- Grand Pkwy. Expansion Already Spurring Development Boom North of I-10 in Katy [Houston Chronicle]
- Caldwell Cos. Planning Cypress Boardwalk Development Where Residents Can Boat to Work, Restaurants, Shops [Prime Property]
- Brooklyn Athletic Club Taking Over Zimm’s Little Deck Space on Richmond, Adding Bocce, Croquet [Culturemap]
- Light Rail Construction on Wheeler Near UH To Resume After Metro Agrees To Provide Alternative Access Road [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
- New $24M Galveston-Bolivar Ferry Goes into Service Today [Galveston County Daily News]
- Houston B-Cycle To Add 20 Kiosks, 205 Bikes Inside the Loop by October [Culturemap; previously on Swamplot]
- Hurricane Season To Begin for Real Along Texas Coast [SciGuy]
Photo of Allen’s Landing: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
I’ve found that with the Houston elevation and creeks in the burbs, generally speaking, if it has Creek, Lakes, Water, or Springs in the naming, it means that it is in someway built in a floodplane. I’m betting the Aquamunity in Cypress is just the extreme of this situation.
I lived near Las Colinas, TX for while and enjoyed the thoroughly vacant and abandoned “boat to work” community that became a standard suburban office park once the boating amenity flopped.
The Cypress development is not in the floodplain. There is floodplain to the north and south, but the development is not in either. The developers are required to put in drainage detention for the increased impervious cover and have smartly made one large water feature to accomplish this rather than a bunch of disconnected ponds.
Who is going to build an office building in a subdivision far away from any freeways? Or is the Grand Parkway going to be nearby?
Stating the Obivous,
You are mostly right.
It also doesn’t mean the community is flood prone to flooding.
This particular site in question has been toyed around by land developers for years with no one going the next step to develop it. Glad to see someone tackling it.
The biggest problem with this particular site is not a large flood plain, but a patchwork of areas that “could” be classified as wetlands. Wetlands sounds like a nature preserve, but in this case it just means an area will palms and catails grow. Making all these areas into Lakes takes care of the wetlands issue. It’s a similar issue with developing Bridgelands (except they had a little more floodplain).
A lake is not wetland mitigation, especially when it is going to be deep enough for boat traffic. Lakes do not support the same flora and fauna of a wetland. But wetland mitigation is easy. They will just have some drainage ditches that lead into the lakes classified as wetlands. With wetlands mitigation, you just have to try. 90% of wetlands mitigation fails to actually create real wetlands.
Old School: Re your comment in #6. I don’t disagree at all, however I’m very curious how you know that to be true? What do you do in your day to day that makes you so familiar with a topic like “wetland mitigation”
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Again, not questioning if your correct (since that’s not stuff I know about), it’s just a curious aside.
For a wetland mitigation plan to be approved by the Corps, it typically requires post-construction inpsections to confirm that the areas do, in fact, support wetlands. Any ascertation that the wetland mitigation fails 90% of the time would be examples of developers violating the terms of the Corps permit conditions and simply not getting caught.
@Spoonman — Yes, the proposal for the Grand Parkway has it very close to here, and 290 really isn’t that far away. The area is growing rapidly.
Im glad they finally have another ferry boat in Galveston. The last two times Ive gone down there Ive wanted to go over to Bolivar but give up as the ferry line sometimes is three hours longer or more.