Tomball City Council Dashes Plans For Upcoming David Weekley Homes Community
Tomball City Council has denied a proposal from two Houston-area companies to rezone 70 acres to a single-family home community.
The city council voted unanimously to oppose an ordinance that would have allowed David Weekley Homes and Meta Planning + Design to rezone the plot at FM 2920 and FM 2978 for a development with 200 single-family lots along with commercial space, Community Impact reported.
The community also would have included 1.6 acres of park, a detention area, walkways connecting businesses and highway frontage, new landscaped buffers and fencing, and a new "Welcome to Tomball" sign.
But Tomball was concerned the proposed lot sizes — just under 5K SF each — were too small, and that the area would have been too dense. Tomball has numerous 6K SF lots, Tomball City Council Member Chad Degges said before the vote April 18, according to Community Impact. Dane Dunagin, a member of Tomball's planning and zoning commission, expressed concern that the lots should be even larger.
"I think that putting that many lots in that small of [an] area, we’re going to have overcrowding,” Dunagin said, as reported by Community Impact. “I’m concerned about putting 200 houses right in there behind the retail and what that’s going to cost for us in our [infrastructure].”
David Weekley Homes did not respond immediately to Bisnow's request for comment.
“I’m a little disappointed by the lot size,” Council Member John Ford said. “But we get into this situation where we’re mandating lot size, and for me, that gets into what I’ve known as ‘exclusionary zoning,’ which has its roots in places I don’t even want to go segregation and discrimination. ... I have concerns with this development."
Other concerns included congested traffic and potential aggression from cows at neighboring homes, which would be unused to new, curious residents and might seek to protect calves vigorously.
“In regards to the number of lots, lot sizes and the commercial, the developer has decided to go with the number of lots and the sizes based off of making their numbers work and making this a profitable development,” Daniel Valdez, a representative with Meta Planning + Design, said during the meeting, as reported by Community Impact. “If [the developer] come[s] in with larger lot sizes [and] less commercial, it may not be something that can be economically feasible in this area.”
More homes and schools are already planned for the area as part of Winfrey Estates, a nearby 34-acre upcoming residential community, in a public improvement district.
