Legal Challenge Brings Down the Plano Tomorrow Comprehensive Plan

"The Plano City Council is done fighting in court with five residents over its master development plan," reports Sharon Grigsby.

The Plano Tomorrow comprehensive plan had been caught up with "legal jousting" for five years, after Beth Carruth filed a petition in 2015 calling on the city to appeal the just-approved plan. "The city secretary never forwarded the petition to the council because the city maintained that development plans such as Plano Tomorrow fall outside the sounds of referendum petitions," explains Grigsby.

The city had little wiggle room after a July 23 ruling by the state's Fifth District Court of Appeals, however. The court decision, "rejected the aren't subject to referendum petitions and ordered the secretary to present the referendum petition within 14 days." The July 23 ruling overturned a previous judge's decision in September 2019.

According to a separate article by Daniel Houston, written at the time of the judge's ruling, the petitioners believed that Plano Tomorrow made it too easy for the city to approve the development of multi-family buildings.

The Plano City Council is expected to discuss next steps at its meeting on August 10, but for now, the city is functioning under its previous master plan, approved in 1986. Grigsby writes in the hope that the divisive political atmosphere created by the Plano Tomorrow controversy will dissipate and allow the city to move forward.