Decision Time

By Steve Zurier. The Texas Association of Builders is pushing for a bill that would require cities and counties to go into mediation if they don’t meet a Sept. 1 deadline for deciding which party has legal authority over its extraterritorial jurisdictions (ETJ). An ETJ is land outside a city’s borders that is technically county land, but cities have say over the development of new subdivisions because it’s land they would theoretically annex. The builders say lack of clarity over ETJs creates confusion over which set of codes they have to comply with.