Leon Valley Receives Sustainability Grant

July 18, 2008 · Leon Valley was once the stagecoach stop between San Antonio and Bandera.  The city is named for the Leon Creek which is a tributary of the Medina River.  In 1952 a number of residents in the Leon Valley area, petitioned to become an incorporated community as they faced the possibility of being annexed by San Antonio.  They were successful and became the City of Leon Valley on March 31, 1952.

Leon Valley is a landlocked community, as over the decades San Antonio continued its northwesterly growth and engulfed Leon Valley.  In 1970 there were approximately two-thousand residents.  The population has grown to a little more than nine-thousand today.  Having no way to grow geographically, has posed a problem for city and community officials.

Economic development is only one concern of city officials.  There is also transportation and flooding issues.  To try to address these and other issues, Mayor Chris Riley decided to apply for a Sustainable Design Assessment Team program grant offered by the American Institute of Architects.  The SDAT team was so intrigued with the application and the challenges facing Leon Valley, the AIA awarded one of only ten grants to Leon Valley. 

Erin Simmons is the Director of the Center for Communities by Design at the AIA.  Simmons and another member of the SDAT visited Leon Valley for three days from June 18 – June 20.  She says while the application was excellent, providing the barebones of the issue, the site visit was very helpful.  Simmons says “it took having us actually come here, seeing the community for ourselves and then talking to everyone else to flush out those issues and figure out exactly how broad those issues and what detail we’re going to look at them.”

Simmons met with community and city leaders at several meetings.  Economic development was an issue that was repeatedly mentioned.  Nancy Marin, chair of a citizen’s neighborhood progress committee whose responsibility is to look at economic development tools says the Bandera Road elevated roadway is posing a problem for local businesses.  Marin says many businesses have moved out closer to Loop 1604 where there has been significant growth.  She says, “That has impacted us, financially, as far as the revenue of our city.  Our city has had a lost in sales and used tax revenue significant”.

Creating a new image for Leon Valley is another issue city and community leaders hope will be among the suggestions brought back by the Sustainable Design Assessment Team when they return to the city in about two months.