On June 16, 2004, Vincent Kickerillo, the multi-millionaire developer, opened his offices to a large group of concerned residents who live in an area where Kickerillo and his partner, Mischer Investments, have recently purchased a wooded tract from Hewlett Packard. The 170-acre property located on the northeast corner of Louetta Road and State Highway 249, (northwest Harris County) has been a long-time green buffer for drivers along the stretch of Louetta Road, as well as a home for area wildlife.

Kickerillo shared his plans for the tract and what they were doing to mitigate their impact. Kickerillo said that they were originally planning on building a large brick wall along Louetta Road but decided to expand the required 20-foot green buffer of trees to 50 feet instead of building the wall. He also stated that they would not cut out the understory of smaller trees and shrubs within this strip.

The property will be home to "Vintage Lakes" a high-end gated residential community of homes from $350,000 to $2 million. It will hold two detention ponds, (15 acres rather than just the required six acres) for stormwater runoff, which was a point of discussion during the meeting. Dick Smith, Chairman of the Cypress Creek Flood Control Coalition, shared that Fort Bend County has a much stricter release rate for detention ponds than Harris County does. Kickerillo and the representative from Mischer Investments promised to look at the possibility of reducing the speed of their outflow, and would be willing to receive more data on the subject, hearing that the community is concerned about further flooding from more hardscape surfaces.

While not conceding on every point, (they didn’t agree to hire an arborist as requested during clearing of the tract) the green contingency felt strongly that important dialogue had been opened and all were appreciative of the opportunity to personally share their concerns.

Legacy Land Trust will share more detailed information about conservation easements with the developers, in the hopes that some of the tract, particularly the green strip along Louetta Road and a section of land located near a railroad track, might be permanently set aside. Legacy will also continue to pursue dialogue with both HP and their strategic land planners, Cushman Wakefield, concerning the larger 500-acre tract located just south of the property that was recently sold.

Because of the wetlands and large amount of floodway located on that larger property, there’s the opportunity to preserve a portion of the tract for a flood buffer-zone, which could include low-impact hike and bike trails on its perimeter. Whatever happens preservation-wise must happen soon as there are plenty of survey stakes on the 500-acre tract now, and the recently-purchased-for-high-dollar tract across the street is making a siren call for HP.

Jennifer Lorenz is the executive director of Legacy Land Trust, a group dedicated to the conservation of open spaces with aesthetic, ecological, educational, and recreational values throughout the 13-county Houston area.