woody_hawkeye

Is this a concept used elsewhere? I would not like to see a little used museum in The Woodlands. I think all of this is coming from the Pavillion model which has been somewhat successful, or maybe more than is evident from a financial viewpoint.

It is the new section just purchased by TWD. On another note, the parkway will add a totally new dimension to the accessability into TW, especially Creekside. I see a four way lane Gosling all the way to the parkway. From 2920, I doubt there will be four lanes, but possibily further in the future. Regionally, I rather certain the developers are considering the parkway as an assumption rather than a maybe. I am plooking forward to the new park and YMCA in Creekside. The YMCA should provide aa third Y for residents of TW but I am unsure the Y will couple it to the other two as a third option, like they have done in Montgomery. I hope they do. In the meantime, someone needs to get on the stick in planning 2978. The county line will present several issues and possibly inconviniences to TW residents, imposed by county jurisdictional differences.

I agree with this. The TAKS test is purely a paper and pencil exercise. How can a "test" define the quality of education? It seems like parental and teacher feedback are just as important. To get parental feedback, the parent must be involved. I really do not know how to measure the quality of education and I bet there is major alignment on this with subject professionals.

That is an incorrect statement also. There are white latinos here in TW. I would say most have some brown pigmentation however. You cannot tell a latino by the color of the skin.

Very not true. Here is the story. There are many Italians, Germans and other people of European descent in South America, more so than Mexico. Some even have green or blue eyes. Most seem to live in mountainous areas. As far as the population goes, there are many immigrants from South America. Language? Highly educated Latinos speak very good Spanish. If you know the accent, you can determine origin, not how well they speak the Spanish language. I c an understand Argentina Spanish better than most as a European language but they have an accent and pronounce some words quite differently. Well educated Mexicans will pronounce the language as Europeans because their education is typically private.

If you get no reply, I will send the info to you assuming you have good reason for the info. I do not want to post it.

There is a master plan which designates where the properties are, the classification of each, how the overall community interconnects and the vision of the community from the perspective of visitors. Details are dependent on who purchases the properties and what specific purpose. For example, the walkways may be customized for the business. Any development on any given property is limited by development covenants. Soi the answer is short term for specific projects but long term for the way the property will be used and how it fits into the community. Hope this helps a little.

The Woodlands has a strategy to discreetly embed commercial centers within the community. This works well if the entire center is not stripped of trees, like has been done with the area being discussed here. The developer will put trees in after the construction has been compeleted, but he began with a natural plot of land that had many trees on it. Additionally there are plots designated for multiple use, such as gas stations, day care centers, fast food places, etc. The strip centers are more welcome to the community than the multi-use plots. The centers are well planned where the multi-use plots tend to bring the residents unwanted surprises. But to stay on the topic, the natural foods place is very welcome. We looked at the effect of night movement of stock and other potentially annoying operational practices that might affect nearby neighbors since the housing areas existed prior to the development of this store and its sister stores.

Nice summary of things to come. I am personally looking forward to the Asian Gardens. There are also bars coming in Town Square. They will "adulterize" the amenities as a whole, but actually put more night life into the area, which is a good thing, if the drivers here will clean up their act. I think they are on tap for late 2007. Sort of a local Main Street concept. I do not recall when we can expect the new fine arts facilities to be built.

Looks like Shallow Pond

All this seems a bunch of Hullabaloo to me. I have lived in the midst of it for 8 years and there is nothing even resembling discrimination around here. The p;opulation exhibits a high tolerance for ethnic and cultural diversity. I seem to have every kind of neighbor there is, and no one talks about each other in any such way. Of course I do not encourage it either.

Mr Mitchell's perspective is no longer relevant. I sincerely appreciate him and honor him on the past but he is not engaged in current affairs. TW is very set on establishing self government. It has been clear for the past year that Houston does not want to get caught up ifinancially and expend the effort to focus on a far suburb. They city has been quite successful in urban renewal and needs to keep its focus there. The city will continue to grow internally with physical modernization and financially improve as it evolves in this renewal. It is imperative that the city consider water and transportation as strategic issues, including an effort to contain the cost of transportation in the city and continously improve upon pollution within its jurisdiction. There have been excellent progress towards forestation along the freeways. A lot more work needs to be put into that general effort. Regional transportation will continue to be an issue and all regional municipalitets take an equal responsibility to make people mobile, yet provide means for cost effecitve local transportation as the cost of vehicle operation continues to rise and ownership becomes more prohibitive in the future. The Woodlands grew over the years and has struggled with ETJ and school fragmentation. With that, the community has accomplished quite a bit in consoldatring school jurisdiction but cannot consolidate it all. CSD will continue to be the primary school system. TW would like to have total consolidation of the ETJ but unfortunately, George did not deal with the entire territorial issue.

Point of view from a Woodlands Resident: 1. The Woodlands is not a culture of rish people as some have stated and believe. There is subsidized housing, apartments, small homes, as well as a few million dollar homes. The Woodlands is in fact a planned community., not a white flight suburb. 2. I live in The Woodlands because it is a nice place to live. The planning is not hodge podge as is Houston. 3. Proximity to Houston? Nice but not a requirement. We spend money in Houston at concerts and other cultural events, in the malls and many other places. Again, not a necessity and not part of the reaosn we live here. I do not work in Houston. I work here. 4. Culture amenties are coming here. Maybe we will be independent in that aspect as well. Of course, Houston residents will be welcome also, but the idea is not to draw away from those of the big city, but to make some alternatives available to far northern residents. Gasoline costs are great these days. We like to be able to have our own close by. Montgomery residents north of The Woodlands are likely to be coming to events, similarly as The Woodlands Pavillion. 5. Water is a major concern in the outlying areas of Houston. Houston seems to manage water very well. Again, we perceive the need to develop self-reliance on a water system. That is needed for the norther areas, especially in Montgomery county. Part of our planning is to develop a source of water for the future. This signed agreement may not be sufficient for us, but it is a starting point. 6. The agrement for the ETJ was an insurance policy for continued development without annexation threats AND to preserve a general area strategy needed to manage flight to the suburbs. Since that has reversed and urban renewal has caused a large shift in the decay of the intter city, the need to thwart flight by annexation has gone away. Now the emphasis is to self govern and thereby self determination. 7. The tax base is at risk for any annexation plan. The Woodlands Town Center is already a tax district and offers less than other areas for tax benefits through city annexation. We are going to tax ourselves anyway to provide for police and other services uniquely required for our area. The number of policing units, the coverage and many other aspects of community services have evolved over the years into an exceptional model for other communities. 8. We see ourselves as inhabitants of the forest. We have a strong interest and are key stakeholders in some of the projects we will help fund, such as the creek park project. There is much work to do to improve upon what we have. There are many reasons including the above, driving us toward self governance. It will cost but we believe in the end, our commnity will remain one of the most outstanding places to live in an urban area. The Woodlands will only get better if we are able to manage it sourselves. We do not want to risk putting it in the hands of those have other agendas. The mayor has told us that the city looks forward to seeing us govern ourselves. That way, the city can concentrate on their own very different issues. Politically, it would not be good for either side to see a battle and the chaos imposed on our community like that of the other communities that have failed in the past. That is especially true in todays business and political environment. Finally, The Woodlands has chosen to manage the effort rather than be political about it. We hired a project management contultant company tostudyand lead through modern project management practices to determine the best alternatives for our future. We did not go into this with a bullish view against the city of Houston. The ideas and respnses of the citizens here were catalogued and considered as well as looking at best practices and modern views of government. We have a long way to go yet but the first steps have been taken.

Cool million for a 2000 sq ft home. Puts the term "high rise" in a different light.

I am glad this got posted here. I do not know why they chose to go out to I59. Why not I45?

The new ltraffic light at Gosling and Flintridge will add another variable to the equation. There will be spurts of traffic in rush hours to the intersection with Woodlands Parkway. Since the priority is given to the traffic on TW Pkwy, I can see some major issues evolving on Gosling at TW Pkwy. The idea on TW Pkwy is of course to move the traffic at the speed limit through the lights without stopping. That works a lot of the itme but in rush hour, the traffic on Gosling cannot move on. I am guessing that eventually, only "through" traffic on Gosling will prevail and neighborhood traffic will go elsewhere. I fear the Expressway concept because of the proximity of the parkway to homes. It was not part of the design and retrofitting would not only be be extremely expensive, it would ruin The Woodlands as a community. Sound barriers would be essential if it eventually does become an expressway. If more overpasses were contructed, we would have more tire noise from higher speed traffic at higher levels, so the noise would increase and affect a larger area. Since the parkway is considered a regional traffic artery, it has come to bear a higher load than designed. The new regional freeway is intended to provide a better means of moving traffic in the northern part of Harris county, providing an east-west artery for a large volume of traffic. Although some progress is noted in some sections, that remains a project out there somewhere, so there is pressure to add lanes and provide more throughput on TW Pkwy in peak hours.

TXdot has done some pretty commendable things in the last 2-3 years. The problem with city ordinances is that they are for cities, not for an ETJ. So the developers clear the forests and then the cities come in behind to annex the remaining concrete,plastic and wood. Not a great planning model.

This is true. A new super Walmart is planned in the same general area, but closer to the Park and Ride. I am not sure exactly where., but they will not be bulding in the boonies.

I have a feeling it would be less expensive than buying a car and maintaining it. My kids could go there without depending on me for their transportation. My daughter could go to work via a village van. I can think of a gillion uses.

Mark, you are so right about tweeking. We have to be careful not to over design our future. Get it somewhat right but get it as right as can be in the time alloted. Then tweek. In regard to taxing, I heard the people generally say that cost was not a problem. The issue I saw was the lack of lower income families. They had to work on Saturday. Bad timing for many people who we need represented there. Statistics shown at the forum tried to convey a good mix, but I saw nothing about income levels of those attending. Who has time to go on a Saturday morning anyway? I am very uncomfortable with the representation at those meetings.

Certainly it would be a matter of agreement. We do have a county annex office here. Why not a city annex office? In my estimation, being annexed would not be such a bad thing. However, I will support the commuity if it wishes to take such an action as incorporation. So far, I believe the community wants not to be annexed.

Flintridge in The Woodlands was part of the master plan, designed to move traffic from Gosling to Kuykendahl and give access to many homes. Part of the road was not needed for many years. A stop sign was placed on Rush Haven, even though Flintridge dead ended and there was no traffic coming from the west. All traffic flowed to Rush Haven from Flintridge. Therefore, the county took possession of the traffic design and put it into operation. For many years each automobile was expected to stop at that sign on Rush Haven, even though no traffic flowed past the intersection. Then came the extension, also in the master plan. Flintridge became a through street. On the west side of the extension was the remainder of the road built a couple of years before the extennsion. One street has a three way stop sign with very little traffic. That was turned over to the county in that state as part of the mast plan. Today, it is obvious that the traffic volume at Rush Haven is higher than the other intersections on Fllntridge, yet the county will not place additional stop signs on Flintridge for Rush Haven. All of this is because of the rules the county follows on changing a design. The measured traffic volume for all designed intersections must meet certain state standards before any changes can be made. It is equally difficult to remove stop signs at low volume locations as it is to add signs at the higher traffic volume intersections. Therefore we live with the original design even though the assumptions of traffic volumes were apparently in error. Design means everything! If the intersection met the state traffic volume requirements, they would put up the signs. So with insufficient number of measured automobiles, the county will stick to their decision to not place additional controls on Flintridge traffic. Removing signs is dangerous I suppose, but the exact explanation for the low volume traffic signs has never been brought forward. So today I can travel down Flintridge while autos are waiting for me to pass on Rush Haven while I always stop for non-existant traffic at the other intersections. And as one would expect, the accidents occur at Rush Haven. I hope this explanation makes sense, although I know the real sense of it is questionable.

I only recall the big fight with Houston all the way to the Texas Supreme court. Then the terrible transition to the city, like with 911 services. I would like to see the a current state and compare that with our current state and their previous state. Fighting Houston is certainly not the right answer. Legislative action was attempted I believe, with no results.