The details
The rezoning would have changed approximately 1.991 acres of land from single-family residential to commercial, according to the agenda packet. The property is located in the 420 block of South Persimmon Street.
Diving deeper
The planned development would have housed 11 small businesses in an office warehouse, applicant John Arledge said.
Some of the surrounding properties of the tract of land include single-family zoning to the north and undeveloped land and commercial to the south.
What they’re saying
- “The property backs up to my property,” Tomball resident Alvin Johnson said. “I have four or five retaining ponds around me. This property always floods when it rains, when it storms, when hurricanes come. I deal with all of that. Sometimes I step out of my yard, off my porch in knee-deep water ... The neighborhood is a Black neighborhood. Yes, it's a small community ... and I'm speaking out for myself and I'm also speaking for the older families... Whether they rebuild the retaining pond and build warehouses, it's still going to throw the water, once the rain, once the storm, the water's still going to back up. No, there's no drainage period ... I am opposed on this decision. I will fight. I will fight it...”
- “What we've been dealing with over here in that area at Persimmon Street, we've been fighting the floods,” said Samuel Shannon, a Tomball resident. “The streets are narrow, right now where he's talking about building, there’s a home there and he's going to build in between homes, which I think that would be really bad. Persimmon right now cannot stand another business.”
- “Council, I think we're asking too much of the residents,” council member Paul Garica said. ”The situation with flooding, and to add this, maybe it doesn't [cause issues] maybe it does, I just don’t think it's right to add on to their issues. They're not out of it yet. That drainage situation isn't fixed as of yet.”
- “His assessment is probably accurate, that everything north of [FM] 2920 on the west side of Persimmon will eventually be commercial, it just makes logical sense the way the pursuit of development is going,” council member Randy Parr said. “ But at this time, with the drainage issue that we have, I don't think I can support it.”
