October 9, 2009 – 3:05 pm
Those pesky federal regulators, ruining all the fun: It’s now looking like the 15-mile-long Upper Katy Prairie paving project known as the Grand Parkway Segment E won’t be getting the bucket of cash Harris County Commissioners Court wanted. County officials will instead request that the $181 million in federal stimulus funds earlier allocated to the way-out-northwest loop road be distributed to other projects: “The recommendation to withdraw the project from the Texas Department of Transportation’s list of stimulus projects was made by Art Storey, who heads Harris County’s Public Infrastructure Department. Storey declined to comment on his recommendation until it is considered at Harris County Commissioner Court’s meeting next Tuesday. ‘Staff and consultants have worked diligently and successfully to be on schedule to meet the deadlines to enable Segment E construction to qualify for and receive the stimulus funding, but the federal permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers cannot be completely processed by the required mid-February date,’ Storey said in a letter to the court. ‘In fact, because of conflicts over environmental impacts and mitigation, that permit might never be issued.’” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]
Read more about: 77433, 77449, 77477, 77493, Freeways and Toll Roads, Grand Parkway, Katy Prairie, Proposed Developments, Sprawl, Transportation
“. . . We by far are not paving our wilderness in concrete. The Katy Prairie represents and extremely small portion of area getting developed. The land you see in the Katy Prairie exists throughout south central Louisiana were it’ll likely never be developed. The Texas Coastal plains is quite undeveloped also. All this crying over really nothing. Wildlife is quite more adaptable than we give them credit for and they’ll move easily where they have to. I’m more and more convinced that people that live in Houston that go after developers for building the outer suburbs don’t realized how much is not developed when they leave the city. I guess they fly everywhere versus drive. The drive from Houston to Dallas alone should demonstrate how uninhabited this state is. Better yet, drive US 59 in either direction from Houston.” [kjb434, commenting on Investing in the Grand Parkway]
Read more about: Comments, Development Strategies, Katy Prairie, Landscape, Wildlife
Last week’s flooding in northwest Harris County provided only a taste of the problems likely to stem from development in the Katy Prairie along segment E of the planned Grand Parkway, say supporters of a Sierra Club challenge to existing floodplain maps in the Cypress Creek watershed. “An executive of Bridgeland GP, the company developing the 11,400-acre community, said in a Jan. 9, 2008, affidavit that the revisions sought by the Sierra Club would cost the company $28 million in flood mitigation measures that would ‘adversely affect’ the development. Despite the company’s efforts, the maps are being redrawn under U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal’s supervision. Rosenthal has stayed the lawsuit until October to allow time to complete the maps, but officials said they aren’t certain when the task will be finished. Preliminary revised maps [(PDF)] shown to the Houston Chronicle by [Sierra Club attorney Jim] Blackburn and the Harris County Flood Control District show a significant expansion of the flood plain in an undeveloped western segment of Bridgeland’s property and a reduction of the flood plain in other areas. . . . Asked if Bridgeland could assure Harris County residents that its development won’t worsen future flooding downstream, [Bridgeland VP of Sales] Houghton said, ‘I would have no problem guaranteeing that.’” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: Bridgeland, Flooding, Grand Parkway, Katy Prairie, Neighborhood Disputes, Proposed Developments, Sprawl
March 23, 2009 – 11:27 am
“The road exemplifies an unintended effect of the stimulus law: an administration that opposes suburban sprawl is giving money to states for projects that are almost certain to exacerbate it. A new master-planned community called Bridgeland is rising on the prairie along the proposed site of the road; once completed, the development is expected to have 21,000 new homes on 11,400 acres. Other developers are eagerly awaiting the new road so they can start building on their empty land, too. . . . [Roger H. Hord, the president of the West Houston Association] pointed out that the road would connect two existing highways and said it would ease congestion on some of Houston’s other beltways. He said that an existing leg of the Grand Parkway, just to the south of the proposed leg, would give a sense of what the new stretch of the Grand Parkway might look like when it is done. The existing stretch is lined with strip malls and gas stations and drug stores and a huge 7,600-acre residential development called Cinco Ranch that is popular with families.” [New York Times]
Read more about: 77433, 77449, 77477, 77493, Bridgeland, Cinco Ranch, Freeways and Toll Roads, Grand Parkway, Katy Prairie, Proposed Developments, Sprawl
October 14, 2008 – 7:43 am
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]
Read more about: 77084, Barker, Fort Bend County, Gardening, Katy, Katy Prairie, Land Development, Landscape, Streets
Comment of the Day: Houston’s Room To Spread Out
“. . . We by far are not paving our wilderness in concrete. The Katy Prairie represents and extremely small portion of area getting developed. The land you see in the Katy Prairie exists throughout south central Louisiana were it’ll likely never be developed. The Texas Coastal plains is quite undeveloped also. All this crying over really nothing. Wildlife is quite more adaptable than we give them credit for and they’ll move easily where they have to. I’m more and more convinced that people that live in Houston that go after developers for building the outer suburbs don’t realized how much is not developed when they leave the city. I guess they fly everywhere versus drive. The drive from Houston to Dallas alone should demonstrate how uninhabited this state is. Better yet, drive US 59 in either direction from Houston.” [kjb434, commenting on Investing in the Grand Parkway]