Despite concerns from city advisory organizations, Friendswood City Council approved a zoning change July 13 that advanced a planned development on a key 135-acre undeveloped tract of land.
Clear Creek Community Church, which owns the land off FM 528, received the go-ahead to proceed with the proposed development. The development is expected to include commercial and retail options in addition to a new place of worship. Months of debate and multiple changes to CCCC’s original proposal preceded council’s final decision on the land, known locally as the Whitcomb Property.
Those who backed the zoning change see the development as a way to attract more retailers to Friendswood to diversify the city’s tax base and boost the local economy. The previous planned development zone did not allow for a church.
“Increasing the presence of good businesses in Friendswood makes for a vibrant, healthy community,” Council Member Patrick McGinnis said.
However, opponents fear the remaining land will be undesirable to commercial developers after CCCC builds its new church. Opposition also disagreed with council’s decision to downzone, or reduce the tax-base potential, by including a sizable, tax-exempt church instead of more commercial components.
“It’s a large, undeveloped, viable commercial property for the city, and you’ve downzoned it to something that’s not going to generate any tax revenue for the city,” Council Member Carl Gustafson said. “The loss of that tax revenue is borne by the residential property taxpayers.”
CCCC—which has three campuses, including its west campus that meets at Friendswood Junior High School—will privately develop its new facility. The church does not, however, plan to develop any of the commercial or retail components, CCCC West Campus pastor Chris Alston said.
While Alston said CCCC will listen to offers on the remaining commercial land, there have been no commercial developers in consideration at this time.
Development concerns
While the church owns 135 acres, about half of the land cannot be developed because of the city’s flood plain, Planning and Zoning Commission chairman David O’Farrell said. [polldaddy poll=9035060]
The Whitcomb Property was one of the biggest undeveloped pieces of land remaining in Friendswood, which magnified the importance of its land use for economic development, officials said.
“For reasons I don’t understand, the city started negotiating and working with [CCCC] when [it] didn’t have to,” said Jerry Ericsson, former council member from 1996-2005. “The result is [that] we downzoned a whole lot of prime property, and we’ve squeezed out developers that could have developed the whole thing in a congruent way.”
The concept of downzoning goes against a pair of policies adopted by City Council. The FM 528 Strategy, a guide to how the land in the corridor should be utilized, and Vision 2020 both discouraged the practice.
“In our quiver of arrows, [the Whitcomb Property] was our last big arrow for Friendswood’s city tax base,” Ericsson said. “Now we’ve given away half of it and damaged the other half as far as commercial development is concerned, I think. What other arrows do we have?”
Vision 2020 found that the optimum tax-base mix to maintain revenue was 73 percent residential and 27 percent commercial development. Friendswood decided an 80 percent residential and 20 percent commercial combination would be more attainable, officials said. Opponents say CCCC’s potential planned development will only hurt that tax revenue ratio.
“Right now we’re at about 89 percent residential and 11 percent commercial in our tax base,” Gustafson said. “We’re way out of whack. Our target is 80 [percent residential] and 20 [percent commercial], which is pretty light on commercial to begin with. This just puts us in a deeper hole.”
Ericsson said he fears CCCC’s development will throw Friendswood into a “death spiral” of higher taxes, lower property values and fewer prospective homebuyers.
“We need to quit putting schools, churches and municipal buildings in prime commercial properties,” he said. “We need to carefully use the last of the commercial property we have for our tax base so that our property taxes don’t go up and our [property] values don’t go down.”
Zoning change process
CCCC spent more than six months in pursuit of the zoning change it needed to build a permanent west campus facility on the Whitcomb Property. The church filed its first zone-change application Jan. 5, Alston said. Because of questions and concerns raised during public hearings about the planned development, CCCC modified its application and submitted it to P&Z for review on March 19.
In response to a negative recommendation by P&Z following its March meeting, CCCC again altered its plans, which caused the zoning change process to start over, Alston said.
“[P&Z] just felt that, almost on every level, the proposal did not meet the needs of the city,” O’Farrell said.
P&Z gave another negative recommendation after reviewing CCCC’s revised plans May 7. Part of the commission’s worries centered around the inclusion of a multifamily residential component, officials said.
“Folks, for certain, were not very happy with the idea of a large concentration of apartments on the property,” Gustafson said. “There seemed to be less of an issue with the church, but I don’t think that folks understand [its negative impact].”
Mayor Kevin Holland—who declined to comment on the approval of the zoning change—amended the application at City Council’s June 1 meeting to prohibit any residential component in the project. With the alteration, the ordinance passed its first reading before getting final approval July 13 on a 6-1 vote. Gustafson was the lone vote in opposition.
Church plans
CCCC closed on the purchase of the property in May, officials said. Alston declined to disclose how much CCCC paid for the land.
“The Whitcomb Property’s location on FM 528 near Bay Area and Blackhawk [boulevards] is an excellent location to reach and serve people in the west League City and Friendswood areas,” he said. “Many of our current church members live in close proximity to this property, and we also believe there are many more people in this area that don’t currently have a church home.”
Church staff is in the process of formulating plans and concepts for the scope, design and phasing of the west campus. The cost of the project has not yet been determined, Alston said.
The church grounds will be constructed in two phases. The first phase, the church itself, is tentatively scheduled to begin in summer 2016. Alston said he hopes the 35,000-40,000-square-foot initial phase will be complete in fall 2017. Once built out, the campus will be approximately 70,000-100,000 square feet.
“The right development would’ve done wonders for the city,” Gustafson said. “I hope I’m wrong [about the lack of commercial development].”