CISD set to use eminent domain for land

District may need legal power as it prepares to build new high school

As the Conroe Independent School District moves forward with plans to build a 3,000-student high school in the Oak Ridge feeder zone, negotiations with property owners to buy nearly 50 acres for the campus have stalled.

The district has acquired only half of the nearly 80 acres needed to build the high school off Riley Fuzzel Road and it has tried for the last year to negotiate terms of sale with the adjacent land owners for another 45.98 acres. But district officials have come to an impasse in negotiating with the land owners.

“It’s a situation where there’s unwillingness to sell unless we pay an exorbitant amount of money,” said CISD trustee and second vice president Datren Williams.

CISD is expected to call for a November bond election in August due to rapid population growth. The school district expects that some schools might face 20 percent overcapacity as early as next year.

On May 19, the district approved the use of eminent domain to condemn the nearly 46 acres, saying it is a critical project that’s of a public necessity.

Eminent domain is the legal power to appropriate private property for public use, and adequate compensation must be paid to the property owners. Taking private property through eminent domain is only authorized for the use of

port authorities, utility services, public buildings and common carrier pipelines, according to Texas statutes.

CISD hired a property appraiser who pegged the 46 acres’ fair market value at about $5.6 million. The district used that appraisal as its final offer to the adjacent property owners on May 18. Now, the district is waiting to either negotiate an agreement, a counteroffer or move forward with eminent domain to force a sale, said CISD’s chief financial officer Dan Cox.

“I’m hoping they’ll accept our offer that we gave them, which was a very fair offer,” Cox said.

The board of trustees clarified that the 46 acres represents less than 10 percent of the adjacent land owner’s property and that no homes are on the disputed land. The district hopes to acquire the adjacent land by the end of August.

“It’s difficult sometimes to find high school sites because of the largeness of the site. Typically, we need 80 acres or more. … We have worked with the land owners to try and purchase it, and we haven’t been successful at this point. So at this point, out of necessity, we have to pursue eminent domain,” said CISD Superintendent Don Stockton.

The new high school in the Oak Ridge feeder zone is just one project that the school hopes to build with bond money. CISD has not released any cost estimates for the bond, which is still being hashed out by the bond advisory committee. In 2008, voters passed a $526.7 million bond for CISD.

In the meantime, the school district has worked on acquiring land for the new high school. CISD is closing on a $5.7 million deal for the acquisition of 37 acres off Riley Fuzzel Road from Toll Houston TX LLC. It is currently in the due diligence phase before closing, which includes a boundary survey, environmental assessment, geotechnical investigation, a wetland study, a traffic study and title search.

Without a second high school to reduce the pressure on the current 3,800-student Oak Ridge high school and ninthgrade campus, CISD’s study projects that it will be at 141 percent capacity by the fall of 2024. The district currently adds about 1,500 students to area schools each year.

The board of trustees will take the proposal from the committee and will make adjustments as needed before officially calling for a bond election.

CISD is just one of many districts in Montgomery County experiencing growth. Earlier this month, voters in Montgomery Independent School District approved a $256.75 million bond and New Caney Independent School District voters passed a $173 million bond. The bonds passed with overwhelming support.

Conroe Independent School district serves about 56,000 students across 60 campuses.