El Paso County seeking to resolve unusual zoning overlap with San Elizario

El Paso County is dealing with a strange situation – a zoning overlap with one of the county’s newest cities, along one of its most historic routes.

It’s not something that comes up very often. The county actually has zoning authority along a part of the Mission Trail in El Paso’s Lower Valley, granted by the state legislature decades ago.

Counties usually don’t have any zoning authority whatsoever, and it hasn’t come up since the city of San Elizario was incorporated in 2013.

“Preservation of the Mission Trail is so near and dear to my heart,” said Maya Sanchez, mayor of San Elizario. “For 21 years now, the county has had unprecedented authority in zoning of the Mission Trail.”

Now that the city of San Elizario exists, the problem is figuring out how to make this mesh with the long-term county goals like historic preservation and with what the city itself wants to do.

While San Elizario gets its ordinances and zoning in place, the county is looking to work with them. But the authority isn’t unlimited.

“The county doesn’t have the authority,” County Judge Veronica Escobar said, “to tell an existing property owner ‘We’d really prefer you didn’t have an auto shop on the Mission Trail. We’d prefer it be a caf.’ We can’t do that.”

Commissioners are interested in getting more historic preservation and development in place. They funded a downtown El Paso historic building survey in February.

“Looking at the authority that the county has along the historic Mission Trail,” said Vince Perez, commissioner for Precinct 3, which covers San Elizario, “can we work in partnership with them? Can we delegate some authority to them, can we have an interlocal agreement with them? Anything that can help them get the process along.”

The county attorney will be looking into what kind of agreement or policy can be put into place. It’s expected to be brought before commissioners for approval in the coming weeks.