San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
From family farm to solar farm?
Bill Miller heirs sell land once at center of dispute
A swath of South Side ranchland — once the center of a feud between the heirs of barbecue entrepreneur Bill Miller and city officials over homebuilding near Toyota’s plant — could become a solar farm.
A company affiliated with former Austin technology executive J.R. Carter purchased about 614 acres across the Medina River from the automaker’s truck facility from trusts linked to the Miller family in midOctober, deed records show.
“It’s a beautiful piece of property with probably 2 miles of frontage on the river,” Balous Miller said.
It was his family’s farm for decades and became embroiled in a showdown in the 2000s over building around Toyota’s facility, which pitted the city and its agreement to discourage residential development near the plant against landowners irked about the effects on their property values.
The Miller heirs proposed constructing houses on a portion of their property and prevailed, with the city acknowledging they had the vested property rights to do so. But the family hadn’t intended to build houses, having filed plans to preserve their right to develop their land in the future, Balous Miller later said. Those rights eventually expired.
The property had been on the market for a while before Carter’s company bought it. He expressed an interest in building a solar farm and inviting students to see how the power source works, said Balous Miller.
The site is near two solar farms across U.S. 281 that provide power to CPS Energy.
Miller declined to disclose the sale price.
“It wasn’t enough for land inside Loop 1604 and frontage on the Medina River,” he said, chuckling.
Austin buyer
The buyer, Medina Del Rey QOZB LLC, is registered to
James R. Carter of Austin, state corporate filings indicate.
Deed records also mention Maeve Capital Inc., which is affiliated with Carter as well. An expired job posting on job site Tarta.ai describes Maeve Capital as a “small family office … that exclusively manages the assets of the Carter family and its investment partners.”
Carter was previously the founder, CEO and executive chairman of Intersys Consulting LLC, an Austin technology company that was acquired by
ASGN Inc. in 2019 for $67 million.
A real estate broker who organized Medina Del Rey
QOZB LLC said he would check with Carter about discussing the South Side acquisition, but he did not respond by press time.
The property falls within a designated “opportunity zone,” an initiative established in thenPresident Donald Trump’s 2017 tax bill that is supposed to attract investment capital to economically disadvantaged areas.
Investors receive tax breaks on capital gains if they put their money in long-term projects within the zones. Twenty-four census tracts in the San Antonio area are designated opportunity zones, including Port San Antonio, parts of the East Side near Fort Sam Houston, Stinson Municipal Airport, the Brooks master planned community and much of downtown.
The program has been criticized for primarily benefiting investors instead of residents within the zones, and for being used for luxury developments or businesses with few employees. Research by the Urban Institute has also shown that many of the local zones were already drawing interest before the designation.
“QOZB” stands for qualified opportunity zone business.
Such an enterprise must earn at least half of its gross income each year from business activities within a zone, according to the Internal Revenue Service.
Toyota controversy
The Miller family had owned the South Side land for more than 60 years before the sale. It was once their farm. Balous Miller recalls baling hay and fishing in the river with his siblings.
Local leaders clashed with the family in the 2000s over development around Toyota’s plant. The city annexed 6.4 square miles south of the Medina River, including the Miller
property, for limited purposes in 2004.
In its deal with Toyota, the city had agreed “to exercise its best efforts” to annex land within a 3-mile buffer zone around the automaker’s facility. Provisions related to zoning and annexation were an “inducement” for the company to choose the site, and it “heavily relied upon such agreements in deciding to locate” here.
Officials portrayed the annexations as a means of extending zoning rules and preventing “incompatible land uses,” such as housing around the plant, as Toyota executives were concerned that having residents nearby would prompt complaints about noise, light and traffic.
But landowners protested and said the city was infringing on their right to develop their property as they wished. A group that did not include the Millers later sued the city, alleging the zoning regulations constituted a “taking” of their property and reduced its value to honor the Toyota deal.
The Miller family submitted plans for two residential subdivisions and other projects on part of their land. They supported Toyota but wanted to protect the value of their property, Balous Miller said at the time. The homes could be attractive to employees at the plant and other nearby businesses, since there were limited housing options in the area, he added.
Then-Mayor Ed Garza worried that the property was within the 3-mile buffer and the plans could jeopardize the Toyota deal and affect the automaker’s decision to expand its plant down the road. But the Miller family ultimately won, with vested property rights to build the houses.
Those rights expired in 2007. A potential land swap with the city did not pan out.
Some of the Miller family’s property was annexed and some of it is outside the city limits, said Rudy Niño, assistant director of the city’s planning department. A portion near the river is also zoned “resource protection,” which restricts uses to agricultural operations, schools, transit centers and one house per 10 acres.