TOWN HALL THURSDAY FOR BRENHAM FAMILY PARK SMALL AREA PLAN
Brenham residents are invited tonight (Thursday) to learn more about the Brenham Family Park small area plan.
A town hall will be held from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the ballroom of The Barnhill Center.
The come-and-go event will feature a short presentation at 6 p.m. and visual boards to show options that have been created for the over 600 acres of mostly vacant land around the new Brenham Family Park. It will also have results from a recent online survey about the small area plan on display.
The city entered into a professional services agreement with Kendig Keast Collaborative in March to produce the plan. The study area is generally bounded by the Brenham Business Center to the east, Highway 290 to the north, the State Supported Living Center to the south and Highway 36 to the west.
While the Brenham Family Park covers approximately 110 acres of the site, the small area plan does not include any potential commercial or residential development within the park itself, as it will be a passive family park. The city hopes to use the plan to provide a consensus as to how the non-park acreage could be used when potential developers begin looking into land within the plan area.
What is considered affordable housing. I make around $44,000.00 a year. No way can I afford a new “affordable” home in any of the new subdivisions coming up.
What about a “city” pool?? The aquatic center is nice if your kids are under 10. But what about the older kids? I love to swim myself but do not because I am always having to share a lane.
How much input is from residents and actual property owners of Brenham who actually pay property taxes? Sounds like all the spectacular concepts are from county residents maybe even out of county residents that don’t have to foot the All of the burden of the cost. Not just the cost of design, of these meetings, of the construction but also the never ending perpetual maintenance cost and police law enforcement cost at the park. I want to see the city council, the city mayor, the city manager, the city planner; need answers and each of them respond to this. Oh yea, Mr. spectator, let us know why the city can spend money on this park instead of street maintenance?
The City of Brenham’s share of the 8.25 cent local sales tax is 1.5 cents. When local voters approved an additional 3/8 cent local sales tax many years ago, it only passed because the City agreed to spend 65% of that money on community recreation projects. The remaining 35% goes to economic development. While 3/8 of a cent doesn’t sound like much, it quickly adds up when sales are in the millions of dollars. Because 65% of this additional tax money must be spent on parks and recreation, it cannot be used to improve our streets.
MY ONLY COMPLAINT IS WITH LOWER INCOME HOUSING, THE RESIDENTS DO NOT KEEP THE PROPERTY CLEAN. I DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT WITH MOST OF THE LOW INCOME HOUSES IN BRENHAM, THERE ARE TRASHED UP.. THANK GOODNESS FOR OUR ORDINANCE CODE INFORCER THAT IS MAKING HIS ROUNDS IN BRENHAM TO GET RESIDENTS TO CLEAN UP THERE PROPERTY, AND AT THAT RESIDENT COMPLAINS ABOUT HIM DOING SO…….AND THAT MAKES ME MAD……..CLEAN UP YOUR PROPERTY. HOW CAN RESIDENTS LIVE IN JUNK AND TRASH……………………
I think you have a misconception of your social class! To be talking so boldly!what’s the average salary in Brenham! Hmm!
What does social class or average salary have to do with keeping the area you live in clean? It is more about taking pride in yourself and putting forth a little effort to maintain a neat appearance.
DITTO
Totally agree with you about cleaning up this town. Owners of rental properties have 10+ and don’t care what they look like or what neighborhood they’re in. Code enforcement guy is great…the city doesn’t have enough codes here to enforce anything on the exterior of a property. Uugh
People do not move to Brenham because of the low income housing.
People do not move with no money, no job. Have you ever moved before? Do you have any idea on what it costs to move?
The fact is Brenham needs more affordable housing and another park would be fine as well. If the common worker cannot afford to live and work here, they will eventually move away to somewhere they can afford. It is always surprising to me that people are so happy to have new stores and restaurants come to Brenham, but mention of affordable or lower income residences that would house the employees of these businesses is always seen as bad. The cost of housing is too much, across the board, period. That, plus the cost of everything lately is too much. If it continues in this direction, more people will move from here, and/or more people will be living in RVs, and you will see more RV parks pop up. These are all facts.
As a parent to 3 small kids, having a family park is exciting, but we need more indoor opportunities. I can’t do anything during the summer months when it’s 100°+. We need a kids museum, trampoline park, something where kids can use up their energy in the AC!
I agree. The old Sutherlands building would be perfect for an indoor playground or something like Jumping World or Urban Air .It’s too darned hot to take the kids to the park plus the playground equipment is hot as well. And since the splash pad is only open limited hours kids don’t have many options.
Antonio
You are completely practical and right. Common sense is obviously not a common trait in government in the 2020’s
You’re right that housing should be the number one priority. But there was a private developer just last year that would’ve used private funds and a federal program to build and operate exactly that kind of housing. State law required that it be inside a city limit and gave the City of Brenham veto power. The developer put some land under contract and brought plans to the City in good faith and at their own expense, I guess expecting to be treated the same as when they built affordable housing for retired people here recently. The City Council voted it down. The mayor had said he didn’t really want to help people outside of a certain income range and later suggested in the debate that anybody unhappy about it should just go to college. The mayor pro tem put forward an incoherent idea about the City spending its own money on shipping containers for the poor. It’s shameful but that should give you some idea of where their head is at.
But if this park is a focal point that can bring more housing construction at any price point and if it’s a step up from cookie cutter subdivisions then I’m in favor of that too.
To put your mischaracterization into context. We are vastly over represented already. So, no we do not need to be remade into San Francisco. Just look at the schools.
Thank you Frank! Ditto ?
Over-represented by who exactly? Compared to Giddings, Hempstead, and Navasota, Brenham has fewer people younger than 18 and more people over 65, the largest number of Non-Hispanic whites, the fewest foreign-born, the fewest non-English speakers, the most expensive owner-occupied housing, the highest median gross rent, by far the highest number of people with a college degree, the lowest number in the labor force, the highest per capita income and the lowest poverty rate. You don’t need Census data. Just go drive around the most normal parts of those other towns or any of the smaller towns and the differences are plain as day.
You mentioned San Francisco and I’m glad you did because San Francisco’s problem is that it set itself up decades ago to be against housing! It’s the largest concentration of inherited wealth in the country because they’ve dislocated their local working class. We should not follow in their footsteps. We also should not convince ourselves that allowing ADUs in backyards is any kind of solution. That’s also a California policy and it’s delusional to think it’ll make a real difference.
We need to pull our heads out of the sand and think and act like Texans, by building and doing things and welcoming all comers that’ll build and do alongside us. Brenham is not a walled garden. Brenham is not a retirement community. Brenham is not an investment portfolio. Brenham is its people.
Sounds great! Have they posted the presentation or options online?
Love it. I think it’s a great plan.
Rather have parks then low income apartments and housing. Let’s face it a lot of people moved with no jobs and homes. Low income is not what Brenham needs. Nothing, Houston, Austin, Dallas has it. Plus no where to work in Brenham! Even Blue Bell is laying off.
There does not exist a trade-off between having affordable housing and having parks. Sources of financing are completely separate. Private industry will build it if we let them, and using the federal programs there are income requirements and background checks.
Private industry and federal programs come with strings. Sounds great, lots of promises but starts slowly falling apart. The rent houses here have two families living in them to help the ones that don’t have jobs waiting on the projects to have an opening. It cost the landlord a fortune to fix repairs not to mention four or five cars on the lawn that’s destroyed to. We all have a dream. Brenham does NOT want to be ruined like the Houston their moving away from.