Jan. 22--SAN ANTONIO--After getting an earful from environmentalists and tax abatement foes, city officials are proceeding with negotiations to develop a sprawling PGA golf resort north of town, atop the Edwards Aquifer recharge zone. 

With the help of a city-approved special taxing district, PGA Village San Antonio could become the second major installation for the Professional Golfers' Association of America. The original PGA Village, dubbed the "Harvard of Golfdom," opened in Port St. Lucie, Fla., in 1999. 

A 2,855-acre development in northeast Bexar County was proposed last year by landowner Lumbermen's Investment Corp., the Marriott Hotel Corp., Ritz-Carlton Hotels and the PGA, which is mulling other sites in case no deal is reached here. 

Last week, at the first public meeting on the plan, city experts insisted the resort won't necessarily harm the water supply or endangered species with runoff from chemicals in fertilizer. But watchdog groups denounced the development, also known as the Cibolo Canyon Resort Project, as too dangerous to the ecology and of dubious benefit to most taxpayers. 

Mayor Ed Garza said the city soon should complete its review of the proposal, which was unveiled last February. He said he will "ask the needed questions so that we can get the best deal possible -- or no deal, if that's the consensus this council moves toward." 

"I know there is opposition. I know that there are strong feelings on this issue. I don't need to be convinced on that," he told more than 100 citizens. 

Plans call for hiring famous golfers and course designers to build three courses covering 735 acres, with a 40-acre PGA "learning center" nearby. The facilities would be surrounded by single- and multifamily residences, hotels and light commercial enterprises. More than a third of the total acreage would be open space and one-fourth would be golf course land, planners said. 

Texas A&M University geology professor Chris Mathewson was hired by the city to review studies already conducted at the proposed site, north of Loop 1604 and between U.S. 281 and Interstate 35. Mathewson said several golf courses are operating safely on the recharge zone, and despite its porous nature, the hilly site under consideration is suitable for the proposed development -- if state-of-the-art design and maintenance techniques are used. 

"The traditional golf course ... has very limited rough. You can wander off and look for your missing golf ball. This provides absolutely no habitat enhancement or anything else," Mathewson said. 

"The newer designs in golf courses are matching them to the environment. The new designs provide habitat for wildlife, they develop and enhance the ecological system, they protect endangered species by setting aside undeveloped lands, and they minimize the chemicals used simply because of the cost," he said. 

Several groups questioned the thoroughness and objectivity of studies done thus far, and they urged the city council not to rush its next move. Garza said the council would proceed cautiously in closed-door negotiations and that if a draft development agreement were reached, there would be "ample time for public review before any (final) decision is made." 

Aquifer Protection Association spokesman Helen Dutmer, a former council member, chided the council advisers who said the proposal was worth exploring. 

"With all due respect to the engineers and to the geologists, we can go out and find three others that will come in here and refute everything that's been said here today," Dutmer said. Some rural residents aren't supposed to trim their own trees because of habitat concerns, Dutmer said, "and now we're going to go in there with a bulldozer and plow it all down." 

"It just does not make sense," she said. 

The influential COPS/Metro Alliance weighed in with a combination of concerns. 

"This is a tax abatement that will not only affect the economic health of the city but it will affect the physical health of every citizen. Subsidizing -- giving a tax abatement -- to build over and pollute our lifeline is a concern of every person," the organizations said. 

Bob Martin, president of the Homeowner-Taxpayer Association of Bexar County, reminded the council that voters recently approved a sales-tax increase until 2004 to allow the city to buy and protect $60 million in land over the aquifer. The council also plans a May referendum to prolong the sales-tax increase to 2009 so the city can buy more land that would be protected from development. 

"Here we are today discussing giving $60 million in corporate welfare, to do what? To build over the aquifer," Martin said. "This is like watching a mule eat stickers. It makes absolutely no sense at all." 

Maria Berriozabal, a former council member, said the project could undermine years of efforts to protect the aquifer. 

"How on earth did we get here? I am so disappointed," she said, adding, "I thought the council had heard the concern of the people." 

She believes the project landed here "because of the concern that other people have with golf courses and the uses of pesticides." 

"In Texas, we have not even started this discussion," she said. "Maybe that's the reason they chose us." 

But backers of the proposal, including the San Antonio Chamber of Commerce, see another reason for the city's selection -- its golf-friendly ambience, weather and facilities. 

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