2 New Communities Near I-45 & Cypresswood

[Guest danax]

Bizjournal article

[UrbaNerd]

This isn't infill. This is SPRAWL.

[HtownKid]

Sounds Nice any Pics or Real Estate Listing??

[Guest danax]

Sounds Nice any Pics or Real Estate Listing??

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Here a link to one of them, Lakes of Cypress Forest

[rps324]

This isn't infill.  This is SPRAWL.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Actually, not really. it is land that up until now has been skipped over in favor of building out in places like FM 1488. Now that is SPPPPPPRAWL! The remaining tracts south of Louetta, such as this, are hardly countryside anymore. (or little more than islands of countryside) The few spots left such as this sit among 30+ year old subdivisions like Enchanted Oaks, Cypresswood, and Candlelight Hills. I would rather see them fill these in in lieu of pressing farther north of Spring Cypress Road.

[Custom Home Cablers]

Sounds like it might be a nice develpoment.

Are any of you working on or for any of the new home buyers?

John

[houstonsemipro]

Some of y'all folks need to change y'all vocabulary, and stop talking about sprawl. Is that the only word y'all know is sprawl? Wake up! It's 2005. Sprawl is everywhere, in every city. Get use to it, or go live in New Zealand, or Alaska somewhere.

[kjb434]

good point houstonemipro

[pineda]

One interesting note about this development: The neighborhood just across the creek is Enchanted Oaks. Once upon a time, there were beautiful homes lining the creek, complete with big backyard pools. Turns out the creek couldn't hold the water in its banks years later, and flooded out those homes. The HCFCD came in and bought out those homes and bulldozed the whole area and filled in all the pools, too. Jerry Eversole thought maybe a "linear park" would be nice there, but nothing ever came of it. Then a few years ago, the bulldozers showed up on the other side of the creek, working night and day, seven days a week sometimes until midnight. Down came all the trees (of course) and then came the dumptrucks, for months bringing load after load after load of dirt. Now, the people who lived in Enchanted Oaks could stand at the end of their streets and look across the creek and see a 7-8' mountain of dirt instead of trees and wonder if the creek will again come out of its' banks up toward their homes. The developers of the new subdivision said they had to build it up so high because of HCFCD regs., but that doesn't make the old-timers and young families living in the Enchanted Oaks area feel any better. The MUD district annexed the land and told the residents that they should feel happy that this developer will have expensive new homes going in and that for a while the MUD would need to help develop the detention ponds with the developer, but that it was all part of the same MUD. Course the people living in E.O. wouldn't be able to use any of these facilities once done, because the new subdivision will be GATED. So they wait and watch and wonder why they don't feel so lucky..........

[kjb434]

Yes, this is the plight of older homes along bayou banks. These homes are probably located in a place the will flood regardless of what happend during a 100-year storm. Just like many old home along White Oak Bayou and many streams in Harris County.

As for the fill on the property across the creek, if the fill was placed on land that was in the 100-year floodplain, the developer must provide what is called mitigated or compensation storage, if they don't the project could be killed. The compensation storage is to provide the same floodplain storage that was taken out by placing the fill. The county is extremely strict with these rules because of the ramifications and possible lawsuits if they are not followed. Detention and floodplain issues are one that developers cannot influence Harris County and HCFCD.

As for Eversole, he has very little input on this and all he can say is that if they followed the rules he can't do any thing, which is true.

I think citizens need to start learning more of the internals of the County government since the commissioners are not group who can handle these issues because they control such large areas. The Harris County Permits office handles floodplain issues. HCFCD assists in plan review and the tecnical side. Raymond Anderson is the person to contact and Shannon Watson assists him in approvals. They would be the people to check with to get help and direction. If they tell you to talk to the commissioner, use the line that the commissioner has refered you to the permit office.

If you are in the City limits of Houston are any other city in Harris County, you have to talk to their offices that deal with floodplain issues.

The City Houston's office is located in Midtown at the Code Enforcement building. I think the floodplain adminstrator's first name is Victor. He approves all fill placement within the city limits.

[DJ V Lawrence]

This isn't infill.  This is SPRAWL.

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Damn! If this project's "sprawl", then sprawl may be better than I thought

[kjb434]

^LOL^

I think that is the consensus of many citizens in this area. Every goes on about how bad sprawl is yet it really isn't that bad. Many people like living out there. No urban hell to deal with. I think many people thing that the suburbs are hell and urban life is wonderful. Couldn't the opposite statement be true? I live by TC Jester and I-10 in a newly built patio home. While I live close into the city, I don't consider myself to be in the urban area. I feel just like I would be out in the suburbs. I just have a smaller yard because I don't want one and my house is configured differnetly than suburbia houses. I think these suburbs are every bit as urban as where I live.

Urban to me would be a location where many people are located and live there lives. The difference being mostly in density between what is in town versus on the edge of town. Uptown and downtow are dense. Spring, Woodlands, and Sugarland are not as dense; but they are all urban. I don't consider these places to be suburbs. If you live further out from these places, then you are living in a surburban area: like Rosenberg, Brooksire, Conroe, or east side of Baytown.

[pineda]

Thanks kjb for your helpful comments.

A question for you now:

If the homes in Enchanted Oaks that are there now and have been there for 30-odd years, and have never flooded, suddenly flood after this development is built out, do they have justified recourse in saying that this new development caused this flooding problem? Just wondering....

[kjb434]

Its hard to say. If the new development followed all the rules, the recourse is little other than complaints.

If Enchanted Oaks were built prior to the FEMA National Flood Insurance Program, then they have no recourse. They were probably built in the floodplain withouth knowing it back then. If they flood in the future, I think they would be good candidates for a buyout.

Enchanted Oaks may be a victim of a lack of knowledge at the time they were built. Back then, we didn't know as much as we know now about the streams in Harris County. Cypress Creek particularly was surrounded by tons of development before detention policies were in place in 1984. Now all the negative effects of not controlling storm water runoff are felt and especially by older neighborhoods. HCFCD has addressed this issue through regional detention and will continue to do this. Also, Cypress Creek like Spring Creek is known by Houstonians for its natural condition. Its not an improved channel in most parts. Flood control wants to avoid having to do this because of the objections from the residents along the creek. Regional detention is good method to deal with this. The larger buyout locations are where HCFCD will potentially place regional facilities to help in flooding. Most regional facility just appear to be large grass lined holes in the ground adjacent to the main channel. White Oak Bayou has a lot of these and Art Storey Park on Brays Bayou is another example. Cypress Creek has some old regional facilites, and several new ones are being planned an implented.

Hopefull the new facilites can handle the 100-year and 25-year events. The 25-year event is not much different than the 100-year. If not, most of the minor floodings would be handled.

[pineda]

If the new development followed all the rules, the recourse is little other than complaints.

I thought I heard Richard Alderman ("The People's Lawyer") address this same question recently, but he said that if the new development causes any of the neighboring older homes to flood, that had heretofore never flooded, that the developer of the new area would have to re-do his drainage system because you're not allowed to flood your neighbors out, even though you followed all the rules so that your own newer neighborhood wouldn't flood.

[kjb434]

What would happen is a lawsuit will occur going after the Engineer and Developer. The government entities have the rules set up so the blame all falls away from them. Engineer and Developer would probably lose the case because very few juries will side with the facts and will side with the homeowners. It may go to arbitration before court though.

Richard's statement would only work if the flooded houses were not in the floodplain to begin with. If the house is in the floodplain, they would have to perform some engineering calcs which can easily be shot full of holes to prove their point. Hydrologic and Hydraulic engineering when dealling with rainfall, flooding, and channel conveyance is not by any means an exact science. Many parts of the calculations are based on estimations. Government entities try to set some standards to unify the estimations, but there is only so much they can do. Engineers would ask for variances to change some of the estimations because they believe their number is more correct. This is also why it is hard to win court cases with this stuff. An opposing attorney can manipulate the calcs to say what he/she wants. This is why Harris County and many surrounding couties and municipalities set up there rules that the burden falls on the engineers and not the government body. This hopefully will encourage the engineer to design with a conservative approach to hopefull not get sued or lose their liscense.

I think Richard's statement also applies to local drainage and not stream flow. If houses in Enchanted forest would flood after the new development put in across the Creek, the new developer could easily point to many other developments upstream and downstream that could possibly affect flooding.

I hope this doesn't put you down too much, but its the reality. Some cities like Austin get into every detail of the designs engineers do. This puts the city of Austin in a precarious position because they say the approve of the designs in ful without trusting the engineers. Austin can get sued left and right because the engineer can claim that the city completely reviewed and approved everything. Local agencies in and around Houston trust the engineer and put the burden on the engineers.

[pineda]

If houses in Enchanted forest would flood after the new development put in across the Creek, the new developer could easily point to many other developments upstream and downstream that could possibly affect flooding.

Interesting point there!

So, even if the homes that have been there 30 years have never flooded, and then they start to not long after this adjacent project gets build out, that the developer of the project can claim that other projects perhaps miles up or downstream may be responsible but not necessarily him? That is amazing...

Perhaps the MUD of Enchanted Oaks should spend some of their excess cash on conducting their own pre-emptive hydrological studies now to use as ammo when and/or if this scenario ever becomes reality. Thanks, kjb!

[Guest danax]

Here's another new subdivision planned right nearby on the old Strack Farm land settled in the 1840s. The Cypresswood area is going crazy.

[The Great Hizzy!]

Louetta Road is being built up out the wazoo. From SH249 to I45. Lots of new subdivisions under constrution already or will soon be under construction. Harris County needs to be proactive and redo Louetta. It's designed to house medium heavy traffic in a rural setting. Traffic is much heavier now and the landscape looks more like FM 1960 than anything. It needs to have better drainage, sidewalks and a working median. Probably could stand to be three lanes in either direction as well.