From City Hall Annex, it's the Planning Commission meeting right here on HDB.

Commission.

And I'm calling this meeting to order at one o four p.m.

on Thursday, September 18th, 2025.

Speakers, if you wish to address the commission on an item, please fill out the speaker's form before the item is called and turn it in to staff near the front door.

Consent and repeat speakers are allowed one minute.

New speakers are timed for two minutes.

Speaker rules are found on the top portion of the speaker form.

Sign in form attached to the agenda.

Council members speaking on an item are not timed.

Applicants have their allotted two minutes time as well as rebuttals.

And non-applicants.

I think someone was in a hurry to speak.

Um non-applicants, general speakers are allowed two minutes time.

There is not an option for a rebuttal, even if you did not use your full two minutes.

You cannot allot it allow it to allot it to another speaker.

And time that's what I just said, time cannot be allotted to another speaker.

To uh establish a quorum of 11.

I'll call the roll.

Chair Clark is present.

Vice Chair Garza.

Uh present.

Uh Commissioner Baldwin.

Commissioner Colvard.

Colvard present.

Commissioner Heisha is not here.

Commissioner Heinz is not here.

Commissioner Jones.

Jones present.

Commissioner Khalik.

Colleague present.

Commissioner Matez.

Matters present.

Commissioner Robin Portispertal Porce.

Let me get down.

Sigler.

Commissioner Sigler.

Sigler present.

Commissioner Tahir.

Present.

Commissioner Victor.

Victor present.

Commissioner Vier Bland.

Vier Bland present.

Commissioner Montepacka.

Mondebaca present.

And our Secretary Von Tran.

Tran present.

13.

13.

Uh Commissioners are present, so we have established our quorum of 11 over 11.

So our next order of business.

I'm gonna ask for the director's report.

Okay, good afternoon, Chair Clark, Commission members, and the public.

I do not have a report for the MTFP.

Um just a reminder the planning and development department can be reached at 832 393 6600, or you can call Development Services Planner of the Day at 832-393-6624.

You may visit our website at Houston Planning.com.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you, Director Tran.

Okay, our next item on the agenda is Roman numeral two, excuse me, Roman numeral one timeline.

Mr.

Calvert.

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, members of the Houston Planning Commission.

My name is Wilson Calvert, and I'm here to present to you the pending 2025 MTFP amendments.

Our agenda today includes an overview of the timeline, you voting on the amendment requests, public comments, and I'll go over the next steps.

The planning department will take to facilitate the adoption of the amendments.

If any members of the public want to find out more information about the MTFP process and read the final reports that will be published in the near future, please check out our website.

For the timeline, as you can see, we are near the end of the MTFP amendment process for 2025.

Uh today will be the final planning commission action for the MTFP amendments.

After this, we will be sending your recommendations to City Council, and they will act and we will go from there.

And now for the amendment request.

Item A is North Point Boulevard submitted by Harris County.

The site is located in Harris County ETJ in Northwest Harris County.

The amendment requests that a realignment of North Point Boulevard and for a 700 foot section of grant to be reclassified from a major collector to a major thoroughfare.

The shift in the alignment of Northport Boulevard, North Point Boulevard is to facilitate lower construction cost for Harris County to construct a bridge over the floodway.

Staff recommendation is to grant the request.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any questions?

Okay, I don't have anyone signed up to speak.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

Okay.

Well, Commissioners, you have the recommendation in front of you.

Do I have a motion?

Do I have a second?

Second Garza.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Motion carries.

Item B is Cyprus North Houston Road, south of 290, submitted by Harris County.

The site is located in Houston's ETJ in Northwest Harris County.

The request is to delete Cyprus North Houston as a major thoroughfare.

It is not practical to extend Cyprus North Houston to U.S.

290 due to a drainage facility and a rail corridor.

The undeveloped piece of Cyprus North Houston is currently being utilized as Stone Gate Soccer Field.

Staff recommendation is to grant the requested amendment as shown on the screen.

Thank you.

I have no speakers signed for this item either.

Is there anyone that wishes to speak?

Okay.

Commissioners, do I have a motion?

Motion Jones.

Motion Jones, second Colvert, second Colvard.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Item C is Cyprus North Houston Road, west of 1960, Salon Road, and Greens Road, submitted by Harris County.

The site is located in both Harris County's ETJ as well as Houston City limits.

This amendment request is broken into three pieces.

The first request is to delete Cyprus North Houston between Perry and FN 1960 due to a planned Harris County detention project.

Staff is in support of this request due to the existing network of major thoroughfares providing satisfy satisfactory connectivity.

The second request is to downgrade Salon Road from a major thoroughfare to a major collector.

After conferring and receiving receiving agreement from Houston Public Works, Harris County, and Textot, we are recommending the deletion of Salon Road as a major thoroughfare instead.

There is a large drainage ditch within Houston City limits that would require a significant investment to build a bridge in order to connect Salon to Gessner.

Only a major thoroughfare level of demand could justify such an investment.

Mills Road to the north is only built as a two-lane road and has existing right of way to be improved and facilitate east-west traffic.

Most of the area has already been developed, and traffic counts do not project the necessity of an additional major thoroughfare.

The third request is to delete the major collector Green's Road.

Staff is in support of this request.

Again, we have determined that Mills Road can be improved to handle the projected traffic needs for this area.

Harris County, Houston Public Works, and TechSot are all in support of this request.

Staff's recommendation are to approve the three amendments as shown on the screen.

Thank you.

Commissioners, any questions?

I have no one signed to speak.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

All right.

Do I have a motion?

Motion VR.

Motion via our plan.

Second to hear.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Item D is Moochge Road submitted by Harris County.

The site is located in Houston's ETJ in northwest Harris County.

The proposed amendment is to delete Mooshki Road as a major thoroughfare from Mound Road to North Bridgeland Lake Parkway.

Staff is in support of this request.

The dit the difficulty of construction over Cypress Creek through existing park space and mud owned land that's destined to be detention north of the creek makes uh is the basis of this removal.

Staff's recommendation is to approve the amendment as shown on the screen.

Okay.

I have no one signed to speak.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

All right.

Commissioners, do I have a motion?

Motion modding.

Motion Mattes.

Second.

Victor, all in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Item E is Umble Parkway submitted by Meta Planning and Design.

The site is located within Houston City limits, just east of George Bush Intercontinental Airport.

The applicant's request is to delete Umble Parkway from Rankin Road to Greens Road, and staff is in support of this request.

There are significant challenges on constructing the potential site, which include a bayou, two pipelines, and Texot owning the final parcel to the south.

The East Ex Freeway and its access road will provide direct access from the parcels that are to be developed, and no property has currently been dedicated to Umble Parkway to the north of the future development site.

Any future development will still have to address east-west connectivity.

Staff's recommendation is to approve the amendment as shown on the screen.

Thank you.

I have no one signed to speak on item E.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

All right, Commissioners, do I have a motion?

Motion Sigler.

Motion Sigler.

Second, Jones.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Item F is Chimney Rock Road, submitted by the Briarcroft HOA.

The site is within Houston City limits and is Chimney Rock Road between Westheimer and San Felipe.

Their request is to downgrade major thoroughfare chimney rock to a minor collector.

Staff is not in support of this request.

The Briarcroft neighborhood represents almost the entirety of this corridor of Chimney Rock and has requested the downgrade so that they qualify for certain street calming measures per the city of Houston's IDM.

I worked for the city traffic engineer, and the measured traffic volumes are too high to justify a downgrade from a major thoroughfare.

I have been working with Councilmember Hoffman's office as well as Houston Public Works to try to identify some help for the residents.

Additional police enforcement has been requested, and we are working to identify some potential signage that may help to reduce speeds.

The planning commission's job is only to identify the appropriate MTFP classification for this segment.

Staff's recommendation is to deny the amendment as shown on the screen.

Thank you.

I have one speaker signed, Mr.

Mark Gardner.

I was going to do some projections, but I'll try to talk to it.

I'm uh I'll try to get it in two minutes.

Uh it is correct that your jobs, and as we discussed at the very beginning of this, is not policing, not anything like that.

Um but uh as we all intuitively know, classification and design are together.

Think of a freeway.

What is it designed look like?

Think of your streets that you live on.

What does that design look like?

As we get more in towards the thoroughfares and the minor collectors, those become more and more gray, if you will.

So what we have done, and in and as in the what we have done is we've come up with a chart.

And uh I believe you've got the package, unfortunately, has some text over it, okay?

But it's also in the original document that's 100 pages long.

This is a little bit more modern, I can forward it to you.

So what we have done is come up with looking through the uh the policy statement that's defined in the 2024 policy statement and looked at those uh the items that are used to classify a roadway.

Again, everything's gray here.

Okay, we understand that.

But we've looked at every one of them the land use, posted speed limits, traffic volume, multi-lane facilities, accommodation for vehicle road users, right-of-way, vehicle access, regional functionality, and one thing that we haven't put in there is vulnerable road users.

Okay, as we discussed at the very first meeting that we have, we have to be able to walk across this road.

Why would anybody excuse my French allow in quotes, okay, a uh a street to be classified to move to find fast heavy traffic with people having to cross the road.

Even if you put in a sidewalk, we still have to cross the road.

We don't have enough parking on ours because it's an older neighborhood.

Okay.

So again, I I understand what they're saying, but you have to look at the land use context.

It says so in the policy statement.

What I'm asking for is if you if if this is too I won't say too much, but can you defer the vote to we do a little bit more?

You can wrap up quick quickly.

Okay, a little bit more of this, okay?

And as far as one other thing, real quick, as far as the classification, I've looked at the IDM manual, and it clearly shows that a couplet, a a uh minor uh minor collector couplet has up to 25,000 vehicles per day.

A minor collector avenue has 20,000 vehicles per day.

We only have sixteen thousand.

Every one of those is larger than what we have.

Again, I don't understand, and there's not been a report for me to look at to verify.

I'm not verify, but what's going on?

I don't understand.

The IDM says a certain thing, yet we're hearing something that doesn't match what the IDM says.

So I'll wrap it up with that.

Again, I'd like to say also uh sorry.

Real quick, your way over time.

Uh I did give you a uh thing here that talks about this.

Uh if you don't believe me, there's I think there's 16 to 18,000 members in this, okay?

International traffic engineers.

They work in 60,000 countries.

Uh 60,000.

60 countries, I'm sorry.

So I mean, I gave this to you to read to kind of evaluate, because it it's a big issue in Houston.

Thank you.

Thanks for the question.

Thank you, Mr.

Gardner.

We appreciate it.

Commissioners, any questions?

I I have a question.

So I'm very familiar with this area.

Um, this is for uh Mr.

Calvert, actually.

Um Fountain View Street, what is that classified as?

Because it runs parallel to Chimney Rock.

Um I do not know off the top of my head.

I could consult that and get back to you.

That's my understanding.

I believe it is a major thoroughfare as well.

I think it is.

Yeah, Fountain Use a major thoroughfare, division eighty eighty-foot road.

Right.

So 30 mile an hour speed limit.

Thank you.

Just like ours.

Yes.

So I used to live right around there, and I would always take Fountain View instead of Chimney Rock because Chimney Rock goes right through neighborhoods.

There's just neighborhoods right there in this particular part.

Whereas Fountain View, it's got some apartments, but it's also got businesses.

It's really a mixed new use area.

So I mean, I I am sympathetic to this um concern.

I understand it.

I I do feel like people speed through there.

There's I think there's this risk for somebody to get hurt, just the way that these cars come through there so quickly.

I I personally would support would support this one, but I mean it's this is a hard one for me.

I I realize this is not your typical request.

Commissioner Morris.

Thank you.

Yeah, just comment for discussion.

I mean, we we have something similar uh come through, I think a year or two ago.

And um, I mean I I used to design roads for a living.

So I know at that time part part of my logic was it's really hard to carve out middle sections within a larger corridor, just from a pure engineering perspective and and the criteria requirements that they have to meet.

It it doesn't really work.

Um I'm extremely sympathetic to the neighborhood, really I am, but um from an engineering perspective, I I just don't agree with carving out these smaller segments within larger corridors.

It it will never really be able to be designed properly in that sense.

I hope there are other alternatives.

Um, but I want to keep my voting kind of consistent when how we've treated other applications like this, and I'm I'm not in favor of carving out small sections within larger corridors.

Thank you.

Any other comments or questions?

I have no no one else signed to speak.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

Okay, so you have a motion uh recommendation by staff.

Do I have a motion?

Probably motion colleague, second Motes, all in favor.

Aye.

Opposed.

You note the abstention uh by Commissioner Colvar.

I mean the opposition, excuse me.

I'm used to saying I'm used to saying abstention, sorry about that.

Okay.

Thank you.

All right.

Item G is East Tidwell Road, submitted by Sappington Engineering.

The site is located in Houston's ETJ in northeast Harris County.

The applicant's initial request was to establish a new major thoroughfare extending Tidwell Road to the Sheldon Reservoir.

Staff recommendation is for the extension to be a major collector instead.

The change will allow a different curve in the reduced right-of-way width will still meet future traffic demands.

The park will be able to take direct access from the new extension of Tidwell Road, adding much better access for nearby residents.

Harris County Precinct One, who operates the park is also in support of this request.

Staff's recommendation is to approve the amendment as shown on the screen.

Thank you.

I have no one signed to speak.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

All right, Commission, do you have any questions?

If not, I'll look for a motion.

Motion Jones.

Second to hear.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Item H is Baethey Road submitted by Meta Planning and Design.

This item is located in Houston's ETJ in Harris County.

The purpose of the request is to realign Baythew Road to the south.

Harris County and the City of Houston are in support of this request.

This is greenfield development and surrounding properties owners are all in agreement.

Staff's recommendation is to approve the amendment as shown on the screen.

Thank you.

I have no one signed to speak.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

Okay, Commissioners.

Uh we have a recommendation in front of us.

Do I have a motion?

Motion.

Motion Sigler.

Second Montepaca.

Second Montepaca.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Item I is unnamed East-West Major Thoroughfare, Blue Ridge Road in Herem Clark Road, submitted by Meta Planning and Design.

The site is located in Houston's ETJ in Fort Bend County.

Staff is in support of the applicant's request to delete the unnamed major thoroughfare, major collector Blue Ridge Road and Major Thoroughfare Harem Clark Road.

There are significant technical challenges in the current alignment, including connecting the unnamed major thoroughfare to the Fort Bend Parkway within a floodway.

Earlier this year, Fort Bing County approved all three of these requests and adopted them into their own MTFP.

Staff's recommendation is to approve the three amendments as shown on the screen.

Thank you.

I have no one signed to speak.

Is there anyone that wishes to?

All right.

Hearing none, Commissioners, you have a motion in front of you.

Do I have a excuse me, have a recommendation to have a motion?

Motion Victor, second, second Garza.

All in favor?

Aye.

Opposed.

Motion carries.

Next is agenda item three, public comment.

Do I have anyone uh in the audience that would like to speak?

Okay.

So go back over the next steps for us, please.

Of course.

Uh I wanted to thank all the commissioners for your work on the MTF amendment process this year.

Um our next action, as I mentioned, we'll be forwarding these on to City Council for approval.

We'll be publishing a new map later this year as well as uh you know reflecting the changes in our actual hierarchy.

Um the uh process will start again in January.

So for any members of the public that are looking back at this and wondering how they can get in on the action for next year.

Uh you're required to have a pre-submital meeting with the planning department in January, February.

Um we'll be publishing those deadlines and contact information on our website, and we'll start this again for next year.

Thank you all again so very much.

Wonderful.

Hang on just a minute.

I think Dr.

Director Tran has something she'd like to say.

Yes, so Wilson uh stay put.

I just want to take this moment to really acknowledge Wilson and the great job that he's been doing, not just on the MTFP, but everything else uh to really uh step up to the plate.

Uh we uh had uh quite a few of our transportation planners that had moved on and Wilson started working on MTFP um, I guess the previous year, uh last year we had three planners working on what Wilson just did this year alone.

Aside from that, he has strong leadership skills.

He has been working with our junior planners to also not only do this, quarterback this, but also train our uh our other young planners to do this.

And I'm just so so uh pleased, and I just want to acknowledge you publicly.

And I know that everybody uh here at uh this uh horseshoe really appreciate the clear presentation.

You did a great job.

You're doing a lot more than just MTFP.

And again, from the bottom of my heart and the team, uh all of us in the planning department, we recognize what you bring to the table, and thank you.

Very well said.

Thank you so much.

Okay.

So now we are adjourned at 1 25 p.m.

Thank you, everyone.