It might be difficult for some residents to imagine, but FM 1960 used to be a quiet two-lane roadway nestled in greenery. Until about 30 years ago, the road and surrounding land was considered to be the country to residents of the Greater Houston area.

Then people flocked to the thoroughfare.

“A lot of people wanted to move here,” said Larry Lipton, local insurance agent and chairman of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce’s monthly public safety forum.

Thirty years ago, oil companies in the Greater Houston area grew rapidly and brought in employees who needed homes, said Barbara Thomason, president of the Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce. In addition, George Bush Intercontinental Airport created jobs and drew employees to the area when it opened in 1969.

“But then the problem was it was uncontrolled growth,” Lipton said.

Despite the lack of a central municipality to address the challenges brought on by growth, several local organizations have put plans in place in recent years to address the roadway’s continuing challenges, such as law-enforcement initiatives, mobility projects, community rebranding initiatives and beautification plans.

Crime, congestion, zoning

Capt. Mike Talton, of the Harris County sheriff’s office, said the size of the population along FM 1960 creates challenges for law enforcement.

“At last census, there’s about 450,000 people living in that area,” Talton said. “Since then, that number has gone up. It is just a densely populated urban area, the majority of which is unincorporated Harris County. It’s like policing a middle-sized city.”

Absentee landlords, growth moving north of the area and crime against small businesses plague the corridor, Harris County Sheriff Ron Hickman said. He said some of these issues can be attributed to the high number of properties that belong to owners who live outside the state and do not see the condition of their properties.

“[With an] empty strip center or lot of building, those areas can attract trouble. [In] some of those cases you have an out-of-state owner who uses a local management company to rent to tenants, and their jobs and their commissions are tied to filling the space,” Hickman said.

He said undesirable tenants, such as owners of sexually oriented businesses and gambling parlors, readily lease the space because landlords are eager to lease the vacancy when cash is offered. In addition to the number of illegal businesses operating along the corridor, Hickman said pawn shops, payday loan centers and gambling parlors, which deal in cash, become a target for robberies, which are a significant challenge to policing FM 1960.

“Certainly crime is an issue for small businesses,” he said. “Businesses that attract robberies are major issues that we have to respond to. Small businesses seem to be targets. Gangs target them because they are cash-rich environments.”

Lipton has run his Allstate Insurance agency on FM 1960 since 1985 and has been a resident of Spring since the ’70s. He attributes the problems on FM 1960 to a lack of accountability.

“Out here [law enforcement] is multijurisdictional, and nobody knows who is in charge,” he said.

Lipton said more challenges are presented as a result of unincorporated areas of the county having no ability to pass ordinances or laws on their own. There is unchecked activity, such as with sexually oriented businesses and unsightly bandit signs—the small signs that are stapled to a post and stuck in the ground.

Officials said new development occurring north of FM 1960 also contributes to the roadway’s problems.

“Many of the businesses and residents have moved north to The Woodlands area for nicer residences and bigger business opportunities,” Hickman said.

Thomason said new office space attracts tenants more easily.

“There are market factors that have influenced some of the deterioration of the [older] property, mostly having to do with competition,” she said. “If you can lease at the same rate a bright, shiny office space or retail in those areas that are brand new, it’s difficult for an older area to be competitive.”

Addressing crime

Talton said because of how busy  District 1 is near FM 1960, with officers running from calls to calls, it is difficult for the sheriff’s office to be proactive in addressing some issues. A number of law-enforcement initiatives have been implemented in recent years to address the roadway’s public safety obstacles.

Looking to address the number of panhandlers and homeless along FM 1960—which officials said is a consistent problem—HCSO launched the Homeless Outreach Team in 2015. Since its inception, it has received 339 calls and moved 34 people to housing. It also provides aid, such as hygiene kits, food and water.

“The Homeless Outreach Team has made great strides in targeting these individuals and redirecting their activities to more socially acceptable goals,” Talton said. “Each district has a crime-control division. Whenever I get a day crew out there, I devote them to the [FM] 1960 corridor.”

In addition to the homeless initiative, a Texas anti-gang group called the TAG unit tracks gang activity on the corridor. Led by HCSO Chief Jim Sumner the unit is a multi-agency group that works in the area with both state and local agencies in an information-sharing effort.

The Harris County Precinct 4 Constable’s Office is also targeting public safety concerns along the thoroughfare. Hickman, who was constable at the time, created the Regulatory Enforcement unit in 2009. The unit, which investigates potentially illegal businesses—including sexually oriented businesses and gambling parlors—conducted 479 inspections from February 2009 to October 2015.

Inspections resulted in 765 charges filed against the businesses, according to the constable’s office website.

The Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce’s Grow Northwest improvement plan, which began fundraising efforts in 2014 and seeks to make improvements throughout the chamber’s coverage area, also targets crime as part of its initiatives. The campaign has drawn the attention of the sheriff’s office.

“We’re doing our best to partner with them to provide resources and respond to their needs,” Hickman said.

Grow Northwest’s law-enforcement goals include conducting business security audits, contracting officers to patrol commercial areas, and monitoring and reporting crime statistics, according to the chamber.

Mobility, rebranding efforts

The Texas Department of Transportation, which owns and maintains FM 1960, is also doing its part to improve the roadway, with several mobility and safety projects underway along the thoroughfare.

TxDOT Public Information Officer Danny Perez said projects are being worked on near Willowbrook Mall, such as intersection improvements from Hwy. 249 to Cutten Road and pavement markings from Hwy. 290 to Hwy. 249.

He said projects, such as pavement -preservation measures, help control potholes, which extend the lifetime of the roadway. Planned medians will help with safety along the roadway, while the addition of signals and signs in certain areas will improve mobility as well.

“That whole corridor is about keeping the traffic flowing, and keeping things moving out there is really important,” Perez said.

Lipton said rebranding initiatives—such as the community’s effort to rename FM 1960 to Cypress Creek Parkway several years ago and Grow Northwest’s plan to install monument signs throughout the region—will improve efforts directed at the roadway through recognition by others outside of the community.

“Historically the problem with this area, the [FM] 1960 area, is that if you’re in downtown Houston and someone said, ‘Where do you live,’ you didn’t know what to say,” Lipton said. “You’d say the Champions area, the Northwest Houston area, the 1960 area—it could be a million different answers. Ultimately it’s going to be the Cypress Creek area, and it’ll give [FM 1960] a fresh coat of paint.”

Branding a community allows people within that community to easily package and sell that community, Thomason said.

“Whether you’re talking about Realtors attracting families or the chamber attracting business into the area—just having people talk positively about the community helps,” she said.

The Grow Northwest campaign’s community image and marketing plan includes designing and installing monument signs to mark key entrances to the region, such as along Kuykendahl Road south of FM 1960 and on a median on Cypresswood Drive near Stuebner Airline Road. Although the chamber is still working on the steps to install the signs, Thomason said the signage will be the best initial rollout for the rebranding efforts.

Beautification

Green sides, a grass-roots effort led by local interior designer Barbara Schlattman, aims to reforest FM 1960 on both the north and south sides as an effort to improve the cosmetics of the road. Schlattman led the Green Medians project in 2011, which provided greenery to newly installed medians on FM 1960 from Hwy. 249 to I-45.

Schlattman’s previous planting project raised $555,000 from the community, she said.

“What was fascinating to us [was] after the green medians were installed, property owners along the corridor began investing in their property,” Thomason said. “There were some results that were more than anticipated would happen.”

She said once property owners see that others are investing in their properties, they see it as less of a risk to invest in their own.

Thomason said some businesses already are willing to invest in property along FM 1960. Sun’s Wholesale Club, due to open this spring at the intersection with TC Jester Boulevard, will reinvigorate an area of FM 1960, she said.

“We’re seeing businesses return,” Thomason said. “Space is being leased again, and there are areas being redeveloped. There are examples all along the corridor where individuals and companies have invested in this area, and in some cases that’s bringing new life back to the area that has maybe been asleep for a while.”