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.