In a revealing episode of The Building Texas Show, Johnson City Mayor Stephanie Fisher detailed a series of challenges facing the Texas Hill Country community, including a groundwater permitting standoff, a short-term rental boom, and the city’s strategy to convert through-traffic into overnight tourism dollars. The episode, published May 27, 2026, highlights the pressures on a city of roughly 540 residential single-family water connections.
Fisher noted that 67 of those 540 connections are now short-term rentals, such as Airbnbs, which she said are reshaping neighborhoods and adding strain to the city’s water infrastructure. The city relies solely on the Ellenberger Aquifer, a minor aquifer off the Llano Uplift, for drinking water. Despite sitting on the Pedernales River, Johnson City cannot tap it for drinking water without millions in infrastructure investment. The city holds 200 acre-feet of Pedernales River water under an LCRA permit but cannot yet harvest it.
Fisher addressed the ongoing negotiations with the Blanco Pedernales Groundwater Conservation District over a pending pumpage permit increase. “There was some previous administrations that made some decisions. I think they put the cart before the horse, and that's causing us to have some questions asked. And they're just doing their due diligence. I'm glad that our groundwater district is doing what they need to do to make sure that we all have water forever,” Fisher told host Justin McKenzie.
The mayor emphasized the need for a boutique or resort-style hotel, ideally on the river, as the single biggest unlock for both housing and tax base. Johnson City is the last stop before Fredericksburg and a common cut-through to Lake LBJ, yet visitors rarely stay overnight. Fisher and McKenzie discussed existing assets such as the Science Mill, the LBJ National Historic Park (including the Texas White House in Stonewall and LBJ's boyhood home), the Old Settlement adjacent to the Science Mill, the Exotic Resort Zoo just north of town, and the annual fair and rodeo weekend.
McKenzie contrasted Johnson City’s situation with 100-year water planning efforts in Midland and Lubbock, noting that Hill Country communities often depend on aquifer recharge in 15-year rainfall cycles. The episode is available on YouTube where listeners can follow the series.
The Building Texas Show, hosted by Justin McKenzie, travels the state in conversation with the mayors, founders, and operators shaping Texas growth, digging into infrastructure, economic development, tourism, and community identity. This episode underscores the broader Hill Country affordability crisis and the difficult trade-offs small cities face as they balance growth with limited natural resources.
