Residents near school dispute city law
They have been working to get Katy officials to change no parking restrictions
When Katy resident Glenda Patton walked into her front yard on Wooded Hollow Lane on Nov. 13 last year, she noticed that a bright yellow pole with a white sign had been anchored into the lawn.
“There were signs all along the south side of my street between the school zones, one on each lot line. They read ‘No parking, standing or stopping from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. MondayFriday,’ ” said Patton, who had lived in the neighborhood for four years before the signs went up.
When her husband asked workers erecting the signs what was going on, they said it was because of a city ordinance.
Citing safety reasons, the city of Katy outlawed parking on Sept. 29 during those times and days on portions of four streets surrounding WoodCreek Elementary School, including the south side of Patton’s residential street.
Since November, Patton and neighbors have worked to get the sign law changed regarding the south side of Wooded Hollow Lane.
“I can’t park in front of my own house between those times,” Patton said. “I can’t have people over at those
times.”
Wooded Hollow Lane is the only street where the signs are directly in front of houses. The signs affect 10 houses there, Patton said.
The city has been in discussions on resolving the issue, but many affected residents have run out of patience.
Wooded Hollow Lane residents are forming a neighborhood petition opposing the ordinance and plan to present it to City Council at its July 27 meeting as proof that the matter needs to be put on a council agenda to be readdressed.
The issue originated when members of the Parent-Teacher Association for Woodcreek Elementary complained to the school that cars were parking on side streets to pick up students, causing children to walk across the street to their parent’s vehicles as well as creating heavy traffic, Katy police Capt. Byron Woytek said.
WoodCreek Assistant Principle Felicia Sheedy and coach Rex Peebles asked the city on Sept. 5 to address the problem, according to a timeline given by the city.
The city responded by conducting a traffic study at the school, and police determined that a safety problem existed.
“There is a serious parking issue during and around the end of the school day,” police Sgt. S. R. Arnold wrote in the report issued Sept. 17. “There are vehicles parking on Kingsland and other side streets which creates a traffic problem … It is my recommendation that No Parking Zones be made.”
But Wooded Hollow resident Wayne Pellerin said the signs did not fix any safety or traffic problems because many cars still passed by every school day even if they couldn’t park there.
“The real safety issue is the carpool line being where it is. It should be moved,” said Pellerin, who has lived on that street for four years. One of his three children will be in third grade next school year at WoodCreek Elementary and another will be in kindergarten.
“I think (the signs) are ridiculous,” Pellerin said.
Less than two weeks after the recommendation by police, a signed ordinance to install the signs was approved unanimously by City Council. The signs were installed 1½ months later.
“They didn’t give us any notification that they were doing this,” Pellerin said. “I got home right after work and there were these horrendous signs all the way down the street. Nobody came to us and asked us.”
Notices of the signs being installed were published in a local newspaper, the Katy Times, and posted in front of City Hall, but affected residents were not warned directly, City Administrator Byron Hebert said.
“If (residents) felt we needed to go door-to-door (to tell them), we didn’t do that. That’s not our protocol,” Hebert said. “It’s unusual to do that when we pass an ordinance. The discussion that we were getting was that residents wanted this.”
Both Hebert and Woytek confirmed that the city also did not talk to residents as the decision was made to put the ordinance on an agenda.
“To us, safety comes first — the safety of a child,” said Woytek, who has been the main contact between Wooded Hollow Lane residents and the city. “Those residents have a driveway they can park in. Most people are at work between (2-4 p.m.) anyway.”
Several residents along the affected part of Wooded Hollow Lane are retired and at home most of the day, said Patton, who is retired after working 35 years in education.
After she and other residents attended a Jan. 20 Katy school district board meeting to voice their concerns, the district did not respond to them.
When referring to the issue, Katy ISD communications officer Denisse Coffman said in an email, “This is not a topic that pertains to our school administrators if it’s already being handled by the city or police.”
The city responded to the original complaints from residents by removing half of the 25 signs installed on the four streets Nov. 13-14. Three signs spread evenly along the south side of Wooded Hallow Lane remain.
Discourse between the city and residents has ensued over the past five months, and residents attended a City Council meeting on May 11 to begin the process of getting an item on the council’s agenda related to the ordinance. On June 22, Patton and another resident, Janet Shaner, spoke to the council to complain about the ordinance. Pellerin said some
of his neighbors have complained about being verbally harassed by non-affected community members for their opposition to the signs. Some residents have not wanted to discuss the matter on the record to avoid further problems with people who feel differently, Pellerin said.
At this point, he and others just want a solution.
“Frankly, if they just changed it back to the way it was, I would be fine with it. We can deal with the carpool being where it is because we knew it would be there when we moved in,” Pellerin said. “They should make it a priority.”
The city plans to continue dialogue with affected residents and improve communication so that similar situations might not happen, Woytek said.
“In the future, it makes sense to contact the homeowners’ association and see if the residents have the same concerns,” Woytek said. “What’s done is done, and now we are re-evaluating. We are trying to see if we can amend the ordinance. Right now, we’re trying to decide what we can do to keep the children safe and also keep the residents happy.”