Discussion: Let The Woodlands Control The Woodlands
Summary
Incorporation of The Woodlands initially was an idea to prevent the annexation of our community by Houston. This led to an election in 2007 in which we overwhelmingly approved entering into the Regional Participation Agreements in which Houston and Conroe agreed not to annex The Woodlands for 50 years in exchange for our making annual payments respectively. In 2019, these agreements became redundant when a conservative Texas legislature passed a law requiring the approval of a community before it could be annexed. So, unless liberals take control of the Texas legislature and reverse this law, the threat of annexation is nonexistent.
Opponents of annexation use this history to justify their position that annexation should be opposed. They ignore the fact that legal structure of The Woodlands Township, which is unique in Texas, significantly limits the ability of the community to protect itself from significant risks to our cherished way of life. This includes our inability to sue for protection and/or damages from third parties whose actions damage our community (such as water runoff that causes excess flooding or over usage of aquifer water that causes subsidence). It also precludes our being able to block highway expansions that would further dissect our community with higher levels of through traffic, makes us dependent on conflicted third parties to represent our interests in important groups that plan and fund future highways, flood and subsidence mitigation measures, and access to our fair share of government financial support, and prevents our being able to control how commercial sections of The Woodlands are developed. A normalization of The Woodlands Township’s legal structure by incorporating would give the community the legal standing to stand up for ourselves and our interests. It offers us the only way to ensure that everything possible is being done to preserve our treasured quality of life.
Discussion
Many of you know about the November 2, 2021 incorporation election for The Woodlands and wonder why now? Where is the need to incorporate? Doesn’t it mean another layer of government, with higher taxes and more bureaucracy? Don’t we have a limited government that works, right now?
Having closely followed politics in the Woodlands for over 10 years now, we have seen threats to The Woodlands’ quality of life coming from several different sources. As long as The Woodlands still had large amounts of land to yet develop, these concerns were distant. But now, The Woodlands is largely built out. County and developer interests are no longer aligned with the residents of The Woodlands; their revenue will increasingly come from areas outside The Woodlands. Threats to The Woodlands’ quality of life in the form of clear-cutting, overdevelopment, traffic, and flooding are much more immediate. The Township is limited to addressing these threats through the power of persuasion. The City of the Woodlands will have the legal authority to directly participate in planning groups authorized to address these issues and resort to the courts for relief if necessary. Importantly, the populations of Montgomery and Harris Counties are projected to grow substantially in the coming years while The Woodlands’ population will be essentially stable since we are nearly built-out. Our lower proportion of the counties’ populations as well as the fact that the development dollars are being spent elsewhere will undoubtedly result in a reduction of The Woodlands’ political clout and our ability to protect ourselves through the power of persuasion. Incorporation will provide the legal authority to make us significantly less dependent on third party goodwill.
The Woodlands is a great place to live, work, and play. Taxes paid by The Woodlands residents now provide for the fire department, covenant administration, environmental services, garbage and recycling, neighborhood watch, streetscape maintenance, parks and recreation, street lighting, transportation, and 92 police patrol officers. The county pays for zero patrol officers. And, The Woodlands buys the patrol cars, funds retirement, and overtime. Incorporation will have minimal impact on the operating cost of our police protection.
The Woodlands’ fiscal health is the result of effective fiscal management, long-term strategic planning, comprehensive efforts to address cost-effective methods of service delivery, active efforts to create a positive environment for economic development, and flexibility on budgetary issues.
But there are urgent things that The Woodlands cannot do to protect itself. Surveys of Woodlands residents report that clear-cutting, overdevelopment, traffic, and flooding are top concerns of residents. And The Woodlands Township can do little about any of these.
But, The City of the Woodlands could. To preserve our quality of life in the Woodlands, residents should choose a governance structure that will strengthen and ensure local control – to become an incorporated city with standing to participate in regional planning and take legal action if necessary, and to mandate the effective fiscal strategies currently in place, rather than continuing as a township largely governed by outside interests by Montgomery and Harris Counties and profit-motivated developers.
Some Key Events in Recent Woodlands History
The Woodlands was originally intended to be a quiet, secure enclave - a ‘Hometown’ where residents could raise their families. Since 1997, when the first of a series of developers purchased The Woodlands, the original vision has been drastically altered with the tacit agreement of Montgomery County officials.
TRAFFIC
The County Commissioners are the controlling legal authority for The Woodlands. They control our roads and our policing and have been disinclined to prioritize Township issues over the needs of other areas in the County. Only one of the four county commissioners is elected by The Woodlands, so there is a significant limit on the ability of our commissioner to protect our interests if they conflict with those of other parts of the county. In 2015, Montgomery County, catering to developer interests, planned to make Woodlands Parkway a major east-west artery by expanding it to SH249 so that increased traffic from The Woodlands would feed the Montgomery County Toll Road. Because The Woodlands Township’s board was powerless to prevent it, a contingent of Township residents organized a massive voter turnout in The Woodlands that was sufficient to defeat the county-wide bond to fund the expansion (83% of us voted against the bond). An incorporated city could block this kind of expansion of the roads in our community.
The Woodlands Township Board has no authority to prevent Montgomery County from expanding our roads (e.g., Woodlands Parkway, Research Forest, Gosling, Kuykendahl, and Branch Crossing) into major County thoroughfares to promote less developed areas of the county. Although The Woodlands Parkway Extension was recently removed from the 2021 Montgomery County Major Thoroughfare Plan, nothing prevents roads taken off the County thoroughfare plan from being put right back on.
Since The Woodlands is largely built out, developers are busy building new residential and commercial property in other areas of the county. The primary areas of activity are in East County near the intersection of I-68 and TX99 and to the north and west of The Woodlands in the Magnolia area. The explosion of new construction in the Magnolia is already taxing many Woodlands roadways. Extending current roads to new areas around The Woodlands would channel traffic through The Woodlands, segmenting the community into districts with high traffic boundaries.
The City of the Woodlands would be able to veto road plans through its boundaries that do not meet with resident approval. The Township does not have the legal authority to do this.
CLEAR CUTTING AND OVERDEVELOPMENT
The Township Board does not have the legal standing to prevent Howard Hughes Corporation from clear-cutting the remaining land available for development and building high-density projects that increase traffic and change the character of surrounding neighborhoods.
The blue signs opposing incorporation were paid for and erected by the Howard Hughes Corporation. These signs reflect Howard Hughes Corporation’s acknowledgment of the strong restrictions that the City could place on overdevelopment. While there is some question about whether these signs are legal, they are at the very least unsightly and out of character with the ambience of The Woodlands. Are these signs an example of the Howard Hughes Corporation’s idea of what preserving the uniqueness and quality of life of The Woodlands looks like? The City of the Woodlands could initiate and enforce rules for community standards through city ordinances – restricting clear cutting, noise violations, tree preservation, street parking, road right of way, etc.
CONTROL THE FUTURE
Under its current legal structure, the Township has no authority to protect resident interests with respect to our drinking water supply or to prevent subsidence or flooding. Perhaps, most importantly The Woodlands Township is not entitled to a voting representative on the Houston-Galveston Area Council, the regional board that plans the future infrastructure of our area and serves as the gateway to federal funds for large-scale community projects. Currently we must rely on Montgomery County and Harris County to represent the interests of The Woodlands. Do you think The Woodlands’ interests will be their highest priorities?
Additionally, newer developments in Montgomery County are upstream from The Woodlands. Flooding can be expected to become an even bigger problem in years to come without dedicated regional representation and planning that can only be provided by The City of The Woodlands.
COMPETING WITH SURROUNDING COMMUNITIES FOR BUSINESS
In the past year, the federal government used the counties to dispense substantial funds to cover economic losses due to COVID by the cities. All Texas counties were allocated CARES act funding at the rate of $55 per resident in accord with State of Texas guidelines. All counties in Texas, except for Montgomery County, transferred the $55 per resident to the local communities (for example Harris County allocated the full $55 per resident to Creekside, the part of The Woodlands in Harris County). In addition, Montgomery County used The Woodlands Township’s unique legal status as an excuse to deem The Woodlands ineligible for a second round of funding through the American Rescue Plan (ARPA), when up to $30 million was made available for pandemic response needs such as fire and public safety, health response and economic response.
Losing The Woodlands’ share of those funds relative to surrounding communities puts The Woodlands at a serious disadvantage. Our community saw a $9 million direct impact to local government revenue and services from the pandemic. Even so, The Woodlands cut expenses by $7 million to compensate for these losses.
The Woodlands Operates On Limited Government Principles. Residents Can Ensure That Continues.
Many of you are very concerned that voting for incorporation will mean bigger government and higher taxes. Perhaps you envision Houston or some other general law city with few restraints on bloat. The Woodlands needs greater protection. The challenge is to devise a form of government that does its job for the Woodlands, and no more.
A big part in meeting this challenge requires that as many government decisions as possible be taken by elected officials closest to the people they affect. Currently, final decisions about traffic, clear-cutting, overdevelopment, water, flooding, subsidence and access to federal fund are made by County officials largely not directly elected by The Woodlands, or unelected developers.
The City of The Woodlands does not mean another layer of government. It simply replaces the Township board, but with the legal authority to protect residents’ major concerns. Incorporation would funnel 15 other government entities on which the Township must now depend into one locally managed entity with resident oversight.
The Township Board has carefully and exhaustively prepared and presented plans to maintain the excellent quality of life and low taxes residents currently enjoy. This election puts the decision about The Woodlands’ destiny into the residents’ hands.
Should residents choose to incorporate, a resident committee will immediately begin to prepare a charter, a constitution, to become a Home Rule City, that will mandate the careful fiscal practices of the current Township board that have made The Woodlands a beloved hometown for so many.
A home rule city is the government structure that places the most control in the hands of city residents.
On Nov. 2nd, residents will be voting to approve the City of The Woodlands as a general law city, which can then begin the process to become a home rule city. If residents vote to incorporate, the City of the Woodlands can immediately begin to write a home rule charter that ensures their city will continue the practices that have made The Woodlands prosperous and lovely place to live, work, and play. The charter is written by a committee of city residents. For example, the charter could mandate no pay for city council members, mandatory 5-year budgeting cycle, favorable sales tax variances go into reserves – the practices that have put the Woodlands in such a great fiscal position now. With a strong and thoughtful charter, the Woodlands can retain its unique character and success, and avoid the excesses of the typical general law city.
What happens to taxes if the Woodlands incorporates?
Proposition A asks residents to approve the same tax rate for the City of the Woodlands that is currently in place for the Township: .2231 per $100. State law prohibits cities from increasing property tax rates above 3.5% without voter approval. Claims of massive tax increases upon incorporation are disingenuous.
The City of the Woodlands would freeze taxes for residents who are 65 and older or disabled. The Township is not eligible to offer a freeze. This is not a tax rate freeze; it is a dollar amount freeze. These residents would pay the same dollar amount each year.
The Woodlands’ bond rating has recently been upgraded to AA+, in part due to having very strong reserves for more than a decade. The Township Board strategically allocated excess revenues from sales taxes and other favorable variances, not property taxes, into reserves. These windfalls cannot be used to lower the property tax rate year to year, but they can cover one-time expenses. The incorporation reserve augments the operational and capital replacement reserves and was created to fund the initial capital costs of becoming an incorporated City.
One final thought. It’s from our Declaration of Independence.
“That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Let The Woodlands Control The Woodlands.
VOTE YES on PROP A and PROP B