HCTRA fulfilling developers' dreams with Grand Parkway
Some Spring residents who are in the path of the proposed Grand Parkway are receiving survey notices from the Harris County Toll Road Authority:
Homes in north Harris County could soon be up for sale without their owners consent. That's because the properties may be in the path of the expanded Grand Parkway, Houston's proposed super loop.
[snip]
"They're ruining the whole landscape of Spring," said Sheryl Badoni, homeowner.
Badoni fears the potential path of the Grand Parkway will take what has been home to her family for seven years. "They're supposed to take our whole property, come right though our house and right through our property," she said.
Badoni and several of her neighbors are upset about the letters from the Harris County Toll Road Authority, requesting permission to survey their property.
"It says they want to conduct a survey for the acquisition of right-of-way and design of the Grand Parkway," Badoni said as she read part of the letter.
But the Grand Parkway Association said the final decision on where the road will go has not been made.
"If I can find a route that doesn't take anybody's home, that doesn't take any wetlands, that's the route I'm going to pick," said Robin Sterry, Grand Parkway Association. "I don't like having impacts if I can avoid them."
"I think we can't believe a word they say," said Badoni.
With state Sen. Jon Lindsay pushing the project and the HCTRA trying to take it over from TxDOT, residents have good reason not to trust what the Grand Parkway Association says. Also, Lindsay has introduced a bill that would appear to allow the HCTRA (which has the power to build at will) to build this segment of the Grand Parkway and then transfer it back to the state when completed. Follow this link to read commenter Bill F's interpretation of Lindsay's bill.
(Billy Burge is the president of the Grand Parkway Association and his over-the-top performance the other day doesn't give me any confidence that he'll be looking out for the best interests of Spring residents.)
The Grand Parkway Association said some subdivisions didn't exist when the project first started. And that's why many homeowners in those areas said they want the Grand Parkway moved a lot farther north, where there are fewer people to impact.
Proponents of the Grand Parkway like to say that the road was proposed back in the 1960's. What they fail to add is that the plan was basically dropped until a group of developers revived it in the 1980's, as a Chronicle story from last year describes:
The concept for the parkway route has been around for 40 years. In the early 1960s, planners envisioned an expressway extending from the southwest corner of Loop 610 all the way to Matagorda County. The huge South Post Oak off-ramps that cross Brays Bayou stand as testament to that plan.
It was never realized. The state, with money tight, had bigger freeway priorities. Planners anticipated resident opposition to an alignment slightly west of South Post Oak through Westbury.
The issue was dead until the early 1980s, when a different set of landowners in a different part of town came up with a master stroke.
West Houston interests convinced the state to allow them to assemble and donate land for the state to build a highway - in this case, the Grand Parkway - and pump up the value of their property. The state would get a route it wanted anyway, but much more quickly and without any right-of-way costs.
Not one to beat around the bush, future Houston Mayor Bob Lanier said "avarice and greed" were the most natural and effective ways to get the project done. When he said it, he was chairman of the state highway commission and a landowner on the proposed route.
So when Commissioner Jerry Eversole says the Grand Parkway "has nothing to do with selling homes or building shopping centers," I respectfully have to reply that he's full of you-know-what.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 04/12/05 04:57 PM | Print | Comments (6)
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