A Little Green Space For A Change!

[bachanon]

timber lakes and timber ridge residents worried about increased crime, more dumping? i wouldn't go in that neighborhood after dark, and if i wanted to dump the old fridge out in my garage, that is the first place i would think i could get away with it.

i guess these people aren't familiar with the increase in property values or the (better) kind of people who want to live near established, recreational parks. worst case scenario, the neighborhood still sucks but with less empty houses, more public interest in keeping things clean and access to an amazing park system.

unbelievable idiocy.

[TheNiche]

unbelievable idiocy.

Actually, their concerns do have some merit.

It is also not uncommon for various local governments to buy land, designate it a park, make capital improvements, and then provide very poor maintenance or security services. The problem is particularly common with rural parks or near poorer exurban areas.

Econometric analysis also proves with some consistency that people that homes adjacent to public parks experience a decline in property values. The hypothesized reason is that many people from outside the neighborhood are more likely to be noisy or in some cases cause trouble because they just have no respect for neighborhoods/property that isn't theirs. Bolstering this argument, more affluent people often live in subdivisions with private parks available to them (this occurs only in rural/exurban areas), while poor people tend to not have parks in their own neighborhoods, but to actually use parks more intensively because they also tend to have more children per household.

I also don't have all the information on the project. If park users have to drive through the neighborhood on a particular street, the extra traffic can cause problems.

Of course, this could also be one of those cases, like AO, where a vocal minority that may be among the very few adversely affected in their neighborhood shows up for the first time in their lives to a civic association meeting, managing also to have gotten press attention so that they can appear falsely unified. I just don't have that kind of information.

[Guest danax]

Living near a park can be good or bad, depending on the level of decency of the neighbors. It will probably work in The Woodlands but in other areas that have entered into long decline cycles it might be the worst thing to ever happen to them as instant gathering spots are created for gang bangers, noise creators, trash tossers etc.

An 85 year old woman in our neighborhood has lived in the same house since '53. Across the street was once a field, a haven for birds. Sometime in the 60s/70s the city created a full service park and it's been nothing but a negative for her and everyone else on her block ever since. The neighborhood as a whole has benefited though, so it's a win/lose scenario.

A park with well behaved citizens turns it into a win/win.

[bachanon]

Living near a park can be good or bad, depending on the level of decency of the neighbors. It will probably work in The Woodlands but in other areas that have entered into long decline cycles it might be the worst thing to ever happen to them as instant gathering spots are created for gang bangers, noise creators, trash tossers etc.

An 85 year old woman in our neighborhood has lived in the same house since '53. Across the street was once a field, a haven for birds. Sometime in the 60s/70s the city created a full service park and it's been nothing but a negative for her and everyone else on her block ever since. The neighborhood as a whole has benefited though, so it's a win/lose scenario.

A park with well behaved citizens turns it into a win/win.

this area is already a place for gang bangers, noise creators and trash tossers. this neighborhood is sandwiched between the new park space, panther creek and grogan's mill. there are million dollar homes through the trees less than a mile away. there is close proximity to i-45 and other woodlands' amenities. i think that the park, which will connect via trails through the woodlands newest village, creekside, could be a turning point for this "backside" of the woodlands. if the park has a negative impact on TLTR, then couldn't one argue the same for panther creek, grogan's mill and creekside?

i think this will be a win/win for TLTR residents as well as for the woodlands.

map

timber lakes/timber ridge is between gosling and where sawdust dead ends into glen loch. the park space will run past gosling on the west and south of grogan's point/grogan's mill.

[pineda]

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with you on this one, Bach. I know folks who live in that area and I've been there after dark as well. I've never experienced the rampant crime situation you've described.

I think the people living in that area have a right to be wary of the park project because of the reasons they've mentioned in the Courier article, and also because perhaps they don't really welcome the sanitized, Woodlands-ized version of nature that is proposed for the area.

As you're well aware, the Woodlands has had its' share of problems within its' own parks. It wasn't that long ago that the police and fire departments in the Woodlands were being kept fairly busy trying to stop whoever was responsible for setting small fires in the parks and other assorted acts of vandalism.

The people who live in Timber Lakes and Timber Ridge have a very valid right to be concerned about the project and if the people in charge of the project promise to keep these residents in the loop and informed, and perhaps promise to help these residents find a way to get the local police department personnel a little more involved, then this project could be a win-win for everyone involved.

[bachanon]

I think the people living in that area have a right to be wary of the park project because of the reasons they've mentioned in the Courier article, and also because perhaps they don't really welcome the sanitized, Woodlands-ized version of nature that is proposed for the area.

if sanitized means long empty flood houses being torn down and dead ends becoming entrances to nature walks and hiking, i'll take the cleaner version.

The people who live in Timber Lakes and Timber Ridge have a very valid right to be concerned about the project and if the people in charge of the project promise to keep these residents in the loop and informed, and perhaps promise to help these residents find a way to get the local police department personnel a little more involved, then this project could be a win-win for everyone involved.

yes, they do have a right to be concerned. i'm amazed that they cannot see an opportunity to turn their neighborhood around if things go well.

additional police presence and enforcement of existing laws would help many neighborhoods in and around the woodlands.

if i were a property owner in TLTR, i would be ecstatic. the only direction that area can go is up.

[pineda]

if things go well...

And therein lies the rub, doesn't it?

Keeping residents informed of decisions that affect their quality of life, however terrible you may think that is in Timber Lakes and Timber Ridge, is important to this or any other project.

People sometimes resist change and an outside entity, no matter how well-intentioned you may consider that to be, needs to gain their trust and enlist their support and listen to their opinions in order to create a success in their neighborhood.

Perhaps these residents in Timber Lakes and Timber Ridge would like to keep what they consider to be the good aspects of their area and just clean up what they consider to be the bad aspects of their area. This is just basic human behavior. Why does it annoy or amaze you so much?

[woody_hawkeye]

I live on a park in TW and I see police chases in the woods at times from my back window. That goes with the territory. Also we have people coming in from outside TW all the time to enjoy the park. Therefore, I often have total strangers just behind my fence. I have tightened security at the house to mitigate the apparent higher risk of crime than a normal neighborhood.

[bachanon]

TLTR is apparently not a neighborhood used to better management. yes, it is in their realm of rights to be concerned about their surroundings. it is plain as day to see that they cannot see the forest for the trees. perhaps they are lulled to a lesser state of things because nothing horrible happens on a regular basis in their back yards. this neighborhood is due a good overhaul and the activity and redevelopment of parts of the neighborhood may do more good than harm.

better days are ahead.

[RedScare]

I'm with pineda on this one. My brother built his first house in this neighborhood in 1980. Ten years later, he built up Glenloch in The Woodlands. I spent a lot of time in that neighborhood. It is a hard-working middle class neighborhood that doesn't want to be the Woodlands. They have rejected Woodlands overtures in the past to make it look like it is part of the Woodlands.

There is no reason for these residents to believe that bachanon's predictions will come true. This neighborhood has been historically underserved. There is not enough police protection now. Assurances that it will be patrolled sound like empty promises.

bachanon, you're posts sound like just the "looking down your nose" observations that cause these residents' mistrust in the first place. As TLTR is only a few hundred residents, it is obvious that most of the troublemakers congregating by the creek are coming from the larger population of the Woodlands. Why should they support a plan to make it easier for this activity to occur in the future. Whereas you seem to be blinded by the pretty trees and signage of the Woodlands, these residents seem much more realistic about how much support and security that fiscally conservative Montgomery County will provide once the park is built. You forget that the parks in the Woodlands are maintained by your very high Woodlands taxes. This park will not be. As Montgomery County has not historically provided a high level of services, especially to TLTR, I don't blame them for being suspicious. It seems to me that if you think this park is a good thing, "if things go well", you should be siding with the TLTR residents in leaning on the County to provide for its success....not calling them idiots for doing so.

[bachanon]

red, have you been to the convenience store near TLTR at 11PM? even the convenience store on sawdust at sawmill gets robbed on a regular basis and i consider it safer than the one at the entrance to TLTR. in fact, i feel safer at a gas station in midtown at 2AM than the convenience store at TLTR.

it doesn't matter that good, hard working people live in TLTR. good, hard working people live in every ghetto around houston.

and no, i'm not looking "down my nose" at anyone. if it weren't for good circumstances, i'd be living in my rent house in a low income area off of aldine-westfield. i've said it before, if i lived in TLTR, i would be ecstatic about the plans for the park and worry about the details later. TLTR needs an upgrade, it needs cleaning up (as do many older neighborhoods in the woodlands). the park plans are an opportunity for this neighborhood to get the attention it needs. it will benefit not only TLTR, but the surrounding neighborhoods (which i live in). i'm all for greater attention to TLTR.

i'm sorry, but i laughed when i read the story in the courier. if TLTR remains what it is, it is because of the residents who live there and not new park space.

i should introduce you to the slum lord i met from TLTR. it was an unfortunate meeting at a company party. this guy owns many homes in TLTR and rents them to the worst of tenants because they are desperate and have cash. he looks forward to the next flood because he likes the insurance money and repairs the houses with as little money and effort as possible.

i ran in to a old high school buddy this past year. his wife left him because she prefers xanax and liquor over her family. she moved in with a like minded boyfriend in TLTR, on the back side, near the flood houses. my buddy frequently has to go rescue his kids because of a party.

a girl from my nephew's school was attacked at a party in TLTR last year.

i realize that these things happen everywhere. in my experience, TLTR has a reputation. a park can't make things worse (IMO).

[pineda]

TLTR is apparently not a neighborhood used to better management. yes, it is in their realm of rights to be concerned about their surroundings. it is plain as day to see that they cannot see the forest for the trees. perhaps they are lulled to a lesser state of things because nothing horrible happens on a regular basis in their back yards. this neighborhood is due a good overhaul and the activity and redevelopment of parts of the neighborhood may do more good than harm. sorry, pineda, but the neighborhood is a cesspool of meth dealers and scum lords. perhaps not in all areas. the high school kids i know from college park and the woodlands high school roll their eyes in disbelief when it is mentioned that TLTR is a safe place. they hear on a regular basis about the parties and dealers in TLTR. i realize that dealers and parties are unique to no specific area; however, TLTR is known for chaos.

better days are ahead.

All I can say is "WOW!" This post is so far beneath your usual quality, Bach, that I'm just going to chalk it up to the fact that you posted at 1:37 a.m. on a Friday night.

To base your assumptions about the quality of life in Timber Lakes and Timber Ridge and what they supposedly deserve or don't deserve on what a few schoolchildren say is just not really a fair assessment.

Some of the people that I know who live in Timber Lakes and Timber Ridge are school teachers, FedEx and UPS workers, air conditioner repair personnel, car mechanics, and retired persons. They like the quiet, peaceful area tucked in between THE WOODLANDS and Spring Creek, which is still in a very natural state.

They would like to see more of a police presence in their neighborhood, and honestly, who wouldn't? Even in the some of the upscale parts of the Woodlands, like Alden Bridge and Sterling Ridge, I'm sure they'd like more of a police presence there as well.

When you say that the neighborhood "is due a good overhaul", how does one do that? By putting in a park, does that automatically make all the "meth dealers and scum lords" pack up and move away? You're not going to change the makeup of the people in a neighborhood just by putting in a park.

I can't believe you don't know this. The Woodlands is constantly fighting a battle to keep vandals, muggers and rapists out of all the parks in the Woodlands. Fires being set, expensive playground equipment vandalized, loitering and criminal activity of all kinds exists even now in the best of the Woodlands parks. Maybe the residents of Timber Lakes and Timber Ridge just aren't very welcome to that kind of activity coming to their neighborhood. Maybe they're a lot smarter than you think they are.

[RedScare]

red, have you been to the convenience store near TLTR at 11PM? even the convenience store on sawdust at sawmill gets robbed on a regular basis and i consider it safer than the one at the entrance to TLTR. in fact, i feel safer at a gas station in midtown at 2AM than the convenience store at TLTR.

I believe this is the point the residents are making. If the police cannot even patrol the convenience store at the major insection in TLTR (in fact, even a convenience store in the Woodlands), why should they believe that law enforcement will patrol a park?

I am unaware of a situation where the building of a park, without an increase in police patrols, ever lowered a crime rate. I am aware of numerous un-patrolled parks that have become a gathering place for drunks, drug users and other undesirables. Perhaps you could point out an example of an un-patrolled park that lowered crime.

BTW, your anecdotes amuse me. If only girls would realize that all the safe parties are in the Woodlands.

[bachanon]

i realized while posting that anecdotal experience would be dismissed by you, red (as it should). it has; however, tainted my view of the area.

i concede that unpatrolled parks can be gathering places for shady activity. my point, again, is that it can't be worse than it is. and, it might clean up the neighborhood a bit.

i think that because of TLTR's "fortunate" location (between panther creek, creekside and grogan's mill), any negative side effects of a park connecting these areas will be patrolled by bicycle or horse. if extra enforcement is not in the "master plan", i do not doubt that it will occur from necessity. TLTR has only to GAIN from the park. if they don't like it, increase their neighborhood association fees, fence it off and don't allow any entrances to the park within its (TLTR's) perimeter.

[KatieDidIt]

The police issue around here needs to addressed before the Woodlands, or areas around it, build anymore "attractors."

In fact we are pretty convinced that police can't go west of Kuykendal (sp.) Its like an invisable forcefield. Our favor joke in Sterling Ridge is: The only cops we ever see are the Harris County police cars on their way to work.

Fix the problem, then build the park.

[bachanon]

All I can say is "WOW!" This post is so far beneath your usual quality, Bach, that I'm just going to chalk it up to the fact that you posted at 1:37 a.m. on a Friday night.

consider it misdirected or redirected anxiety.

[PureAuteur]

I live on a park in TW and I see police chases in the woods at times from my back window. That goes with the territory. Also we have people coming in from outside TW all the time to enjoy the park. Therefore, I often have total strangers just behind my fence. I have tightened security at the house to mitigate the apparent higher risk of crime than a normal neighborhood.

Any crime or shady activity that gets mentioned for the Woodlands or areas adjacent to it, I just take with a grain of salt. The area that surrounds that creek/woods has solid demographics for miles and miles. Whatever criminal mischief exists there, I wouldn't be fearful of my life over.

Where is this TLTR place anyways? Is it a new section of the Woodlands or just some neighborhood south of the Woodlands? I remember driving down Sawdust Rd and as it winds around, it leads to a neighborhood that doesn't look like the Woodlands but like something you'd see in north houston: older houses that looked like they've been damaged by floods, possibly lower-middle income. Is that TLTR?

I can't imagine how the convenience store over there gets robbed on a regular basis, but if it does, it has nothing to do with the neighborhood, and everything to do with proximity to I-45. Store robbers know they can quickly get out of town or else drive into Houston proper and elude the law enforcement.

IMO, the problem could be fixed by building a Montgomery County/Harris County police station right around there, in which both jurisdictions share the facilities, and can work together on criminal cases when they need to. North Harris County/South Montgomery County is growing so much, so I think the demographics would support this. This would help to protect those neighborhoods around Spring Creek, and possibly appease the Woodlands residents who worry about lack of police presence.

[bachanon]

in an earlier post, i have a link to a map of the area.

link to post

[bachanon]

update on spring creek greenway project.

link

Aug. 16, 2007, 4:21PM

Montgomery County continues to develop greenway project

Architectural firm will design plans for preserve area

By BETH KUHLES

Chronicle Correspondent

Montgomery County waded further into its Spring Creek Greenway project, hiring an architectural firm to develop a master plan for the Peckinpaugh Preserve and assigning an attorney to handle condemnation cases along the corridor.

Montgomery County is about halfway to its goal of acquiring 6,000 acres along the north side of the creek for the planned 12,000-acre park and trail system that will follow Spring Creek in Montgomery and Harris counties. Montgomery County got the land through donations, tax trusts or purchases.

"We are seeking 6,000 acres on the Montgomery County side," said Robert Collins, special counsel for Montgomery County Precinct 3. "We have about half of that acquired or protected. Slowly, but surely, we are acquiring tracts of land. We have about 100 acres at Riley Fuzzel Road alone."

The largest tract along Riley Fuzzel Road is the Peckinpaugh Preserve, a 25-acre site with a half-mile of frontage along the Spring Creek. The land was donated by Patty Hubbard Peckinpaugh and by the Houston Audubon Society.

Master plan designs

Montgomery County Commissioners Court awarded a contract to Hellmuth, Obata and Kassabaum to do a master plan for a portion of the Peckinpaugh site. That plan is likely to include the county's first nature center, which also would house a community center and a sheriff's department substation, Collins said.

[pineda]

The county hired the law firm of Andrews Kurth to handle right of way acquisitions for the Spring Creek Greenway project.

"We are going to get that land, whether it is through land donation, acquisition or condemnation," Chance said.

Chance said the number of properties that would be targeted have not yet been determined.

niiiice, this comment alone explains all you need to know about Ed Chance, doesn't it?

[KatieDidIt]

Parks are great and everything except when the land is taken. This is very unAmerican and it drives me nuts everytime I hear of a government entity doing this. I guess when they bump the Parkway through to 249 they will take also, because its "needed."

Sounds to me that Chance is truly on the WDC Dole as I have alway suspected.

[bachanon]

A big slice of the natural world soon will be available to residents as the George Mitchell Nature preserve hiking trail prepares to open to the public.

A grand opening and ribbon cutting for the two mile trail located off Flintridge Drive is set for late February.

The trail, designed for many outdoor pursuits including hiking, biking and birdwatching, is part of the 12,000-acre Spring Creek Greenway Project.

It is a joint effort between The Woodlands Development Company, Montgomery County Precinct 3, The Woodlands Association and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Recreational Trails Grant Program.

The partnership oversees the preservation of forest on both sides of the creek.

"On the development side, construction of natural surface trails, bridges, drainage improvements, trailhead parking and signage were added to the preserve," said Bob Bruce, manager of recreation facilities development for The Woodlands Development Co.

According to Robert W. Collins, special council to Precinct 3 Commissioner Ed Chance, the project took several years of planning.

"There will be nature trails in the park," Collins said. "We are working on a trail that heads off of Flintridge Drive and goes to Bedias Lake."

link

[pineda]

Bach-

Everything I've seen says "late February". If you get a more definite date, can you post it here please? Thanks!

[woody_hawkeye]

Montgomery County plans

I am particularly happy about this tri-purpose facility, especially the nature center. I have not been over to Riley Fuzzel Rd park area lately, but it seems about time to give it another visit. I have set out on the creek before in a Kayak and it can be pretty tough going in the summer for lack of navigatable water. Now the water is high but cold to go out there. Much of the creek area is really wild, especially near The Woodlands.

[Mom22Blessings]

Right before my son was born in 08/2000 there was a little boy (2 I think) who wandered down to the creek. I had hiked the area many times with my FIL (it was fun but he has since passed). We live 1/2 mile from Spring Creek. There were so many helicopters flying above our house I called the news channels to see what was going on. I think he was gone for 2-3 days but they found him with his puppy who stayed with him. We actually went out trying to find him and I think the uncle found him by a low lying area of the creek.

It really is remote but I've never seen vagrants or drug dealers back there.