Business View Civil and Municipal | January 2021

39 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL JANUARY 2021 SAN BENI TO, TEXAS come more inland. And before they get into Harlingen, we’re trying to attract them here with our housing.” San Benito is continuing to invest in upgrading its housing stock, bringing it from the lower end to more middle-income for the area. De La Rosa, notes, “Musk is looking at building a luxury resort out there, in Boca Chica Village, for his employees. But they won’t live there continuously because it’s a resort. It’s mainly for tourism. All those things are working well for us. We’re continuing to get requests for plats, which are housing subdivisions – anywhere between 30 and 40 houses at a time.” Nicknamed “The Resaca City”, everything about San Benito eventually comes back to water. The South Texan town was founded in 1904 by Col. Sam Robertson, a wealthy civil engineer and builder, who saw farming potential in the Rio Grande Valley and set out to build the irrigation canals that soon put San Benito (then-named “Bessie”, after the daughter of railroad financier, Benjamin Franklin Yoakum) on the map. Now, as part of a 2012 agreement with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), San Benito has opted to fund a $9 million sewer upgrade in participation with the Sanitary Sewer Overflow Initiative program. “We’re dependent on these surface waters,” says De La Rosa. “And our water treatment facility is 90 years old. That means we’ve got pipes in the ground that are 90 years old. We’ve got sewer lines that are probably 60 years old. That’s how far back our records in easements go. So, we’ve been working toward improving our sanitary sewer systems and our pumping capacity. The $9 million won’t just go into sanitary; we’re making improvements to water plants, sewer plants, lift stations. It’s likely that half of that investment will go toward future upgrades. It’s a proactive measure, not a reactive measure, and that sums up the City Commission’s goals for public health, safety, and resilience in San Benito.” Planning and Development Director, Bernard Rodriguez