Township receives large tract of land
The Woodlands township has received its largest-ever tract of future parkland as part of a land transfer with Howard Hughes.
The township will receive the 208-acre tract in Creekside Park for recreational development as well as 2.08 acres adjacent to the Parks and Recreation Operations Center and 24.3 acres of land behind the Bear Branch Recreation Facility from Howard Hughes.
In exchange, the development company will no longer pay $300,000 in annual Town Center streetscape funding by 2028. The township also ceded control of a former boat house parcel on Lake Robbins and a small triangular patch of land on Ashlane Way.
The 208-acre future park development, located on Gosling Road south of the Creekside Park entrance, is a quarter of the size of New York City’s Central Park, township member Brad Bailey said at a township board of directors meeting Thursday. The Woodlands’ current largest park tract is 25 acres, township legal counsel Bret Strong said.
“This is (over 8) times the size of that,” Strong said. “Think
about what can be done programming-wise on a parcel of that size.”
The new recreational area is adjacent to Spring Creek near the southern entrance to The Woodlands,
with popular public recreation facility Texas TreeVentures and the George Mitchell Nature Preserve nearby.
“This is a culmination of months and months of work and
painstaking negotiations and strategic decisions,” board member Kyle Watson said. “This is a really good thing for the township.”
With the new amendment, the township will now own a facility it has been renting near The Woodlands High School on Millennium Forest. The new 24-acre tract behind Bear Branch will be helpful for municipal use, such as storing township vehicles and loading equipment, Strong said.
Howard Hughes currently provides $300,000 in streetscape maintenance in Town Center each year as part of the township’s Comprehensive Community Services Agreement. With the amended agreement, the company will pay $60,000 less in funds each year from 2024-2028.
The boathouse and Ashland Way tracts were also granted to Howard Hughes in the amendment, Strong said. The boat house tract formerly housed the Waterway Taxis, which are no longer in use.
“We had prior rights to those two pieces of property that we just see no future public use to,” Strong said.
The township and Howard Hughes will also continue to match funds for future public projects and work together on the township’s Development Standards Committee, although Howard Hughes will cease its $300,000 in annual DSC funding, per the amendment.