- Tesla’s gigafactory outside Austin won’t have to comply with the city’s environmental regulations.
- The EV company got an exemption thanks to a new state law.
- Elon Musk said the property would be an “ecological paradise,” but Tesla has a history of violating the environment.
Tesla’s massive gigafactory outside Austin, Texas, will no longer have to comply with local environmental regulations, thanks to a recent state law.
Tesla’s 2,500-acre property, which includes its 10 million-square-foot electric vehicle gigafactory, sits on unincorporated land on the outskirts of Austin.
Although not directly within the city, most of this land was still part of Austin’s “extraterritorial jurisdiction” (ETJ), which allowed the city to regulate developments outside its boundaries.
In February, Tesla requested an exemption from Austin’s ETJ, which the city’s planning department approved in March.
The exemption was first reported by the Austin Business Journal this week.
The exemption was made possible by a new state law that took effect in September and allows landowners to request to be excluded from jurisdictions so they can develop their land with fewer regulations.
Several cities across the state have already sued to block the law, including Grand Prairie, which argued in a filing that the law would harm the city’s ability to protect health, safety and welfare. to be of those who live in and around its borders.
But under the law, cities don’t have much latitude to deny a landowner’s request, Austin’s planning director previously said, according to the Austin Business Journal.
Tesla’s ETJ exemption will allow the electric vehicle company to further develop its land without having to follow the city’s environmental restrictions, which an Austin city spokesperson acknowledged could harm residents .
“The release of ETJ properties impacts the city because development in the ETJ is subject to limited subdivision regulations as well as regulation of water quality and water issues. flooding,” Shelley Parks, a spokesperson for the city of Austin, said in a statement to Business Insider. “All this affects the people of the ETJ and the City itself.”
Tesla did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
While the Texas gigafactory was still under construction ahead of its 2022 opening, Elon Musk promised it would be an “ecological paradise” with walking trails for the public along the nearby Colorado River.
Musk’s companies, however, have had problems with environmental regulations in the past. In February, Tesla settled a lawsuit accusing them of mishandling hazardous waste in California. Meanwhile, the Boring Company was accused of allowing untreated sewage to flow into the Colorado River.
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