MoCo Precinct 3 Town Hall Meeting Tonight Will Discuss Road Bond, Townsen Blvd.

4/16/25 – Montgomery County Precinct 3 Commissioner Ritch Wheeler will host a town hall meeting tonight at 6:30 to discuss the 2025 Montgomery County Road Bond including the Townsen Blvd. extension.

One of the proposed projects is the extension of Townsen Boulevard south from the Grand Parkway toward Spring Creek. The Montgomery County long-range transportation plan shows the road eventually crossing Spring Creek and hooking up with Townsen Boulevard in Humble. However, the Townsen proposal on the 2025 MoCo Road Bond would not take it that far at this time.

Location of Town Hall Meeting

The meeting has not been widely publicized. However, Commissioner Wheeler did post this on his Facebook page.

If you have concerns about the Townsen extension, which is part of the Road Bond Election on May 3, tonight may be your best chance to get them answered.

Last month, Montgomery County Precinct 3 listed Townsen as its #1 project.

Normally, developers pay for roads like this. But in this case, taxpayers are being asked to foot the bill. That has many people concerned.

So does the long-range plan that shows the road connecting across Spring Creek to Humble.

But back in 2018, the previous Montgomery County Precinct 3 Commissioner James Noack signed an agreement with Montgomery County Municipal Utility District No. 118 to fund the road improvement costs and reimburse the developer for its road improvement expenditures.

Tables on pages 13 and 14 of the agreement show the $27 million project taking place in four stages. Two of the four tables (Segments 3 and 4) reference placement of fill dirt within jurisdictional floodplains. Segment 4 also references building a bridge crossing to avoid wetlands. Section 2F of the agreement specifies a road completion date of December 31, 2027.

However, before leaving office at the end of 2024, Noack signed an amendment to the agreement extending the completion date to December 31, 2030.

Here are construction plans for the segment currently under construction.

Concerns about Townsen Extension

So far, citizens have raised three main concerns about the Townsen Blvd. extension:

• Traffic
• Crime
• Flooding

Traffic

Residents worry about how an increase in “cut-through” traffic would affect their tranquil lifestyles.

Crime

In a related concern, residents worry that if a Townsen Blvd. bridge ever did go across Spring Creek, it could give easier access to those in the City, who may have less than honorable intent. This is a very affluent area. Many families likely moved there to escape crime.

Flooding

The road will open up vast areas in floodplains to development. And those floodplains are expanding based on data acquired after Hurricane Harvey. But FEMA has not yet released updated flood maps. And even if they do, there is no guarantee that Montgomery County will adopt them.

Nor is there any guarantee that Montgomery County will adopt its new drainage criteria manual and floodplain regulations based on the higher standards anytime soon.

So, flooding could easily damage many of the newer homes and affect the value of existing surrounding homes.

Residents downstream in Kingwood also fear what the floodplain development and increase in impervious cover could do. One highly reputable hydrologist told me that, “It would be like aiming a fire hose at Kingwood.”

Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/16/25

2787 Days since Hurricane Harvey

The thoughts expressed in this post represent opinions on matters of public concern and safety. They are protected by the First Amendment of the US Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.

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