The Hawaiian Falls waterpark in Pflugerville has cleared one of its last major hurdles towards becoming a reality.

At its regularly scheduled Oct. 7 meeting, the Pflugerville Planning and Zoning Commission unanimously approved creating a special district on 25 acres of land for the creation of the water and adventure park. Located adjacent to the Stone Hill Town Center, city officials and developers said they expect the park to be built and operational in time for Memorial Day 2014.

The approval of the special district had been postponed by the Commission after concerns over the traffic impacts and water use were raised at its last meeting on Sept. 16. City staff, however, was able to put together a traffic impact analysis as well as a breakdown of park's water consumption that satisfied the Commission members.

"The amount of water this project would use, when you look in a gross amount—10 million gallons—it seems like a big amount. But this city provides more than 2 billion gallons per year, so [the park] represents [0.5] percent," said Assistant City Manager Tom Word.

"Even if we do enter into Stage 4 [watering restrictions], we do have the wells that are able to provide much more [water]. We really are going to be OK when it comes to water in our community. As a utility, we do not have an issue with what we are doing here."

A traffic impact analysis of the proposed site prepared by Austin-based Alliance Transportation Group detailed options the park and city could consider to ease traffic concerns around the park. FM 685 will be the main access road to the park, so the city and park developer will need to work in conjunction with the Texas Department of Transportation to finalize plans for the dedicated turn lanes city planners hope to construct.

P&Z Commission Chair Tom Anker said he was inclined to support the project after considering the park's economic benefits to the city.

"We talked about this before: If we have an opportunity to develop in Pflugerville then we need to," he said.

Final approval of the special district will now go before the City Council at its regularly scheduled Oct. 22 meeting. Floyd Akers, Pflugerville Community Development Corp. Executive Director, said he expects construction to begin at the site before the end of October.