HomeMy WebLinkAboutP&Z Minutes 1981-12-17 Regular[ l
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MINUTES OF A REGULAR MEETING OF THE FR IENDSWOOD
PLANN ING AND ZONING COMMISSION
December 17, 1981
The Friendswood Pl anning and Zon ing Commission met in a regular meeting on Thursday, December 17, 1981, at 7:30 p.m. in the Council Ch ambers of City Hall. The following Commissioners were present.
Leon Brown -Chairman Glen Cress Billy Glines Ken Hoppe Charles Beggs Richard Atcheson Tom Sheeran Councilwoman -Mary Brown
With a quorum present, and with none absent the following business was trans acted:
Plans for a new Bank building by John Mo on were presented to the Commission. The bank is to be located on Friendswood Drive. Commission reviewed the parking, drainage, and side walks. (29 regular parking spaces and 2 handicapped)
MOTI ON: (Cress) to approve parking, drainage and sidewalks for Bank building as per Mal colm Collins changes.
Second: (Beggs) Vote: Unan imous FOR
CALLING FOR JOINT PUBLIC HEARING
Robert Bludworth's propert y 1214 F.M. 528 2.445 acres from R-1 to Specific Use -School for exceptional children.
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MOTION: (Brown) to call a joint public hear ing for January 21, 1982 for rezoning 2.445 acres located 1214 F.M. 528 from R-1 to Specific Use.
Second: (Be ggs) Vote: Unanimous FOR
Co mmission reviewed the Future Growth Report making their recommended cha nges to be presented to Counil by memo on December 23, 1981. See atta ched memo to Council of recommended changes.
MOTION: (Atche son) to submit recommended changes to Counci l.
Second: (Beggs) Vote: Unanimous FOR
The meeting was adjourned
Rut h P. Henry -Secretary
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Page 3 December 17, 1981
:-i :::1� 0 ?\...:..: I DJ:-:
TO: �ayer and City Council
FR0!1: Plar.�ing & Zonir.g Cc:::.�ission
DAT:S: Dece�ber 18, 1961
SUBJECT: FU7URE GROWTH CO�MITTEE REPORT
The Planning a�d Zo�ing Commission has co�?leted its review of the ?�ture �rowth Repor� and is forwarding it to Council with the following recor:-u·Ee:. ded changes:
On ?age 4, under land use, R-5 should not be eliminated but reduced tc a density of 12 instead of 18.
The wording of Co;. .. -:-,ercial ":::aved areas" should read oarking reauire�ents.
Residential sDa:l parks should be tax free and kept up by the homeowners association. Corr�ission feels this shoJld be changec to read: Parks, commercial, green areas, and buffer zones to have a nominal tax and be maintained by the owner.
Elevators shoulc be required in buildings of three or more floors and should fall under the state law requirements.
On page 5, the report reads; "An architectural board should be formed to SU?plement the zoning activities as a control on the type of comme rcial buildings so that a unified developr.tent can be mai!":tained for the beauty of Friendswood." Corrt-r.iss ion wo�lj like the wording to be Some archi tec-:ural
controls shoul� be established to suoJle�e�t the Jlanning and zoning acti v::.-: ies as a c:::mtrcl on the type of corunercial buildings so tha-: a unified develo��ent can be maintained for the beauty o: =�iendswocd.
In appendix I:�, ?age 4, uncer cc�r.ercial tax income, the reDort i�dicate2 ·...:.:::::eve::..oJec. co::-.::iercial land ::::arries a lesser tax tha:-: u�:::erveloped residential land. �he Com.Tiission feels steps shc�ld be takeh jy �he tax:.ng authorities to correct or equal:.ze this type c: ta.xat.iorr:-..
Append:.x I'.', ?age ::._, -:he Co;:-_--::iss ::;:-: was equally split on their views regar�i�g purch�se c Se�a ?ark.
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Bill Wooley, who is the chi ef of our pla nning bra nch, was going to come
with me ionight. Most of you here know him; Bill is ill tonight, so I
have a ske d one of his lieutenants Owen Ralston, to come with me. Ow en
worked with Bill Wool ey and he is the chief of the post a uthoriza tion
planning session. His primary responsibility is the planning and
design of this proj ect a t the curre nt time . I guess, I've been
getting several ca lls from some of you and Bill Wooley has been
receiving calls also. There is something, som etimes lost in the trans
lation a bout what we say or don't say and we, Bill Wooley a nd I, are
rea lly very close tog ether and work very closely on a daily ba sis
together. We'r e usua lly very close on principle and concept a nd perhaps
most of the time, only differ in detail. We don't have any ... , we have
a pr etty goo d relationship, a pretty goo d working rela tionship, a nd
probably th at's because of our individual backgrounds. And a lso, some
times, when some of you are talking to me, I'm gla d that you call me or
Bill Wooley -there's no problem with that at all, but there are times,
th at you might have alrea dy notice d it, when you'r e t alking to m e on the
telephone and there's somebo dy sticking a piece of pape r in my face to
sign and you don't have my undivided attention. Sometimes I'll sa y
something to you or give you an off-the-cuff comment without even
thinking a bo ut what it is, and th ere are times when that's not wha t I
meant. So I thinks its ... a ft er Wool ey and I talked a little bit, w e
d . d d . ' didea . . eci e perhaps its a goo �to come in and discuss wh a t our views a re
a nd wh at our responsibilities a re a nd wha t we think we're going to be
expecting in connection with th e project. A lot of th e stuff that I'm
going to tell you tonight, and I'm going to try to be a s open with you
a s I possibly can; a lot of it's going to be some policy, but a lot of
it's going to be my own personal judgement a bout wha t I s ee, base d upon
my background an d my exp erienc e in this fiel d , I .. .y es?
Is this going to reflect the Corps of Enginee rs' opinion, or is this
going to be your un divided attention, or is this going to be what you're
thinking tonight but you might cha nge your mind tomorrow?
No, that's not wh at I intended at all.
To which on e of those three qu estions do you sa y no?
I'd say a bout ninety perc ent yes to all of them, but you've got to
recognize that the Corps of Engineers doesn't have policy, per se,
to dict a te local communities in wh at they should or should not do.
That's what I'm relating to.
Why not?
Well ve ry simply, because that we are not in a position to dicta te to
the loca l community what it will or will not do -tha t's up to the
loca l community. Th at's self government.
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Q./i'J
(f'l� �/Charlie, let him go ahead and we'll get his presentation. Then he'll
give time for questions and answers later.
�n;'fwould like to have his undivided attention. That's the main thing I
v would like to have.
��ahead.
vr-' � ,Y� didn:t realize
!Jw integr1 ty.
that I was coming in to be quizzed this way about my
�I don't think you are, but we would like to have your undivided t attention, sir. That's why we're here tonight. We would like to have
an answer tonight that you're going to adhere to tomorrow.
�.,_µ�� think v: Well, I don't�that I ever told you something, or this group, or anyone
: _else something that I didn't stand behind. What I'm telling you -
,. ,I-../ 'i
j :�\_v there are times that something is lost in the translation. Now I don't
know, were you one of the gentlemen we talked to?
Not that I know of.
tyk��arlie, look ... hold the questions for now please.
Yes, sir.
, .�_,,,,,,.. . .:.... "'" ..vv· I I',, i
0 What I'm going to say tonight somewhat relates to the, it ties into the
Clear Creek project. The Clear Creek project, of course, is in addition,
in this particular situation, in addition to the normal requirements
that are in the present authorization right now because we were not able
to develop a plan which essentially reduced the flood plane totally
or kept the flood plane, all the flood waters within the banks of that
channel. And also because it did not appear to us that it was
economically feasible to buy what we call the residual flood' plane,
or the flood plane that is last after the project is in operation,
after you have the ten-year channel in. When a hundred-year flood
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occurs, there's going to be some remaining ... , the flood plane is
substantially reduced, but we're still going to have some flooding out
side the banks of the channel because of the. nature of the way the
project was designed. What the Corps of Engineers is going to require ... ,
in this area, you see, by this map that I just took an area around the
Friendswood area, is that, of course the cross-hatched blue and white
is the original flood plane that we're actually going to take away from
the channel. What you'r� going to have left 1 Aafter the project is in
operation, if you get a hundred-year flood, you're going to have the blue
area left. In those blue areas, what we're going to require is that
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whatever facilities are put in there, that they don't extend the flood
plane. They don't raise the level of the flood plane and thereby
extend it, or the structures th at are in there are not susceptible
to the flood damage. What th at means is that they can be at a
higher elevation above the projected flood elevation; they can be
facilities that are used parts, whatever, that are not susceptible
to substantial flood damage. In other words, if you have a flood and
you get water on them, you're not really damaging much of anything.
How we're going to do this; this is what we're going to be after, th is
is wh at we're going to require. How th at's going to be done is up to
question right now; It can eith er be done ... , it's going to have to be
done, at least along the creek, for the entire length of the project.
We're not going to make exceptions for anyone. The problem that we're
h aving right now is that we've got three counties involved, or rather
two counties and one drainage district involved, in essense three
counties; and wh et her we're going to require the counti..es wh o are going
to be the local sponsors to assure us that they have some regulations
in th at regard and that they can enforce th e regulations ... , this is
what we're going to be looking for - a sensible plan of regulations
th at can be enforced for that control
We may also, if th at is not feasible, we may also accept a group of
communities where, for example, the communities within their corporate
limits t hemselves develop regulations that would satisfy us, and in
unincorporated areas, the county, the drainage district, or some public
entity would be responsible to either develop an ordinance or regulation .
. . . We don't know wh at we're going to call it yet, but this is what we're
going to be looking for. Th ese are going to be the requirements, and
I th ink what we haven't got around to is developing the details of
implementation. I gave someone the example th e other day that in one
project th at I was involved in, that similar situation was handled by
two cities that were involved and the drainage district was the local
sponsor of th is particular project. Th e two cities went in at the
request of the drainage district and passed some building ordinances
wh ere buildings wouldn't be below a certain elevation in these specific
areas. That satisfied the requirements where th ey did not have to go . and 11 . h 1 T . . . in actua y acquire t e p ane. h ere were no acquisition costs
involved because we felt the project was functionable ... functional
th at way, and also that we felt that the citie�hBere th e governing
bodies in those areas, had the power to enforce it and they are enforcing
it. Th is has been, perhaps t hese ordinances
------------and tend to work pretty well. We're not going to
say that any one specific entity has to do this or none at all; we're
going to be willing to listen to combinations or ways to do this and
the only assurance th at we're going to require is that someone is going
to h ave to do it all the way up and down the creek, that if they do have
the power to do it, they fully intend to do it. That usually
requires resolutions by Commissioners Court or city ordinances or
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whatever, some legal document. That's what we're going to be looking
for. Now, as far as controlling the water in the watershed, we looked
at this project on a watershed basis. We did not look at it on an
individual community basis. It's about a 260 mile watershed and that's
a pretty big watershed. So we, and it's going to be a complex problem,
we're going to encourage outside of the residual food plane, outside
of the blue line, we're going to ... and throughout the watershed,
we're going to encourage the local communities to provide some method
of runoff control, but we're not going to insist on it because I do not
believe that the Corps has the authority to do that in the first place,
nor do I think we want to do it because we want the communities to
decide themselves what they can do with their flood water, whether it's
the county, or the individual cities, or whatever. That is generally
going to be our position on the Clear Creek project. I think that
control of runoff or some way to alleviate flooding in connection with
the Clear Creek project, if it is done on a watershed basis, for
example, would be of great benefit from the standpoint of that the
channel in its present configuration, if you assume today's development,
then the channel provides, really, about 25 year protection.
But where we're seeing 10 year protection, what we are cranking into
our calculations on the basis of ______ studies, a proposed, a
projected future development in this watershed. We, at the midline of
the project, we expect ... and at the end of.the project, we expect to
have a 10 year channel in operation to buy that level of protection
with the development that we have projected. We did not take the
position that there is not going to be any development in this
watershed. We made our best projection on what we thought the water
shed would develop during the life of the project and designed our
channels to accommodate that. Now, storm water detention is a relatively
new concept. In some places it's being talked about. In some places
it's being applied throughout the United States. It is a very complex
system and one should be very careful about what he does and how it's
done because in many instances the cure, so to speak, could kill the
patient because this is exactly what you are involved in. There are
several ways you're doing this. I'd also like to point out that, in
this watershed, if only one or two communities adopt water retention
policies and water control systems, unless the other communities do
likewise, they're really not going to do you very much good because
where you will be controlling your water, you will also have to accept
water from the other communities. So it really should be on a con
sistent basis throughout the watershed. There are several methods for
stalled water detention. There's retention, retention ponds and
detention ponds, the difference being that one retention pond you
merely hold the water until the flood has subsided. Then you release
the water gradually. A detention pond is nearly the same thing, except
you're only metering the water out at all times. There are water
control structures, gate control structures, there are rooftop storage
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There are dry wells and grass wells, there are check systems and
ditches which check the water and slow its rate down so that
doesn't get downstream. Usually what it turns out to be is that it's
not one system -it's a combination of all these. One reason one has
to be very careful about it is because when you're talking about these
kinds of facilities, some of these facilities are very expensive and
very costly, and if you don't do it in the proper way you may be
spending the money for nothing because it's got to be a consistent
thing. Not only, if one person does it the other person's got to do
it. Also, in retention ponds, if you have in any city or any locale
several retention ponds, what you get involved in is who's going to
control the release? Is everybody going to be pulling the switch?
You've got to be synchronized, and that is very difficult to do.
It requires monitors and maintenance operation. Retention ponds are
built today and.they may be fine, but ten years from now if there's
no water, no flooding, everybody forgets about them. Then, when the
flood does come, the�a iecome ineffective from lack of maintenance
or lack of operation. I guess what I'm trying to communicate to you
is that I think the control of runoff water is a good thing if it is
done properly and done with reason, but you really should not do th at
until you've had a pretty good assessment of what your situation is
and what you re ally want it to be and how it's going to be implemented.
Just to inact a law or write an ordinance without a careful evaluation
of what your situation is -it's different in
news. I don't think you're going to be happy
every place -is very bad
with it. I think it's
going to give you re a lly a lot of problems. You've really got to look
at it very c arefully because the situation in Friendswood may be
entirely different than the situation in Houston, and may be entirely
different than the situation with Dickinson. So it really all, a lot
of it depends upon what your precise situation is. I believe in them.
I think they're a good thing, but they have to be very carefully
implemented. In some (I c an't specifically recall the figures) but
in retention ponds in large areas, if you're going to have a retention
pond for a large area, you may be spending 10 or 15 percent of the land
in a 100 acre site, for example, could be dedicated to a retention
pond. That's difficult for a developer because he's got to give up
essenti ally 10 percent of his land for a park or something th at �e
can't build on. With the land in that situation, looking at it
from purely an economic standpoint, it's not any real value as if you
put a condominium or a parking lot or wh atever you want to on it.
So it makes it very difficult on a developer. It's got to be, perhaps
it's worth_the money if it's done on a consistent basis, but it's
really got to be considered very carefully. The other thing that I
w anted you to look for perhaps, I would say, perh aps more than
retention ponds, in this area, is really improvement of those
tributary laterals to the creek. Once Clear Creek is in, if the local
communities or the local drainage districts don't improve those
laterals to some extent, I think a lot of the water is just not going
to get down. I think that is probably, would probably give you more
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relief than anything that one could do, is to spend your money on
improving those laterals so that you have an adequate drainage system.
I know that in this specific situation, I believe that in my personal
judgement, that's where I'd put my money. But, again I say that, don't
go out and enact something until you consider it very carefully and
see what the end result is going to be. I can't tell you what the
end result is going to be in this case, because we have not made that
kind of .a study, nor are we empowered to make that kind of a study in
this particular case. Our authority lies basically on the creek and
that's about the extent of our authority. We don't usually go out,
the Corps doesn't usually go out into the watershed and make those
kinds of studies because traditionally we've been
We don't have the resources or the �unds �o do it, nor
are we authorized to do it. I would say that, you can look at it from
this standpoint, I don't know, no one knows what the future holds.
We're sitting here trying to make projections for fifty years on what
the development is going to be and that's tough. Now, we can make our
best effort at it, but I don't think anyone really knows what the devel
opment of this watershed is going to be because it is dependent on
so many factors, so many unknown factors. We know that it's going to
increase. How long it's going to continue to increase, we don't know
that. I don't think anyone does. But I would say that with the future
development we've looked at and designed this creek for, I think you
have a while to consider what you're situation should be in regard to
controlling your runoff. I don't think it's anything that, certainly
right at this point in time, I don't know that it would do you much
good if you had an operation like that right now because of where that
creek is. You probably only want to consider that when the Clear Creek
project itself is in operation. You want to be prepared for that and
base your decisions, your calculations on that being in existence
because I really don't think that the way it is right now, that kind
of a system will do you very much good. Perhaps improvements of your
existing internal drainage system would help, but on the other hand,
in the creek, during high flood.stages in the creek the shape it's in
now, it would just back up on you. You wouldn't get any water out
of those laterals, you'd just get back water backed up again. In
essence, this is, that I s abou -s in general) sums up what my view is on
this whole matter. I am certainly not going to be in a position to
tell you what to do and I'm not going to be because I'd be in a much
better position to adv1se you by providing the detailed studies, if
necessary, to make, that you can make some choices and tell you what
the, choose A and this will happen, choose B and this would be the
result. We could do that with some studies.
Are there any?
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In this area? No. Not to my.knowledge.
How big an effort, a study effort is this? Do you have some feel for
it based on
••. ?
how much it would cost us in terms of
For Friendswood? I imagine it would cost you, I hesitate to guess,
but I imagine you could get by for less probably than 50 or 60 or 75
thousand dollars. That's the bottom line figure.
Then what will we have?
I think that you would have some information to base some decisions
about whether or not, whether retention ponds will be an answer to your
problems or whether some combination thereof would be an answer to
your problems.
But if no one down the creek does anything, it doesn't make any
difference what we do.
Wel l I think that's probably right. I mentioned that earlier. From
the standpoint of, if you're the only one doing this, when the floods
come, it's really not going to do you a lot of good because the water
that gets out of that channel, your retention ponds won't help you.
All they do is, you're holding your water and the other guy is putting
more water on you. That's about what it boils down to.
Do you think that if they had another opening into the Gulf, into the
bay down there, off the creek, that they've been talking about in the
news for the last six weeks; do you think that that would help us any?
Without improving the creek at all?
Yeah.
You would leave the creek just like it is right now? The additional
opening would not help the situation on the creek very much because
the water can't get down to it fast enough. It would help the lake
because as the water falls in the lake there's a path for the water
to go. But your bottleneck, as far as Clear Creek is concerned,
the bottleneck for Clear Creek is between .... What's the highway
over here?
2 351.
... between there and the mouth of the creek.
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You're telling us Friendswood is the bottleneck then?
Well, not only Friendswood, but all the smaller communities because
the pipe is choked up. The water, you're going to get some overland
flow, but it's not going to get there very fast, as to get it down
the banks of the creek. It will eventually get to the lake but not
fast enough· to do you very much good.
What is the overall consensus as far as the quickest, easiest, most
expedient way to solve the drain problem in this particular area?
Does the Corps of Engineers have a recommendation of any kind?
There it is on the board.
When you say without improving the creek, what are you talking about
when you say without improving the creek? What improvements can be
made to the creek?
Well, the level of improvement that you can make to the creek
is directly related to how much relief you're going to get. Right
now that creek has about a two year frequency capacity. Now,
generally, on the average, that's about what it is. If you were to
have a five year frequency capacity, you can build something much less
than what we, at much less cost, than what we've got here.
Are you talking about widening the creek?
Yeah, widening and straightening the creek in certain areas. You
wouldn't have to widen it as much as we have it here, but it's all
directly related to how much relief do you want to get is how much
money you spend.
But, people up there don't do it,
Oh, in the Friendswood area?
No, I'm talking about in Pearland.
How far does your actual work ?
Mykawa Road.
It goes clear to Mykawa Road?
Yes.
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You're more affected by what you do from Friendswood downstream than
you are upstream.
It would be better if they didn't improve their channel at all if
you improve yours.
So what you're say is that, if the powers that.be widen and deepen and
clean the creek as far down as we are, let's hope that that somebody
up the creek does the same thing but we can't count on it; let's just
say in the political boundary of Friendswood that they deepen and
widen the creek, and these people get it up and then it moves
down the creek. Now, what happens when it gets down to Clear Lake?
Now the reason I mention this is because this might have been, I
don't know whether you were here or not, but a few years ago we had
a super meeting up h�re at the high school in Friendswood, Texas,
and those people stood up there, they had a full Colonel stand up
there in full uniform with all his gold braid and _____ buttons,
and he was of the opinion that they have a real problem down there
because once the water got down to Clear Lake it had no place to go.
In just the last few weeks, we've been hearing, or I've been hearing
someone speak to the Council that they're talking about opening up
a second opening from .Clear Lake into the Bay that would relieve
once the water got down there. In other words, what I'm saying
Mr. Trahan is, that if we clean the creek out and it's a clean shot
then what happens to it once it gets down there? Does it back up on
us? And if a wind is coming in, or a hurricane or tornado or something
like that, they generally blow up from the south east .. ?
Well, ________ , if you've got a hurricane tide of any height
for any period of time, you won't get any water out anywhere.
the nature of the beast in this country.
That's
Well, what I'm trying to get around here is that if the people who
live along the creek do not want to sacrifice the trees and the
marigolds and the tulips and, we have heard comments down here that
a human being is more important than a violet, and I sometimes question
this, but the point is that once they sacrifice this piece of land,
is it going to help as far as Friendswood and as far as the general
community is concerned, or is it going to be another copout where we
say "Well, the guys up the creek didn't help us." What are we going
to do Mr. Trahan?
Well, I'm really not following you, exactly what you're saying ...
Ask me a specific question then, Mr. Trahan.
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Charles, I think he's really covered things pretty well. Let's go
around and see if any of the rest of you have any questions. Did you?
I've never met Mr. Trahan before, are you with the Corps of Engineers?
Yes.
What are your qualifications? How long have you been with them?
I've been an engineer for 25 years. I've been with the Corps for
about 20 of those years.
You didn't go to A & M did you?
No, I didn't go to A & M, but I wouldn't see where that would have
made any difference.
Go ahead, did you have a question? Are you interested in the program?
No, I know we have a gentlemen here from the press and I want to be
sure that he has a few notes.
Yeah, I think he got that information earlier. Tom, did you have
any other specific questions?
No.
Bill?
I want to ask about, I read somewhere, I think, that if you put two
outlets into the Bay, that there is a possibility that there will be
a gate put on one in case of storm tides, it that right?
Yes. We're only pu tting one outlet into the Bay. There's already
one there.
Right, you're adding one and it's going to be two. Will both of them
be gated?
No, one will not be gated.
OK.
Lynn, did you have any questions?
If we get this project going, are we going to widen the channel, is
the channel going to be deepened also or just widened?
I will be deepened and widened.
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After it's deepened and widened, will that change the normal level of
the water in the creek? Or will the level of the water remain at
sea level?
Sea level. The tide --------------------
Above that you would have a lower level.
Normally a lower level above tide. Above the influence of the tide.
You said earlier that you were going to encourage communities along
the creek to control the water level. On the other hand, it may or
may not be the best thing for Friends�ood
It may be, that is really what I'm saying in this specific situation
it may be, I can't really�ay, generally speaking. Let me rephrase
the answer, on a watershed basis if you do two things in all in the
general policy, across the watershed. If you improve laterals to
get your water faster down stre am once the creek is in operation
and if yo� develop and if you find its ____ in .this �articular
situation develop flood water retention ponds ¾ill that really
answer· your particular situation then you have more available
capacity in the creek to carry more water.
When you say laterals?
I'm talking about side ditches, Turkey Creek is one Cowards Creek
is another.
When you improve those laterals every body in the watershed __ _
you are in effect increasing the rate which the water flows into
the creek.
Thats true, but thats been a consideration in the plan. We have
made some allowances for improving those laterals, the creek will
take the additional water from those improvements. The only
distinction we are trying to make is the federal government will
not participate in improving the laterals.
I understand that.
We have taken that into account
11
What's confusing me a little bit is that we're on the one hand increasing
the runoff rate which we really don't want to do.
The less water you put in, the more capacity you're going to have for
the bigger storms.
You know, I've given you some examples, but what I'm really telling you ..
Yes, I'm familiar with the examples, but whether or not to do that or
not ... ---------------
What I am telling you is that my best judgement tells me don't do it
until you have at the very least an assessment of your present situation,
of what you want to do for Friendswood.
The only way to really do that is have an engineering study done.
Just like what you said at first.
When you say improve the laterals, are you talking about improving
them 30 feet wide?
Whatever it takes to get it through.
Yes, but you don't know that. That's what you need to know too, you
need to know ...
I would just say, I'm just speaking off the top, and it looks like to me
that improving your laterals, I'm really guessing the answer is what I'm
doing. I'm guessing the end result of the study, although I can't
really tell you what the end result is, it may be it would help you a
great deal, but even if you improve the laterals, you would still, if
you do it in the right way, there are still some benefits derived
from storm water detention.
You may want to do both.
12
Right, but l'm saying you may want to do both, but if you are going to
spend your money, spend it on the laterals first.
Yes?
I have a question for you. When you started
you talked about new facilities that should not extend the flood
plane, is the street project ?
Yes.
Some cities, you said, were locating the buildings or structures
above the flood plane level, elevated. There have been some suggestions,
like large lots, large green areas that prevent that building from
extending the flood plane, because, just because you elevate it, but
you put in a certain amount of cement to elevate it, and I'm not
talking about putting it on stilts, I'm talking about raising that
foundation, whether it's 6 feet or 5 feet or 10 feet
where it will not flood, butw�enyou take up that amount of space in
concrete, you are in effect extending the flood plane.
Yes, you're reducing the storage capacity of that particular area.
What ?
Well, I would say that large buildings with 1arge parking lots or
shopping malls and shopping centers surely should be put in the green
area, in the blue areas.
But homes with large lots, acreage?
Yeah, I think that w hen you aggregate the homes you, really a home has
a very small slab as compared to the area it's put in, I think that if
you wanted to build a home in those areas, as an aggregate if you put
it above the non-damageable level, I really don't think that unless you
stacked them up one right on top of the other, that would really cause
any-significant change in that particular flood plane.
But you want to shy definitely a way from
development along that creek area that's, say, within the flood plane?
Yes, that's w hat I'm saying.
Yes, let me ask a question. Now this is going to be repetitive I'm sure
but I w ant to ask, I think the question has been asked before to get an
answer and I think you've already said but I want to say it in a slightly
different way. Under the present situation w ith the creek as it is,
without any improvement to the creek _______ _ If Friendsw ood w ere
to require retention ponds or whatever to limit runoff to the present
level regardless of any development that goes in, ... Am I clear.so far?
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Yes.
OK. Would that requirem ent for retention ponds, or whatever, prevent
or alleviate any of our present flooding, in your opinion?
In my opinion, very little because when you do have flooding on the
creek, most of your flooding comes from overloading the creek in this
area, and when the creek got overloaded, probably the only thing that
wouldn't flood is the retention pond. In fact, you may be bare welled.
I'm with you Mr. Trahan, thank you.
In fact, you may if you build retention ponds, in this kind of a
situation, you may very well be in fact reducing I'll call it the
non-damageable storage capabilities you already have. In other words,
right now, if you have storage, storage capacity in a street, storage
capacity in a lot, as long as it doesn't damage a building or a home
or something of value, doesn't really hurt you. It's an inconvenience
for you, but it doesn't really damage. But if you start building
retention ponds all over the place, for example if there's a density
of that it might ______ by building levees for example all over
the place in this vacant lots and everything else, what you may be
in effect doing is filling the pond up with water and to some extent
reducing your storage capacity you had before. If you got a small
rain and the creek overflowed its banks, where you may have not gotten
flooding before, you may very well get flooding from that kind of an
activity. I'm just making some analogies and that's why I'm saying
it's very difficult to speculate and it is very difficult to come to
gri ps with answers like that. But those are the kind of answers you
need .
. This is based on, more or less on intuition only, 25 years of ...
Yes. That's what I'm giving you. I'm giving you the benefit of what
I've seen, what it looked like, but again I 1 m saying, I am not saying
that flood retention is good in certain circumstances. In others,
it's what -I meant by that you may kill the patient. It really ha� to
be very carefully considered; It's not something we want you-to do on
intu{tion.
We have one other question from and then I think
with the permission of our guest that we will allow anyone in our
audience to, if they have questions too. Glen has one other question.
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I guess, one of them on this list here for instance, whether ___ down-
stream entities to try to get their water into the creek first, in some might from ..cases where they�v that before the crest ·the upstream entities gets
to . us. Is there any
It would be real helpful if you could turn it
Not really, but
get their water
hold your water
fall comes, the
what you're really doing, if you're going to let them
out first, you've got to have some checking system to
until they get theirs first because the way the rain
center of that rain fall pattern could be anywhere in
that watershed. You'd never be able to .... that would be great if you
could be assured that all the water was going to be metered out in
this location right here. But the other ____ , what you have to do
is have some kind of small reservoir, some kind of checking system,
and while their getting that water out downstream, you're holding
their water in your yards.
No, I don't think so, I don't know. You could do it, but I don't
know whether I'd want to do it.
Idealistically, yes.
----------controls along the whole watershed whether or not
the controls should be different downstream than upstream.
That's the theory behind reservoirs, but you don't have a place to put
a reservoir here.
We are a reservoir.
OK, I think, if any of you gentlemen out there would like to ask a
question .... Ralph?
I'd like to get, I think Mr. Trahan is so fuzzy and so full of analogies
on this thing because it's not a finite fact. He doesn't know, no human
being knows the answers to all these things. I think you have to come
back to ari educated guess. He has said two or three pertinent factors
that I want to clear in my mind if I understood you. I think I heard
you say that there is no real study as to whether retention ponds
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in this particular area are good
statement?
Yes.
at this time. That's a true
I think I heard you say that, as far as you are concerned, you would
wait, if you were this body of people, and maybe I'm wrong in what you
say but I thought I heard you say that you would wait until this Corps
project went in and then see what your needs might be at that time.
Did you say that or not?
What I said, before you actually implement anything ...
OK, you're just waiting until the project is functional
_________ is the same thing. You're saying before we do anything
about your retention ponds, wait until a little bit more gets done.
Is that what you said?
What I'm saying is, before you start building retention ponds ...
Are you saying don't build them now?
Yeah, right, that's what I'm saying. I'm saying give yourself time
to evaluate whether you need them or not.
My final point is this: These gentlemen are trying to use you as the
authority. Sooner or later they come to a point when they've got to
raise their hand "I'm for" or "I'm against" what you're saying. If
you were sitting at that table voting, and the chairman says "Will
you vote for retention ponds in Friendswood at this time?", would you
raise your hand yes or would you say no?
At this point in time, without the evaluation, I would have to say
no with a qualified maybe later.
How long will it be before we see the effect of the Corps project in
Friendswood?
16
Well, alright, let's be optimistic. If we can get construction
funding in 1984, which we hope to get, that's questionable at this
point in time. We don't really know, particularly with the budget
situation the way it is. I would say that before you would begin to
see any effect in Friendswood, in the Friendswood area, it would be
about '86 or '87, in that time frame, before you'd begin to get the
beneficial results of this project.
It would be at least that long _______ ?
Right.
Also, Mr. Trahan, what you said about retention ponds to hold the
water, .... Our problem right now is we get a lot of water dumped in
on the top of us. Now, you're saying that with our future development
in this area, that we should just continue to dump water into the creeks
and that's not going to have any effect on whether we dump it in there
or not. I guess the way I look at it is if we dump more water in than
we're dumping now, all we're going to do is raise the water level
before the Corps project goes in, and therefore we're going to see more
flooding in this area. Water above us is going to continue to be dumped
on us.
What you're really saying is if the Friendswood area does not want to
dump more water into the creek, which is a perfectly ligitimate con
sideration, then in essence what you ought to be considering is a rain
levee around Friendswood, and a big retention pond around Friendswood
and ____ your water out as the ____ ___.asses down the creek. I don't
think you'd want to do that, I just don't.
But you will agree that the more water we dump at a faster rate, the
more we're going to raise the water level in Friendswood, on the creek.
Sure ... : You're going to raise the water level higher in Friendswood
as well as everywhere else, but the same is true of all the other
communities. There's no way to avoid that unless you just want to rope
off a city and hold that water in that area.
If the Corps of Engineers could.do exactly what it wanted to do to
alleviate the flooding problem up and down the creek all the way to
Fort Bend County, and it had unlimited funds, what would it do?
With consideration of the
environment or without?
Without.
17
Without? OK, that's a not very likely scenario, but nevertheless.
All I'm saying is that if the Corps of Engineers had it, what would
they do?
We'd probably come down here and build what we called initially the
hundred year channel, which was originally authorized for this area,
widen the present project, oh in width perhaps 50, 60 or 100 feet
wider than it is now, and make it somewhat deeper -----------
and we would go in and improve all the laterals to that level, the
hundred year level. We would design the Payne creek to accommodate
that hundred year flow coming in. What you in essence would have
when a hundred year frequency storm occurred, you would have all the
water that comes down contained within banks. That's how
been designed. That's what it does. The lower end of
Could Clear Lake contain it? Are we still talking about a second
outlet?
Well, yeah, you're definitely talking about a second outlet, but you're
probably talking about an enlarged second outlet. The second outlet
accommodates the ten year channel. You'd have to make the second
outlet accommodate the hundred year channel too. You'd need a wider
opening in Clear Lake.
How far up the creek would you have to go?
Where's the other project at?
At Mykawa Road.
Mykawa Road. _____________________ if you wanted to look
at future development, we'd probably go several miles further up,
probably all the way up to the Fort Bend County line.
Is there any of the rest of the audience who has a question to ask?
I have a point I'd like to make. If you would get Mr. Trahan to write
you a letter on the statements he made, it would be a great service to
this community. The point he made was that the Corps was going to
deepen the creek through Friendswood. I've spent more than a hundred
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hours pursuing that particular point because that would let the
drainage of our three tributaries do much better and reduce the width
of each tributary and diminish the backyard loss of trees of each home
on these tributaries. In this hundred hours, the Corps has refused
to do this, and said they could not do that. This is fact. Joey
just said yes, they would deepen the creek through Friendswood so
obviously some decision has been made since the last meeting that we
had. I believe you are aware of the meeting up.there when I was present
_______ do you remember that discussion? At that time, I was told
no that we couldn't, a grade was set and they couldn't do that. Now,
do you want to redo your statement again or do you want to tell us
you are going to deepen the bottom? I'm happy if you are.
In deepening the creek in Friendswood, I saying that overall in the
Clear Creek project we're doing widening and we're doing some deepening
of the creek. I don't know the specific location right off the top of
my head where we're deepening and where we're aren't.
It's just that, you see my point that we really need it deepened in
Friendswood and
I feel pretty sure it will be deepened through Friendswood.
See, and they're positive it won't.
At the time you may have asked about just deepening in the Friendswood
area, we said no to that probably.
But I want a grade cut through Friendswood a little lower that will
diminish the size of the widths of the creek tributaries because we've
got so many trees in backyards. Do you see my point?
Well, I'm not going to tell you that your city can't do anything. I
believe at this point in time, if the city wanted to widen it, it could
if ,they have the resources. The problem before, why you may not
have been able to do it is because we did not have an environmental
impact statement. Now we're getting close to having an environmental
impact statement. If that environmental impact statement is filed
and you don't have any problems with it, which I don't anticipate we
will, �here would not be any difficulty in you going in and doing to the
creek what we had planned to do, or something less for example.
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That would almost force everybody down here to do the same thing
or they're going to get awfully wet.
Well, I don't know. I think what you would have is just, you would
build yourself a holding pond ________ , because if you don't
remove the choke points ...
But the choke points will be further down. Right now we're basically
the choke point.
Maybe some people downstream would object to it.
We would have to consider what they had to say.
Bill has one kind of side question.
This doesn't have anything to do with flooding. Let's say that the
Corps is in there digging, or whoever is doing the digging, and
some artifact is dug up, who does that belong to? Say for the history.
I would say ...
It won't belong to the City of Friendswood, it would belong to the
state or the Federal government.
It would belong to the state of Texas. They're the curators for all
artifacts.
There goes our cannon.
Ken Hoppe was late coming in, did you have a question?
I'm sorry I'm late. Maybe the question has already been asked, but
in your analysis of the whole situation, anything that we do as far
as retention ponds and everything will virtually have little effect
whatsoever until the Corps of Engineers comes in and does their work?
I would think that's an accurate statement.
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Also, question number 2 I would like to ask, what could we as citizens
of Friendswood, or what could the City of Friendswood do plus the
other COffil1lUnities involved do that would put lots of pressure or
possibly help move this project on and get it over with faster or a
little bit ... , to get the project moving just a little bit faster
than six years down the line or four years down the line. Would
there be anything that we could possibly do that you could think of?
I think the only thing that you can, how much help it will be I don't
know right off hand, but I think about the only thing that can be
done at this point in time and the project is available for construction,
is to ask your congressman to support the bugget proposal.
Could we go any furthe r than that for people who authorize the budget
or anything like this?
I would say yes, you would have to discuss it ....
I mean as a group of communities _________________ What you're
trying to say also is that we just almost have to tolerate our sad ..
situation until the Corps of Engineers .does come in to do something
about it?
Until someone improves the creek, I would think ...
That's what I'm saying. We're just going to have to tolerate our
situation, we've lived with it until now, so we 1 ll have to live with
it until major work is done.
I would think that that 1 s a fair assessment of the situation.
It 1 s boiled down into a nutshell, that 1 s how we stand.
I think so. I don 1 t think that you ought to just wait to evaluate what
your situation is 11ntil that happens. You ought to have evaluated what
your current situation is. I said earlier in the talk or in my remarks
that what one ought to do is that one should plan whatever he 1 s going
to do and look towards the creek being improved because that 1 s the
foundation of the whole thing.
In conjunction with you to help you in the future?
Well, not necessarily that, to help us do what the community wants
naturally, but what I 1 m saying is that there was some discussion about
whether one should have retention ponds or control the runoff. I said
21
�
yes, more than likely you should be considering that.
Well, but the way development is right now, I don't see that the
retention ponds will even help us after three or five years or possibly
six years either way.
What I am saying to that statement is I don't know that. When the
Corps' Clear Creek project is ____ , when that project is in operation,
I don't know whether retention ponds would help your situation or not.
We covered that real well.
I'm sorry I'm late .....
Did you have another comment?
I have a comment or question, probably a comment on the obvious; it
appears that there are two different, or two philosophies in flood
control, or in alle viation of flooding. One is retention and the
other is to get the water out as quickly as possible. Is it safe to
say that the current philosophy followed by the Corps of Engineers
is to get the water out, for flood prevention?
because that's where our authority lies. We
do not say, I think that perhaps it should be a combination of the
two for example. Let me give you an example. Say we came down with
a hundred year channel in this particular situation because it is
economically feasible to do that, or environmentally acceptable,
but we build a ten year channel. What I'm saying is with a ten year
channel in operation it may be that retention ponds, if you do it on
a watershed basis, naturally would lessen the flow through those
channels and you would have more capacity in those channels to carry
larger floods if you are storing that water, pending the capacity of
the feed downstream. So really what we're trying to say is that what
one ought to consider is a combination of the two.
Under the present conditions, retention is not going to be the answer?
I didn't say that without the other. What I'm saying is retention is
probably not the answer unless you have the Clear Creek project in
operation.
I thought that's about what I said.
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--
Then even at that, you should evaluate whether that retention is
beneficial or not in this particular situation.
23