Brittany Bay Extension News Center:
Upcoming Friendswood Meetings
Regarding Brittany Bay:
- City Council Meeting (9/10/07, 7pm, @ City Hall)
Item 10
on meeting Agenda -
Consideration and possible action regarding ratifying and
confirming Resolution R2007-28, a Resolution of the City of
Friendswood supporting the recommended Alternate Route 1 for the
location of Brittany Bay Boulevard in the City of Friendswood
from the League City, city limits to the intersection with FM
528.
Press Releases & Additional Information regarding the Brittany
Bay proposed extension:
Brittany Bay Extension
Background & Current Info:
9/6/07 Update:
A discussion was held at the 8/29/07 WTHOA Board meeting regarding the Brittney Bay Road and potential
tie-in to Castlewood. The board unanimously is against Britney Bay
tying in to Castlewood and discussed ways to prevent this from
occurring. The board agreed to follow-up on the City of
Friendswood’s mayor proposal to deed over the land where Castlewood
extends past Applewood. The HOA could then remove this portion of
the street and extend the Applewood Park in an effort to prevent a
future road tie in. Lisa Norwood (WTHOA Vice President) will contact the mayor and express
the boards desire to accept his proposal.
4/13/06 Update:
During the City Council Meeting on 4/3/2006, Chris Peden made a
motion in support of calling a non-binding referendum regarding the
expansion of Brittany Bay Blvd. The proposition was that
this referendum be added to the ballot for the May 13th elections.
The proposition failed since no other City Council Member seconded
the motion. Many citizens also opposed the referendum, since
they felt more information was needed to make an educated vote on
the topic, and that the wording of the referendum would be
critical.
3/27/06 Update:
A Public Meeting was held on 3/27/06 to allow citizens in
affected neighborhoods to express their concerns with the
proposed Brittany Bay Extension. Some of the concerns/comments
included:
- Concern over increased crime if the thoroughfare is built,
since it would produce more through-traffic and easy in/out
access for criminals. Friendswood Chief of Police, Bob
Weiners, agreed that the increased through-traffic could pose an
increased threat to security, but assured everyone that they
have plans to control any increased activity associated with the
expansion.
- Concern over who (if anyone) will actually benefit from the
extension of Brittany Bay Boulevard. Many citizens
present felt that the extension of Brittany Bay would primarily
benefit commuters from League City and Alvin, but was not of
sufficient benefit to Friendswood citizens to warrant the
potential increased risks to security and loss of personal
property.
- Concern was also expressed over whether the proposed routes
would even pass the Preliminary Engineering/Environmental
Analysis (PE/EA), since portions of the land that will be used
for the proposed routes was previously oil fields that are
contaminated and can not be used for residential or commercial
purposes where people or animals could dwell.
- Some citizens questioned why these routes are re-surfacing
now, after they thought the decision to go with the purple route
was made back in 1998 at the recommendation of the advisory
committee. The reason given was that the addition of the
retention ponds near 2351 forced a re-design of the proposed
route.
- Many citizens were frustrated by the length of time (and
amount of money spent during that time) the proposed routes have
been under evaluation, and yet no decisions have been made.
They were also frustrated that the city didn't inform them
sooner about the proposed routes, especially those whose
property would be impacted directly. Many people
noted that the proposed road was not disclosed to them when they
purchased their home in the area.
- Recommendations were made to look for alternate options:
-
Grand Parkway (assuming that northernmost option is
selected, could be an alternate route for those that would
use Brittany Bay - feasibility of this would have to be
researched, and Grand Parkway could very likely impact many
more people than Brittany Bay).
- Hwy 35 (proposed expansion would make it larger, and
people could use that as alternate route to Brittany Bay
between 528 and 2351)
- End Brittany Bay extension at 528 and resume it at 2351.
(this would avoid impact to people between 528 and 2351, but
may cause traffic issues on Sunset, 518 and other roads in
the future).
- Don't build Brittany Bay Extension, and use funding allotted for project to rebuild/rejuvenate empty
commercial properties along 518 and other areas in
Friendswood instead. Citizens noted that there
are MANY abandoned buildings in Friendswood, so if more
commercial business is needed, why not provide incentives
for using existing commercial property, rather than forcing
new construction?
- A few citizens also stated that they would rather pay
higher taxes and deal with increased traffic than to have to
sacrifice their sense of security.
Council Members Laura Ewing, John LeCour, Tracy Goza,
and David Smith were present at the meeting. Each member
said they wanted to minimize impact to citizens, but were still in
the "data gathering" mode to determine whether the road was needed,
and if so, which route would be best for all citizens.
Laura Ewing stated that she personally would not vote for the red
route. John Lecour stated that he ran on a platform of
family values and was opposed to building any route. Three
candidates for city council (Jim Hill, Jay Horecky, and Mike Sharp) were also present at the meeting. Dan Johnson said he plans to speak to TxDOT this
week regarding the possibility of ending the Brittany Bay extension
at 528 and resuming it at 2351.
This will obviously be a hot topic for upcoming city elections,
so there will likely be more city council and public meetings on the
proposed Brittany Bay Extension in the near future - so stay tuned!
3/20/06 Update:
The cities of League City and Friendswood, in conjunction
with the Houston District of the Texas Department of
Transportation (TxDOT), are considering the proposed extension
of Brittany Bay Boulevard from Algoa-Friendswood Road to
FM2351, a distance of approximately 4 miles.
There are currently 4 options on the table: (see map below for
approximations of proposed routes)
- Red route
- Yellow route
- Purple route
- Do Nothing (don't extend Brittany Bay Blvd.)
- Extend Pearland Parkway to 2351 and Brittany Bay Blvd to
528, but don't connect them (no extension between 528 and 2351)
- This may not be an option, but the idea was tossed around at
the 3/20/06 City Council Special Session, and the Mayor has
requested that inquiries be made to TXDoT to see if this is a
viable option.
To see an enlarged
diagram of the proposed
"yellow" and "red" route options please
click here.
The current
Friendswood Major Thoroughfare Plan has a route somewhere
between the "purple" and "red" routes shown on the map presented in
the February 20, 2006 City Council Presentation (shown above).
The original purple route had to be modified slightly since
retention ponds are now in areas that the route was supposed to pass
through. The Friendswood Major Thoroughfare Plan also shows the extension of
Wilderness Trail Drive and
Falling Leaf to intersect with
proposed Brittany Bay extension.
Each of the options above have their pros and cons. A
presentation was given at the 3/20/06 City Council Special
Session describing these pros and cons. The City Council has
repeatedly stated that they intend to do all in their power to
minimize or eliminate the displacement of homes with this project;
however, each option will likely impact homeowners in the area to
some degree. The long term affects of traffic flow in
Friendswood must also be considered, as Friendswood, League City and
Pearland continue to grow, so will the traffic.
During the 3/20/06 Council Meeting, Mayor Pro-Tem, David Smith,
proposed that the yellow and red routes be removed from
consideration to help ease concerns of those affected by these
routes. However, it will take approximately 7 months for the
Preliminary Engineering/Environmental Assessment (PE/EA) to be
completed to determine if the purple route is a viable option.
After a preferred route is assessed, it could be 4 years or more
before construction on the chosen route would commence.
During the 3/20/06 City Council Meeting, City Council Member,
Chris Peden, proposed that a non-binding public vote be held during
the next election for governor, to get input from Friendswood
citizens to see if they felt the Brittany Bay extension is even
needed at all.
Further investigation of these options was requested, as well as
a follow-on special session with homeowners in the affected
neighborhoods. However, no dates have been specified yet.
If you would like to receive e-mail notifications regarding the
Brittany Bay Extension Proposal, please
e-mail us, and we'll add you to our distribution list.
Please note that we are not an "official"
source of this information, but we know this is a relevant
topic to everyone in the neighborhood, and want to pass along any
information we receive. Also, if you have any additional
information, on this topic and would like to share it, please e-mail
the information to
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