On September 14, 2026, Copper Canyon's Town Council reopened a public hearing on a zoning change that requires open space in new residential subdivisions. Nobody from the public came to speak, and the hearing closed right away. About ten minutes later, the council adopted Ordinance 26-012 on a 4 to 1 vote.
The quiet hearing undersells the rule. For anyone who owns acreage with subdivision potential, or who is pricing a tract a developer might want, the ordinance sets a new cost curve. That curve flattens at two acres per lot. The ordinance has a second part that ignores lot size entirely, and that part decides how many lots a tract can actually produce.
The schedule that sets the price
The heart of the ordinance is a lot-size table. Here it is as adopted:
| Lot size in the subdivision | Number of lots | Required open space |
|---|---|---|
| 1/3 acre | Each group of 1 to 5 lots | One separate half-acre space, minimum |
| 1/2, 3/4, or 1 acre | 6 to 20 | One half-acre space, minimum |
| 1/2, 3/4, or 1 acre | 21 or more | Two separate half-acre spaces, minimum |
| 2 acres or more | Not applicable | None required |
The rule covers residential subdivisions, planned developments, replats that add dwelling units, and the residential parts of mixed-use projects. All open-space requirements or fees must be satisfied before a final plat is approved and filed. Mixed lot sizes are counted separately. The ordinance's own example is a plan with seven 1/3-acre lots and fifteen 3/4-acre lots. The seven smaller lots require two half-acre spaces and the fifteen larger lots require one, so the plan owes three.
The table has gaps. It lists no row for lots between one and two acres, and its one-acre rows start at six lots. The ordinance says the final requirement is confirmed at final plat approval. So a plan for 1.5-acre lots, or a three-lot split of one-acre lots, has no clean answer in the text. It gets settled during platting.
Under ordinary zoning, the table bites hardest in the one-acre districts. Copper Canyon's zoning code sets RE10 and RE5 at 10-acre and 5-acre minimums, R2 at two acres, and R1 and R1-A at one acre. R1-A applies specifically to the Estates of Copper Canyon subdivision. A tract that can be platted at one acre now has a cost a two-acre tract does not carry.
A half acre costs more than $3,000
The headline number in the ordinance is a park development fee of $3,000 for each required open space. Developers can offset it with receipts for approved improvements such as trails, playgrounds, or sports courts. On a subdivision of 6 to 20 one-acre lots, that works out to one fee.
The fee is the small part. The bigger cost is the land and what the ordinance requires be done to it:
- Dimensions. No open space can be narrower than 100 feet or shallower than 150 feet, and the land must be suitable for recreation.
- Frontage. Each space needs adequate frontage on a public or private street, plus vehicle access for tractors and maintenance equipment.
- Floodplain. Land in a designated floodplain or floodway is generally excluded from the calculation unless the Town Council approves it for trail links or preservation.
- Survey work. Every corner gets a permanent monument, a three-quarter-inch iron pin set in concrete, shown on a survey by a state-registered land surveyor.
- Site prep. The developer clears and grades the land to remove standing water, takes out trash and dead trees, establishes permanent grass, and sprays Town-approved herbicide for briars, poison ivy, and bull nettles. None of this work earns credit against the fee.
- Paperwork that binds. An Open Space Plan goes in with the zoning or platting application and becomes a binding part of the approved zoning. Publicly accessible open space carries a permanent public access easement on the record plat.
Add up the frontage, the floodplain exclusion, and the minimum dimensions, and the required half acre has to come from dry, buildable ground along a road. That is the same ground a developer would otherwise sell as lots. The step from 20 to 21 one-acre lots shows it most clearly. The twenty-first lot triggers a second half-acre space, with its own frontage, survey, grading, and fee.
Recent plats already sit at two acres
Town records from the past two years show how close recent subdivisions are to the exemption line:
| Subdivision | What the records show |
|---|---|
| A 55.7-acre plat recorded in town summaries as both Aune Ranch and Onnie Ranch | 22 lots plus a separate 5.262-acre gas-well lot. The Onnie Ranch filing stayed in R-2 zoning, which has a two-acre minimum. Aune Ranch is described as 22 two-acre lots. By September 2026, staff reported streets and utilities installed. |
| Twin Oaks on Hickory Hill | Four two-acre lots, with drainage work underway in the September 2026 staff report. |
| Hacienda De Los Suenos, listed on the agenda as Quarter Horse Estates, at 399 Woodland Drive | Four single-family lots on about 9.6 acres. As CitizenPortal reported, the applicant told Planning & Zoning the plan was four two-acre lots. Final plat approved 5 to 0 on September 14. |
Every one of these sits at the exemption line or above it. The ordinance does not change what these developers have been building. It changes the cost of the next plan that tries to go smaller.
The council expected smaller plans. When it first discussed open space on June 8, 2026, the mayor said Copper Canyon's shift toward smaller lots made accessible parkland more important. He asked for usable parks and walking space instead of narrow strips of green behind homes. The town now prices that preference into the plat.
The section with no exemption
The two-acre exemption applies only to the open-space table. Section 7 covers stormwater, and it has no lot-size threshold. It requires all detention and retention facilities to sit on separate non-residential platted lots owned and maintained forever by an HOA or POA. Designs must cause zero increase in the 100-year water surface elevation and zero increase in water velocity on any property upstream, downstream, or on the opposite bank. If the association fails to maintain the facility, the Town can issue a citation after 30 days' written notice. Continued failure opens the door to enforcement that can include liens.
The council's reasoning is in the ordinance's recitals. Detention ponds on private residential lots create maintenance problems and possible liability.
For a two-acre subdivision, this is where yield gets decided. A plan that needs detention now gives up a separate lot for it, and that lot needs an owners' association to hold it. A small four-lot split may never have planned for an HOA. A buyer pricing a tract by dividing gross acres by two is skipping the step that decides the lot count, which is the drainage study.
Why the fee is per space, not per home
The 4 to 1 vote came after a long debate over how to write the fee. Council member Jeff Bridal argued for a per-dwelling-unit park fee like those used in neighboring towns, to pay for future parks. The mayor and Council member Castillo said that kind of fee would be passed on to homebuyers. Other members also pointed to the town's current financial reserves. The per-space version passed.
The reserves argument has numbers behind it. The same night, the council set the FY 2026–27 total property tax rate at $0.244 per $100, down from $0.265990. The mayor said the town would still collect roughly $62,000 more this year because of new housing and higher average values. New homes already bring in revenue each year. The ordinance asks new subdivisions for land and finished improvements, not a recurring charge on every rooftop.
For a seller, a per-space fee rewards fewer, larger lots. A buyer who prices a tract around one-acre yield is taking on the land set-aside, the site work, and the fee. A buyer who prices around two-acre yield takes on none of the three.
What to settle before the option period ends
The September 14 meeting showed one more plat-stage risk. Hacienda De Los Suenos had two tree counts that didn't match: roughly 31 trees in the staff and tree-mitigation plan count, and 108 from the arborist. The council approved the final plat on the condition that no grading permit be issued until a reconciled tree survey and mitigation plan were done. Open space, drainage, and trees are each reviewed separately, and each can shrink a tract's yield.
Before writing or accepting an offer on Copper Canyon land with subdivision potential, settle these points in writing:
- Zoning district. Confirm the parcel's district against the code. R1 and R1-A allow one-acre lots. R2, RE5, and RE10 keep lots at two acres or more.
- The open-space count. Count spaces against the table for the actual lot mix, and ask staff how lot sizes the table doesn't list will be treated, since the requirement is confirmed at final plat.
- Detention. Get an engineer's early read on whether the plan needs a facility. If it does, carve out the separate HOA or POA lot before calculating price per lot.
- Floodplain and frontage. Check whether the dry, road-fronting ground the open space would need is ground the plan was counting as lots.
- Trees. Order a tree survey early enough to resolve any gap before grading permits are on the critical path.
- Gated or public. In a fully gated community or HOA, the open space is for community use only. Publicly accessible space needs a permanent public access easement on the plat.
The ordinance's codified section number shows up differently across town materials, and the town's online code index currently runs only through Ordinance 26-011. The adopted text of 26-012 is posted separately on ecode360. This post is general information, not legal or engineering advice. Confirm every requirement with Town staff and a licensed engineer before you commit to a lot count.
If you own Copper Canyon acreage, or you're weighing an offer on a tract a builder might want, the lot count is a negotiating number, and it should be tested against this ordinance before anyone signs. Ryan Stoddard can walk the parcel with you, check open space, drainage, and tree exposure against the plan, and build a price around the yield the tract can actually deliver. Schedule a free consultation.
