Rezoning begins around Camp Bullis
4/16/2009
By Joni Simon - Contributing Writer/North Central News
After more than 18 months of work and careful negotiations with various individuals and organizations, San Antonio City Council has approved the centerpiece of a groundbreaking rezoning measure designed to protect the missions at Camp Bullis from development growing along Interstate 10 in Leon Springs.
The council April 2 approved the first rezoning of properties within three miles of Camp Bullis to the Military Lighting Overlay District.
The measure requires that only downward facing lighting fixtures be installed in new construction within up to a five-mile radius of the post, an effort designed to protect the Army's ability to conduct night vision training.
"It is imperative that we train the medics from the Army, Marines, Navy and Air Force, as well as our combat convoy course and the ground security course take place in a situation which is as realistic as possible," said Phil Reidinger, chief of public affairs at Fort Sam Houston, which controls Camp Bullis.
"Most of our operations are conducted at night because we own the night due to our technology. If we can't train these young men and women realistically, when they go into the combat zone, they will not be able to carry out the missions they are tasked with."
San Antonio District 8 City Councilwoman and mayoral candidate Diane Cibrian helped push forward the plan through a Joint Land Use Study Committee she put together.
The panel includes representatives of Bexar, Kendall and Comal counties, the cities of San Antonio and Fair Oaks Ranch, as well as representatives of the Army, real estate, developers and homeowners associations from neighborhoods surrounding Camp Bullis.
The draft report can be reviewed at the city's Office of Military Affairs, the Central Library and the Bulverde and Boerne libraries. It is also available online at www.campbullisjlus.com.
"How we will provide protections for the military is critical but this goes to an even larger issue," Cibrian said. "This involves how we will manage the growth of this community."
Reidinger said light is the most important aspect of what has grown into an eight-point plan to manage elements such as the height of buildings to the ability of developers to clear trees around the post.
"We are inundated with light," he said. "It is light from billboards, from box lights in shopping centers, from car dealerships. All this light gets thrown up into the sky and it illuminates the sky, and we cannot use our night vision technology and it affects or ability to conduct proper training."
Area residents such as Kathleen Murray support the ordinance.
"I moved out there in 1966 and I'd like to be able to see my stars again," she said. "The development which has come out there has blocked some of my stars, and I'd like to be able to see them again."
District 9 City Councilman Louis Rowe said the lighting measure is critical to maintaining Camp Bullis as a keystone in the huge surge in military training, which starts in 2011 at Fort Sam Houston.
Online: www.mysanantonio.com/community/north_central/Rezoning_begins_around_Camp_Bullis.html
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