to delay the (h)(1) annexation so it could vest the property’s high-density development plan) Under the City’s position, heads the city wins and tails the landowner loses. The calendar is inexorable. Arbitration is forever a mirage because even if a landowner is theoretically entitled to arbitration, the City’s annexation—the very annexation being challenged—zooms along the (h )( 1) fast track, thus short-circuiting the dispute.