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<br />Chapter 4 - San Marcos Tomorrow Annexation Review PIan <br /> SAN MARCOS TOMORROW <br /> ANNEXATION REVIEW PLAN <br />Introduction <br />Annexation is the process by which a city extends its municipal services, regulations, <br />voting privileges and taxing authority to new territory. Cities annex territory to provide <br />urbanizing areas with municipal services and to exercise regulatory authority necessary to <br />protect public health, safety and welfare. Annexation is also a means of ensuring that <br />residents and businesses outside a city's corporate limits who benefit fÌ'om access to the <br />city's facilities and services share the tax burden associated with constructing and <br />maintaining those facilities and services. Annexation may also be used as a technique to <br />manage growth. <br />A city can only annex land within its extra-territorial jurisdiction (ETJ). The ETJ of a <br />city is the contiguous unincorporated land adjacent to its corporate limits that is not <br />within another city's ETJ. The size of a city's ETJ varies according to its population, <br />ranging fÌ'om one-half mile for communities with less than 5,000 persons, to five miles <br />for cities greater than 100,000 in population. San Marcos currently has a two-mile ETJ. <br />When San Marcos reaches 50,000, the ETJ will expand to three and a half miles. <br />From an annexation perspective, a city's ETJ serves two functions. First, there is a <br />statutory prohibition against a municipality annexing into another's ETJ, which provides a <br />city with land that it alone can potentially annex. Second, cities are authorized to enforce <br />their subdivision regulations within their ETJ, which is a means of ensuring that cities <br />will not have to assume maintenance responsibilities for substandard infÌ'astructure upon <br />annexation. <br />San Marcos Horizons 4-51 <br />