A pitcher throws during an early season San Antonio Missions baseball game. Credit: San Antonio Current Staff

Roughly a year and a half after the city OKed a new minor league baseball park whose surrounding development will raze one of downtown’s few low-cost apartment complexes, City Council voted to make it harder for such a project to move forward in the future.

On Thursday, council voted unanimously to restrict the use of public subsidies for future projects that could displace people from existing residential properties.

When the San Antonio Missions’ new ballpark was first proposed in August 2024, Weston Urban’s plan included demolishing the low-cost Soap Factory apartments, which the firm owned, and replacing them with lifestyle amenities such as shops, restaurants, hotels and higher-end apartments.

This week, Weston Urban submitted documents to the city’s Office of Historic Preservation that confirmed the developer’s plans to build two apartment towers with a combined 681 units along with an eight-story hotel with roughly 160 rooms near the ballpark site.

The city plans to use an increase in property tax revenue tied to the surrounding development to pay back the $128 million in bonds it’s issuing to help fund the stadium. Documents released this week describe the ballpark project as a “series of structures” as opposed to a “singular mass” along Camaron, Kingsbury and Flores streets.

At the time project was proposed, critics said it violated the city’s policy of refusing to subsidize projects that displace residents from their homes — in this case, those in the Soap Factory apartments. That complex includes 381 units, although it’s unclear exactly how many people have so far been forced to relocate.

However, city officials said the plan didn’t run afoul of the rules because the actual stadium itself wouldn’t displace anyone. The ballpark is being built on a vacant parking lot previously owned by San Antonio Independent School District as part of the Fox Tech campus, and only the surrounding retail, restaurants and other projects would displace tenants.

City Council’s Thursday vote appears to signal a change of heart — even if it doesn’t go so far as to undo the damage to Soap Factory tenants.

As part council’s unanimously approved ordinance, all developers seeking city financial help on future developments must show how a proposed project — in its entirety — will affect residents nearby. As part of that, developers must submit a “displacement impact assessment.”

If a proposed project will force homeowners or renters to move out, the developer will be required to provide a plan to address that replacement, which may include offering relocation assistance to tenants.

District 4 Councilman Edward Munguia, who championed the change, said he was inspired to tighten regulations as a result of the Soap Factory displacement.

“In the midst of a housing affordability crisis, the last thing our residents need is for displacement to occur at or near sites of development projects using public funds,” Mungia’s office said in a statement after the vote. “We have a responsibility to ensure that we preserve and protect the current affordable housing stock in our city while balancing our commitment to supporting economic development projects.”

The San Antonio Missions’ new ballpark is projected to open in 2028.

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Michael Karlis is a multimedia journalist at the San Antonio Current, whose coverage in print and on social media focuses on local and state politics. He is a graduate of American University in Washington,...