A zoning change to allow for a gas station, convenience store, car wash and retail center on six acres of land at the corner of Mc-Carty Lane and Rattler Road was approved by the San Marcos Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday night.
The property, located on the southeast corner of the intersection, is not currently in the city limits. The request includes an annexation of the land into the city limits and two separate zoning designations. About half the property would be considered Commercial and the other half Heavy Commercial.
The property owner is Ravi Sahota, with Sahota Holdings, LLC. He has opened developments of this nature in multiple locations, including two in San Marcos. The most recent in San Marcos is the San Marcos Fuel Express building on Interstate 35 near the Trace master planned community.
“He recently completed a retail center in San Antonio and that particular retail center … it currently houses a Urgent Care Primary Care facility inside of it, and then it has a fitness center, but he starts these retail centers … so that they act as a cohesive corner retail, gas station, carwash, convenience store,” Caren Williams-Murch, with Land Consultants, LTD. Co. who applied for the application, said.
While Sahota has stated his intention to build the gas station and retail establishment, the zoning change is not a site plan approval. Once a zoning change is approved, the applicant could build anything allowed under the new zoning designation until a site plan is approved, which takes place after zoning is established. The portion of the property to be zoned Commercial would allow for a “variety of commercial uses permitted including offices; retail; medical; hotels; recreation; light manufacturing, and restaurants,” according to planning documents. The Heavy Commercial zoning would allow for “primarily commercial and manufacturing uses with some allowances for and public/institutional and agricultural uses.” The applicant stated this zoning was one of the ways the car wash could be approved.
