The inhabitants of the Town of Highland Park, County of Dallas,
Texas, within the corporate limits as heretofore or as hereinafter
[hereafter] established, are hereby constituted and shall continue
to be a municipal body politic and corporate in perpetuity under the
name “Town of Highland Park”, with such powers, rights,
duties, privileges and immunities as are herein provided.
The boundaries and limits of the Town shall be as they have
been heretofore established and now exist, and which are on file with
the Town Secretary.
The municipal government provided by this Charter shall be known
as “Council-Manager Government”. Pursuant to the provisions
of, and subject only to the limitations imposed by the State Constitution,
State Laws and this Charter, all powers of the Town shall be vested
in an elective council, hereinafter referred to as the “Council”.
The Town shall be a Home Rule City. It shall have all powers,
functions, rights, privileges and immunities of every name and nature,
that are now or hereafter may be granted to a Home Rule City by the
Constitution and laws of this State, together with all implied powers
necessary to carry into execution all powers granted. The Town shall
have and exercise all the powers conferred upon cities by Article
XI, Section 5 of the Constitution of the State of Texas, known as
the Home Rule amendment, and by Chapter 147, Page 307 of the Acts
of the 33rd Legislature Regular Session enacted in 1913 pursuant to
said Home Rule amendment, known as the Enabling Act, and all other
laws passed by the Legislature of the State of Texas relating thereto,
or which may hereafter be passed by said Legislature in relation to
such matters. Among other powers the Town shall have police powers,
the power to adjust boundaries, to contract and to cooperate with
the Government of the State of Texas or any agency of [or] subdivision
thereof, or with the United States Government or any agency thereof
to accomplish any lawful purpose. The Town may use a corporate seal;
may acquire property within or without its corporate limits for any
municipal purpose in fee simple, or in any lesser interest or estate
by purchase, gift, devise, lease or condemnation, and, subject to
the provisions of this Charter, may sell, lease, mortgage, hold, manage,
improve and control property as may now or hereafter be owned by it;
may sue and be sued; may furnish municipal services, both within and
without its corporate limits; may implead and be impleaded in all
courts and places and in all matters whatever; may provide for the
expenditure of public funds for a retirement system, group health,
life and accident insurance coverage, and surety bonds for Town employees
or officers; may pass ordinances, resolutions, and enact such regulations
as may be expedient for the maintenance of good government order and
peace of the Town and the interest, welfare, health, morals, comfort,
safety, security and convenience of the Town or its inhabitants consistent
with the provisions of this Charter.
The Town shall have the full right, power and authority to exercise
the power of eminent domain when necessary or desirable to carry out
any of the powers conferred upon it by this Charter, or by the Constitution
or laws of the State of Texas. The power of eminent domain hereby
conferred shall include the right of the Town to take the fee and
easement in the lands so condemned, and such power and authority shall
include the right to condemn public or private property for such purposes.
The Town shall have and possess this power of condemnation of property
within or without the corporate limits for any municipal or public
purposes, even though not specifically enumerated herein or in this
Charter.
The Town shall have the power to sell and to acquire by condemnation
or purchase either private or public property located inside or outside
of the corporate limits for public purposes. The procedure to be followed
in any sale or condemnation proceeding hereunder and authorized herein
shall be in accordance with the provisions of the State law with reference
to eminent domain.
Should any property situated within the corporate limits of
the Town be now or hereafter platted into building sites, the owner
or owners of said property shall comply with the general plan of the
Town, all provisions of the ordinances of the Town, and all provisions
of the applicable State laws.
The Town shall have exclusive domain, control and jurisdiction
in, upon, over and under all public streets, avenues, curbs, gutters,
sidewalks, parkways, alleys and highways of the Town situated in the
Town, and the power to lay out, establish, open, alter, widen, lower,
extend, grade, drain, abandon and improve streets, alleys, sidewalks,
squares, parks, public places and bridges and regulate the use thereof,
and require the removal from streets, sidewalks, alleys, and other
public property or places of all obstructions, telegraph, telephone
or other poles, carrying electric wires or signs, encroachments of
every nature or character upon any said streets and sidewalks, and
to vacate and close private ways; and when a street or alley has been
vacated or abandoned, the Town shall have the right to sell the same
as now provided by the General laws of the State of Texas. The provisions
of Chapter 106, Fortieth Legislature, First Called Session, Acts 1927,
being Article 1105b, Vernon’s Annotated Civil Statutes of Texas,
now codified in Vernon’s Texas Codes Annotated (hereinafter, “V.T.C.A.”),
Transportation Code § 313, together with existing amendments
as hereafter may be made, and acts supplementary thereto, are expressly
adopted and made a part of this Charter. Such exclusive dominion,
control and jurisdiction in, upon, over and under the public streets,
avenues, curbs, gutters, sidewalks, parkways, alleys and highways
of the Town shall also include, but not be limited to, the right to
regulate, locate, relocate, remove or prohibit the location of all
utility pipes, lines, wires, or other property.
The Town shall have the power to provide for solid waste collection,
storage, disposal and recycling. The Council shall have the right
by ordinance to adopt and prescribe rules and regulations for the
handling of all garbage, trash and rubbish in the Town, and shall
further have the right to fix charges and compensation to be charged
by the Town for the removal of garbage, trash and rubbish, and to
provide rules and regulations for the collection thereof.
The Town shall have the power to provide for and/or own a sanitary
sewer system and to require property owners to connect their premises
with such sewer system; and to provide penalties for failure to make
sanitary sewer connections; and shall further have the right to fix
charges and compensation to be charged by the Town for sewerage service,
and to provide rules and regulations for the collection thereof.
The Town shall have the power to provide for and/or own a water
system and to prescribe charges, rules, regulations, rates and restrictions
with reference to the use, consumption, waste, payment, cutoff, turn
on, connections and management of such system, and to prescribe penalties
for violation of such rules and regulations.
The Town shall have exclusive control of all Town parks, and
playgrounds, and to control, regulate and remove all obstructions
and prevent all encroachments thereupon; to provide for raising, grading,
filling, terracing, landscape gardening, erecting buildings, swimming
pools and wading pools, tennis courts and other structures including,
but not limited to, museums, libraries and art galleries.
The Council shall have the power by ordinance or otherwise to
provide means for protection against conflagrations and for the establishment,
maintenance, support and regulation of fire suppression personnel
and for guarding against fires. It may prescribe fire limits, stipulate
and provide for minimum requirements for construction of buildings
within such fire limits, regulate or prohibit the erection, building,
replacing or repairing of buildings within such limits; may prescribe
that the buildings within such fire limits be made or constructed
of fireproof material; and may prohibit the repairing of buildings
within such limits when the same have been damaged to within fifty
per cent (50%) of the value thereof; and may declare all dilapidated
buildings to be nuisances and direct the same to be repaired, removed
or abated in such manner as the Council may prescribe; and may further
prescribe limits within which only fireproof roofing may be used.
It may also, by ordinance, regulate or forbid the storage of lumber,
building materials of any kind or inflammable or explosive goods,
wares and merchandise of any kind.
The enumeration of particular powers in the Charter shall not
be held or deemed to be exclusive, but in addition to the powers enumerated
herein, implied thereby or appropriate to the exercise thereof, the
Town may exercise all other powers which, under the Constitution and
laws of the State of Texas, it would be competent for the Charter
specifically to enumerate.