CITY COUNCIL LOOKS AT BRENHAM FAMILY PARK PLAN
The Brenham City Council got a look at the proposed design of the Brenham Family Park during their meeting today (Thursday). The proposed park will be located on 107 acres donated to the city by Ed and Evelyn Kruse in 2013.
City staff, BCDC and the Brenham Parks Advisory Board have been working with Jones-Carter Engineers to develop a plan that would complement the other parks in Brenham and not duplicate them. The proposed park would have longer trails, including bike trails, a 4 acre pond, wildflower areas, a community center, and several multi use fields. The plan proposes that the park be built in three phases, with the northern section completed first. That section would include the 4 acre pond with a wide concrete trail around it, a playground, the community center, and a parking area. The projected cost of phase one is $4.8 million dollars with the total cost of the park estimated at $11 million. Construction of the park is expected stretch over many years. The park will be funded by a combination of BCDC grants, city funds, and other state grants. Construction of the pond is expected to begin in the fall of 2018. It will be used as a detention pond for the private development along the extension of South Chappell Hill Street. Funding for that project has already been set aside by the BCDC and the Kruse family.
Sure would be nice if there was a place in town where our kids could ride their bikes (and us with them, perhaps!), especially since there are no real sidewalks to speak of and they aren’t allowed to ride them at Hohlt or Jackson parks.
City had best find another way to handle traffic in an area overwhelmed by vehicle congestion in four corners. More retail development on Woodway Blvd. will be the icing on the cake, but that is what our city government wants. Christmas weekend needed officer directed traffic at the entrance to HEB area on South Day St. as it was dangerous without it. The north side of Brenham desperately needs retail development. Pray that our new city manager really does manage.
Keep your city self in the city & leave our North side country life alone our great grandparents bought our land & it’s been farmed for generations over & we like it that way.
I bet your great-grandparents worked hard to build a successful and prosperous community, too. Now, if they and all the hardworking folks of their generation had 3 kids per marriage, nobody sold any family farms and the city limits stayed the same, as well as the city height ordinance, then where would all their many great-grandkids live? You looking forward to sharing a house with your eventual great-grandkids and their parents and grandparents?
I’m just trying to say that our forebears worked toward a prosperous community, and this is it. Prosperity = more people, more people = more houses, more houses = more space. So what makes your family farm so special that we should implement a ‘no-development’ buffer around it, while everyone else around town gets crowded?
FYI: Read the news. The city zoning ordinance is no longer being enforced anyways. Blinn has built a five story building in an area that was zoned for only a three story max. Blinn does not have to provide parking like other business owners. Roads are underdeveloped. New neighborhoods do not provide required ten foot side yards on houses. New subdivisions are allowed with seven foot side yards for houses. Mainstreet does not enforce anything downtown with cluttered sidewalks. Handicap people cannot walk down the sidewalks. The newbe’s get to do whatever they want to. The pioneers that built this town have always walked the line. The newbe’s have started the destruction of the small town character. Patsy, you obviously only see the surface and you lack knowledge of how the planners are ruining Brenham heritage. If your not part of the solution, then, you are part of the problem.
Y’all rail against over-development, then against under-development. You want progress, but not at your expense. Don’t y’all see that there is no perfect civilization out there? That by definition, civilization requires compromise, and by definition, compromise requires a cost to both parties? Hardly an administrative decision by the city of Brenham is published here without a crowd of commenters complaining, complaining, complaining. Ask the complainers for solutions, what do you get? Crickets. If you can do a better job, then please go for it.
Time to save mother nature for our children and this is an ideal tract of land for a nature park. Where else can our children and schools find a park that allows for a nature trail with all the live creatures/birds of the wild to roam freely and be viewed. This tract is home to many rare species like otters, beavers and so many more to include deer, raccoons,, frequent bald eagle visits and caracara, bluebirds and so many more. I think TP&W would help with a fishing pond by stocking annually,. Consider what’s on the backs sides as remaining for many years without crowding the park. Once we destroy it with the playing fields and parking lots it will never return, why would we not want to preserve this . May the citizens call for preservation.
Looks nice, but why not open up a road over to 36 so we can bypass all the traffic at the WalMart intersection? Surely that could be done?? But then again the traffic issue was poorly planned from the start.
Parking Parking Parking…..please do not do like Hohlt Park and have little to no parking!!! Plan ahead!!
If you look at the above map the proposed park map Chappell Hill St extension will come out at Kuhn Ln.
Which is basically coming into 36 S.
I do not see that from that map. I had heard that Blue Bell Road is to extend to either Salem Road or FM 109. Any bypass to alleviate the messed up traffic at WalMart would be appreciated.
As well, I do not see any compelling reason to sever a public park into two pieces with a very busy road. Perhaps Jones-Carter could explain why this is necessary?