Preserve At Woodridge Claims No Flood Zone; Shades of LJA?

The Preserve at Woodridge is a novel single-family home rental development going in off Woodridge Parkway between St. Martha Church and Kingwood Park High School. As with Woodridge Village, on the other side of the high school, the developer claimed the property was in no known flood zone. However, flood zones in this portion of Montgomery County are still unmapped.

A major drainage ditch along one side of the development joins Bens Branch about a block south of this development and floods Northpark Drive annually. I owned property on the other side of that ditch for 20 years and can attest to frequent flooding.

LJA Parallel?

LJA, the engineer for Woodridge Village a block east also claimed “no floodplains.” That claim turned out to be tragically wrong. There were flood plains. They just hadn’t been mapped. Hundreds of homeowners next to Woodridge Village in Elm Grove, North Kingwood Forest, Sherwood Trails and Porter flooded twice in May and September of 2019. They wound up suing Perry Homes, its subsidiaries and contractors, including LJA. Those cases recently settled.

The area immediately south of the Preserve at Woodridge includes approximately 40 businesses along Northpark Drive, the high school, St. Martha’s school, two churches, and dozens of homes in North Woodland Hills.

Let’s hope the engineers got this one right. Claiming “no floodplains” when the area has not been mapped for floodplains does not inspire confidence. How do they know for sure? Floodwaters do not respect political boundaries. As you can see in the map above, there’s no shortage of floodplains a few hundred feet south. But that’s not the only worry.

Rental Homes As Small as Studio Apartments

Guefen, the developer says it plans to build 131 homes on the 17 acres you see below. But the detention pond takes up five acres. That makes about 11 homes per acre of usable land with about 5 feet between many homes. You can see how close they are in the photo below.

In case of an emergency, that firetruck may be parking 250 feet away from some homes. That’s almost the length of a football field.

According to RentCafe.com, the average size of an apartment in Houston is 881 square feet. These detached rental homes will range in size from 668 square feet to 1,255 square feet. At the low end of that range, the square footage is about that of most studio apartments. For those of you who have never lived in one, a studio apartment has one big common area that triples as a living room, bedroom, and kitchen. Only the bathroom has walls.

Posted by Bob Rehak on 1/3/22

1588 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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