AT HOME WITH THE WILDLIFE IN WATERBROOK WEST A relaxing, light-suburban lifestyle with plentiful opportunities for hunting and re-landscaping — who says you can’t have it all in Fort Bend County? “Within the past five [months], Missouri City began a program to attempt to decrease the number of hogs in the Waterbrook West community after hearing complaints from several residents. The city authorized two independent contractors to work in the area to trap in the neighborhood and the surrounding property, and other properties as access is granted. So far, 60 hogs have been caught and removed. Unfortunately, the animals breed so quickly those 60 will likely soon be replaced with 60 more. According to Michael Weiss, a State Game Warden with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Law Enforcement Division, the hogs have two or three litters per year, and the babies are ready to breed at around one year. . . . The animals are considered ‘exotic’ and not a native game animal in Texas, so they can be hunted year-round and there is no limit to the number hunters can kill. Weiss said the feral hogs are intelligent enough that once one or two are caught in a trap, others tend to leave that area. He also said that although the hogs are generally afraid of people, if cornered they can be aggressive – especially a cornered sow with her litter. When Weiss started his career 25 years ago, he said he only saw the problem in certain areas of the state. Now, he said, there isn’t a county in Texas that doesn’t have the wild pigs roaming around and creating a nuisance. ‘When people go and do landscaping, the hogs love to come tear it up and search for food,’ said Weiss. ‘I don’t know what the solution is. There’s not one, really.’†[Fort Bend Now]
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EXTENDING METRO’S MAIN ST. RAIL LINE TO FORT BEND COUNTY Metro’s lame-duck board gave its staff a half-million-dollar go-ahead yesterday to figure alignments, hold public meetings, and begin environmental studies on an 8.2-mile commuter rail line along U.S. 90A. The hunt for federal funding comes next: “It was the second development this month in efforts to bring commuter rail to the Houston region. The Gulf Coast Rail District recently hired a Houston engineering firm to study a line along U.S. 290 to Hempstead. A key advantage of Metro’s [Fort Bend] plan, [Chairman David] Wolff said, is that it would use trains Metro already owns on tracks that would parallel Union Pacific freight tracks in the same corridor, tying into the existing Main Street light rail line to create a seamless experience for passengers. The commuter line would begin at Fannin South, the southern end of the Main Street line, and continue to the Fort Bend County Line at Beltway 8.” [Houston Chronicle]
Our winner in this week’s game was Señorbanity. Congratulations — you’re the newest member of the Rice Design Alliance — via a one-year individual membership donated by the organization. Thank you, RDA! We’ll also recognize a neighborly guess and award second place to Jayci.
Sweet! So where can you find this home?
What are these Campbell Construction Company workers doing? Just building a fence down aways on Barron Ln. from their Missouri City office — in order to block the driveway belonging to their neighbor, Cesar Larias. Owner Jeff Campbell ordered the fence built after Larias refused to pay a $50 monthly fee to access his own garage.
Ten years ago, Campbell bought several parcels — one of which apparently includes Larias’s driveway and most of his front yard — from a tax auction. How’d they come up for sale? Channel 2 reporter Stephen Dean explains:
Court documents reviewed by Local 2 Investigates show that the original landowner who developed the entire neighborhood had divided off several of the strips of land in question, hoping to sell them separately someday if the government expanded Hillcroft Street down through the subdivision. That expansion never happened.
The original landowner died and Fort Bend County ended up selling the parcels of subdivided land at an auction on the courthouse steps because no one was paying taxes on those parcels anymore.
Until Campbell asked him and several neighbors to start paying a fee to access their own properties, Larias had no idea that his driveway and front yard did not belong to his family’s homestead. Alas, such appears to be the case.
Asked if he has considered selling the land back to the homeowners, Campbell said, “Yeah, but the amount they want to give for it, I don’t want to sell it for that. You see the situation that I’m in?”
Campbell insisted he’s not trying to gouge the neighbors or force them from their homes, although he admitted he may want to expand his nearby construction business.
“Well, my decision was to have them pay something to use it,” said Campbell. “I’ve been really above and beyond fair about it. I’m not trying to hurt these people.”
He admitted that it may appear heavy-handed for him to have placed a Dumpster across the driveway when the Larios family stopped paying for access.
Wait! How’d you reporter dudes find out about the Dumpster?
Who won that Rice Design Alliance membership?
First, your guesses in this week’s game: Four of you guessed Sugar Land; 3 Hunters Creek, Tanglewood, and River Oaks. There were 2 each for Memorial, Bayou Woods or Sherwood Forest, Piney Point Village, Katy, Magnolia, Sweetwater, Bellaire, and The Woodlands. Plus individual votes for “Memorial/Beltway 8,” “somewhere off Memorial Dr. near Voss,” “south of Memorial Dr. between Post Oak and Voss,” Memorial and Dairy Ashford, Crestwood, Glen Cove, Kingwood, Sugar Lakes, Venetian Estates, “the Peninsulas in Oyster Creek,” Pecan Grove in Richmond, Tomball, Indian Trail, Rivercrest, Augusta Pines, Homewoods, Tall Timbers, Mt. Belvieu, Cinco Ranch, “along the Bay Oaks golf course,” Camp Logan, Royal Oaks, Crosby, “off 249,” Pinehurst, “Champions area,” FM 1960, Northgate Forest, west Friendswood, Brazoria County, Lake Jackson, West Columbia, “the 290/Highway 6/1960 area,” Pearland, “along Buffalo Bayou near the Houston Country Club,” and “Holly Creek, west of Tomball.”
That one-year individual membership in the RDA goes to this week’s hardest guesser, Matt Mystery, who mentioned no fewer than 15 different communities in the course of 7 separate entries — including one that’s very close to the actual location:
Sugar Land. It could be Sweetwater or possibly Sugar Lakes/Venetian Estates. Or maybe The Peninsulas in Oyster Creek. Then there’s Pecan Grove in Richmond. So many subdivisions. So many areas. It just has that Tanglewood look. And it’s 9 pm on Thursday and it’s still a mystery.
Matt Mystery happens to be the same matt who won last week’s contest. Congratulations!
A lot of great guesses in there from the rest of you, too!
How about the deets?
One highlight of the decorating sampler provided by the listing for 403 Lombardy Dr.: the Monkey Bed.
What’s more to see in this fine home for sale in Venetian Estates?
There’s the multicolor cloud motif gracing the Media Room:
You saw the video. Now comes the detail: OffCite has more on recent Rice University architecture grad Lysle Oliveros’s proposal for turning that putrid pile of garbage next door to Shadow Creek Ranch into an exciting outdoor playplace! The fun comes in 3 phases.
In phase 1, trash haulers would start a new pile with each year’s take, completing a mound every 12 months:
Each monument compared to the next would create an awareness of the massive amount of disposed consumer goods. For example, the 2008 “index†created by Hurricane Ike debris would have been 400 feet tall.
Too bad about the City of Pearland’s recent agreement with Republic Services limiting those piles to a mere 130 ft. Oh, well — just wait until 2029!
Shadow Creek Ranch residents worried that the Blue Ridge Landfill just across FM 521 would turn into a 170-ft.-tall mountain of smelly garbage can breathe deeply again, now that the City of Pearland has reached a settlement agreement with the landfill’s operator, Republic Services (formerly Allied Waste).
Among the most important changes: the landfill will be limited to its current height of 60 ft. for 12 more years. Will that be enough time for Shadow Creek Ranch’s homebuilders and Las Vegas developers to sell off whatever remaining inventory they own in the master-planned community? After that, the pile of trash will be restricted to hillock status, at 130 ft. tall — “for an additional 8 years.”
Also good for home sales: Garbage trucks will be banned from using Shadow Creek Parkway west of FM 521!
More details of the agreement from City Attorney Darrin Coker, quoted in The Journal of Pearland:
That gonna-be-170-ft.-high pile of trash going up across the street from Shadow Creek Ranch? Nothing a little smart landscaping can’t handle. Rice architecture grad student Lysle Oliveros’s proposal for the Blue Ridge Landfill makes for a rockin’ video. And Houston needs a mountain, anyway.
- Houston Needs a Mountain [Vimeo]
- 2008 Winners [Rice Design Alliance]
- Previously in Swamplot: Raising a Bigger Stink: Shadow Creek Ranch Residents Still Fighting 170-Foot Uphill Battle, Hurricane Detection System To Be Blocked by 170-Foot-High Pile of Garbage
Video: Richie Gelles
Why would a couple of Bellaire Realtors want to build new hangar condos out by the Houston-Southwest Airport in Arcola? Because the hangar rental market there sucks, apparently.
With an option on a 60-year ground lease with the airport — near the intersection of Almeda and Highway 6 in Fort Bend County — owners Curtis Lawson and Ryan Dodds of CityLife Realty are now marketing 27 units in the Southwest Executive Hangars, featuring “75,000 square feet of hangarage” in 2 box-shaped buildings.
But this place isn’t just for storage and maintenance. There’s also that hangar condo lifestyle:
MAYBE SIENNNA IS AVAILABLE? Marketing new themed apartments has got to be tough these days — all those great Southern European-y names are already taken! “Out-of-state developers thought they had coined a great name for their senior living apartments in Katy. Then they found out a nearby master-planned community had already claimed the same name. A joint venture led by Georgia-based Formation Development Group LLC broke ground in May on The Sienna at Cinco Ranch apartments at 24001 Cinco Village Center Blvd., west of Houston. But the site was a little too close for comfort to the Sienna Plantation master-planned community located south of Cinco Ranch in Fort Bend County. So Formation Development formulated a slight change of plans — The Sienna at Cinco Ranch is now going to be called The Solana at Cinco Ranch. ‘There was a little bit of confusion,’ says Karen Thompson, a spokeswoman for the development firm. ‘They wanted to have something that was going to be unique to their property.'” [Houston Business Journal]
In this episode: four decade-old houses in New Territory, all within walking distance of . . . each other! Each home has distinctive touches! And they’re all open for your visit this weekend!
Location: 1743 Heddon Falls Dr.
Details: 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths; 2,769 sq. ft.
Price: $290,000
The Scoop: 1998 brick 2-story home with slightly winding path and two 10-year-old live oak trees in front. Double-height arched brick entry. Cathedral ceiling in Family Room. Hardwood floors downstairs, new carpet up. Breakfast Room has new light fixture. Pool and spa in back. On the market since mid-August.
Open House: Sunday, 1-4 pm
More New Territory options as the tour continues . . .
THE RIDE-FOR-LESS-THAN-A-GRAND PARKWAY “Fort Bend County officials Oct. 14 signed off on a joint resolution with numerous government entities to establish a set of terms and conditions to build the Grand Parkway as a toll road. . . . The agreement stipulates the scope of work, initial toll rate and methods to increase toll rates as the Grand Parkway, also known as Texas 99, is constructed as a 180-mile road looping around Houston. Under the terms, the project will be a tolled, two- to six-lane road with overpasses at major intersections and direct connectors at interchanges with other major thoroughfares.” [Houston Chronicle]
MOVING THE KATY PRAIRIE, ONE CLUMP AT A TIME Threatened patch of prairie? Shovels to the rescue! “The 90-acre patch at Saums and Greenhouse roads north of I-10 is a subtly spectacular example of what the dwindling Katy Prairie looked like before development spread west out of Harris County. Sometime later this fall, construction on the extension of Greenhouse Road, plus a detention pond, will start there. Folks in straw hats, with shovels, buckets and bug spray, spent several mornings digging up clumps of this mature prairie for transplanting to other sites. . . . Digging up clumps of little blue stem, rattlesnake master and bee blossom gives prairie gardens a jump start they couldn’t get from seeds – and seeds are hard to come by.” [Inside Fort Bend]
The contested case hearing for the proposed expansion of the Blue Ridge Landfill on the western edge of Shadow Creek Ranch has been postponed — to October or November at the earliest — reports Natalie Torentinos in the Journal of Pearland. But the the buzzards are already circling:
Like passing dark clouds, incomparable and scary odors have traveled through Jamie Lee’s neighborhood in Shadow Creek Ranch, the smell seeping through the garage, laundry, even the water faucet. “This morning at 8 a.m. I left to take my daughters to school, and I could barely breathe outside,” Lee said. “It was nauseating.” . . .
Additional issues are geology and drainage –regarding contaminated groundwater and increased flooding, respectively. The landfill is attracting scavenger animals such as vultures, seagulls and rodents. [Attorney Richard] Morrison showed pictures taken of buzzards perching on the roofs of several homes, located in Green Valley Estates north of the landfill.
Allied Waste wants its pile of trash to expand to 784 acres and reach a height of 170 feet. Current restrictions limit the landfill to 302 acres and 60 feet.
- Landfill odor causing a stink [The Journal of Pearland, via HAIF]
- Hurricane Detection System To Be Blocked by 170-Foot-High Pile of Garbage [Swamplot]
Photo of Shadow Creek Ranch: Flickr user Sean Brady [license]
