Seeing past The Woodlands
A number of other gated, master-planned communities now sprouting up in rapidly growing Montgomery County
THE promotional video begins with an aerial view of a community nestled among tall trees. There is a town center, with a pair of high-rises, a waterfront plaza, shaded promenades and brownstones. Roomy houses sprout nearby, built around a network of paths, parks and wooded open spaces.
For five minutes, the video soothingly reveals plans for a development that appears strikingly similar to The Woodlands. Except it’s Grand Central Park, to be built on 2,000 acres just north of the well-groomed enclave in rapidly growing Montgomery County.
The development is one of many vying to become the next Woodlands as the successful master-planned community nears build-out. Within a short drive of the original, you can find Woodtrace and Woodforest, emerging subdivisions promoting sylvan charm near urban amenities.
There’s also Bluejack National, a tony golf-course subdivision to be carved out of the pines near the city of Montgomery. And The Woodlands’ developer is planning its own follow-up community on about 2,000 acres that will push the
exurban fringe even farther north.
Call it the Woodlandsification of Montgomery County.
There’s no doubt that the spread of upscale neighborhoods will change the semi-rural landscape on the western half of the county. But it also could reshape the area socially and politically, according to planners, public officials and longtime residents.
That’s because The Woodlands, with 108,000 residents, is whiter, wealthier and better educated than Montgomery County as a whole. And while the township and county are Republicandominated, residents of The Woodlands have shown a willingness to fight perceived threats to their quality of life — even if their leaders’ political inclination is pro-growth and less regulation.
The new subdivisions, with homes ranging from the mid-$300,000s to the millions, are in places once considered too far away for those working big-city jobs. But that’s changing as Exxon Mobil Corp. shifts some 10,000 workers to a sprawling new campus that’s just south of The Woodlands and the Grand Parkway extension from northwest Harris County into south Montgomery County.
“These are not bluecollar developments,” said Jim Gaines, an economist at Texas A&MUniversity’s Real Estate Center, of the new communities. “They are white-collar because those are the types of jobs being created.” Changing communities
Past the bronzed deer at The Woodlands’ entrances, however, the county is largely blue-collar, with old railroad towns, family farms and cowboy churches where praise bands feature pedal steel and fiddle and many worshippers wear hats and jeans.
In Willis, a centuryold town located 20 miles north of The Woodlands, fewer than one in 10 residents hold college degrees. About six of 10 adults in The Woodlands have degrees, and per-capita income floats $37,000 higher in the leafy suburb.
But the Howard Hughes Corp., the Dallas-based developer that is putting the finishing touches on The Woodlands, has plans for an upscale community of some 4,600 homes that will reach into Willis.
“The demographics of Willis don’t match The Woodlands, but you will see that changing,” said Mike Meador, a longtime county commissioner whose precinct includes Willis. “We’re now within the magic circle (for those commuting), especially to go to Exxon Mobil.”
Meador, who graduated from Willis High School a half-century ago, said he sees change as exciting and good. But some worry that the fast-growing county will not have enough homes in the price range of teachers, police officers, firefighters and others who earn a living serving people.
“Not everyone makes six figures, and a salary of $50,000 won’t go very far,” said Vicki Fullerton, a real estate agent in the county for nearly 40 years.
Julie Martineau, who heads the Montgomery County United Way, said she doesn’t see builders constructing the type of more modestly priced homes — available to lowincome residents or firsttime buyers — that she and her husband purchased when they moved to The Woodlands in 1983. It’s a problem, she said, that’s spreading across the west side of the county.
“If you want a whole and healthy community, everyone who contributes to the community should have a place in it,” she said. “There is a different level of ownership when people live where they work. It’s not just your job, it’s your home.”
It’s happening in part because developers are selling The Woodlands’ amenities — such as the elaborate trail system, parks and open space — even as more affordable neighborhoods with fewer features struggle in north Harris County and east Montgomery County.
“The higher price points are outperforming the market,” said Scott Davis, Houston region director of MetroStudy, a research and consulting firm for the housing industry.
Grand Central Park, for one, is well-positioned to capture the spillover from a built-out Woodlands.
Ironically, the well-todo Woodlands began more than four decades ago as a community for everyone, created by the late George Mitchell with a federal loan for “new towns” that achieved certain social and environmental goals. His new style of development was built in harmony with nature but became more exclusive over time.
Today, the township is home to Ferrari, Tiffany & Co. and Nordstrom, while two-bedroom apartments along Lake Woodlands rent for up to $3,000 per month.
“The Woodlands was a bedroom community that has become its own urban center,” said Gaines, who previously lived in the community. As a result, nearby small cities like Magnolia and Willis are becoming its satellites — just as The Woodlands has orbited Houston. Political pressures
Bill Fulton, who heads the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University, said the county appears to be following a pattern seen in Orange County, Calif., and Fairfax County, Va. — suburban communities that became job centers and expensive places to live.
“The ones with the highpaying jobs get to move in, those already there get to stay and everyone else has to drive in from far away,” he said. “Once that cycle starts, it’s very hard to stop.”
One way to avoid it is by diversifying the housing stock, Fulton said.
“But the political pressure and economics are going in the other direction,” he said. “The land gets expensive so you build higher up or higher end, while the political pressure seeks to dampen residential development around them.”
The tension is already visible in Montgomery County. When Woodlands voters recently rallied to defeat a bond measure for new and improved roads because of concerns over a single project they believed would draw more traffic, some officials accused a privileged few of closing the door behind themselves and not caring about the needs of their neighbors.
The controversial project would have extended Woodlands Parkway through undeveloped land west of the master-planned community. The road would end at the gated entry of Woodtrace, which is rising from land once owned by Mitchell and shares many features of its neighbor, from trails, fishing docks and a nature reserve to the bronzed deer.
Among those upset by the measure’s defeat was Charlie Riley, a longtime Magnolia resident who was elected last year as a county commissioner. His precinct is where most of the county’s growth — from 520,000 residents to more than a million — will occur over the next 20 years or so.
Riley campaigned on the pledge of improving mobility, especially on the increasingly busy farmto-market roads that are no longer used primarily by farmers and short-haul truckers.
But he also has shown flashes of the same “not in my backyard” syndrome found in The Woodlands. He has come out against any plan to construct a high-speed rail line through the west county — without any stops there — because of the potential harm to property values.
“The western part of Montgomery County is where things are starting to happen,” Riley said. “I’m not sure it will become The Woodlands, but there will be more quality developments.”