About Fulshear, Texas

The New Fire Station on Fifth Street

Bob Gordon — Tue, 03 Nov 2026 12:02:21 GMT

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

   A rendering of Station 5 which will open in 2027 in Fulshear from Covering Katy News' article of October 22.

Ground broke earlier this month on the Fulshear-Simonton Fire Department’s Station 5, a two-story station on Fifth Street in old Fulshear's heart. Here’s what’s being built, who pays for it, why it’s going downtown, and the harder question the project raises about how our fire district will keep up.

In 1963, a fatal house fire convinced Fulshear it needed a fire department. According to the department’s own history, it bought its first truck from the City of Rosenberg with money raised at oyster suppers, and its first single-bay station stood downtown in Fulshear.

Sixty-three years later, the department that grew out of those oyster suppers covers 106 square miles and roughly 120,000 residents across Fulshear, Simonton, Weston Lakes and a large swath of unincorporated Fort Bend County.

On Tuesday, October 20, it came back downtown. Officials broke ground on Station 5 at 30610 Fifth Street, next to the department’s longtime home.

If you’ve driven Fifth Street lately, it’s easy to see the new building as just another construction site in a town full of them. It is more than that. It’s a useful window into how fire protection actually works and gets paid for here, and into a funding question voters have now answered twice.

What’s being built

According to Covering Katy’s report and the project’s state accessibility filing with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, Station 5 will be:

a two-story building of roughly 10,600 square feet on a 2.5-acre site;
two apparatus bays, the garage doors and bays where engines and other emergency vehicles are parked;
living quarters for a crew of up to eight firefighters;
designed by PGAL and built by Bass Construction Co.

The state filing estimates the cost at $7.5 million, with construction running from May 2026 to May 31, 2027. Covering Katy reports the same completion target, with the station opening sometime in 2027.

Two cautions on those numbers. First, $7.5 million is an estimate filed with the state, not a final contract price, and I have not yet found the board-approved figure. Second, the schedule has already slipped once: in October 2024, district officials told Community Impact the downtown station would open in 2026.

For scale, the district’s Cross Creek Ranch station, which opened in October 2024, cost $6.7 million for about 9,715 square feet, according to the same report. That works out to roughly $690 per square foot. Station 5’s estimate comes to about $710. In other words, on the numbers available, the new station is priced close to Cross Creek Ranch on a per-square-foot basis, even though it is being built two years later.

Who pays, and who decides

Here’s the part many residents don’t realize: the City of Fulshear does not run the fire department. Neither do Simonton or Weston Lakes.

Fort Bend County Emergency Services District No. 4 provides fire and emergency response here and does business as the Fulshear-Simonton Fire Department. An emergency services district, or ESD, is a special-purpose local government created under Texas law to fund fire protection and emergency medical response in a defined area. The Fort Bend County Commissioners Court appoints its five-member board of commissioners, which is not elected, and that board adopts the budget and sets the tax rate. The current board president is Tommy Kuykendall.

The money works like this:

Property tax is the district’s main revenue source. The district’s FAQ has long described property tax as its sole funding source.
State law caps that rate at 10 cents per $100 of taxable value. For 2025, the district adopted $0.096628, which is about 97 percent of the legal ceiling. On a home with $400,000 in taxable value, that's roughly $387 a year.
Because the rate is nearly maxed out, revenue growth comes mostly from a growing tax base: new rooftops and rising appraisals. Community Impact, citing the district’s audits, put annual revenue at nearly $20 million in a recent year.
To raise more, the district needs voters. It has asked twice for permission to levy a sales tax, and been told no twice.

In November 2024, voters across the district rejected a sales tax of up to 2 percent, 19,237 to 16,540, according to Community Impact. In November 2025, a narrower version failed again, 6,181 to 3,947, according to Covering Katy.

To be fair to the opponents, they didn't object to fire protection. Because Fulshear and Simonton already collect the maximum local sales tax, the district couldn’t add any there. As the City of Weston Lakes pointed out in 2024, that meant Weston Lakes and unincorporated residents would pay a new tax for the same service their Fulshear neighbors would get without it. That is a legitimate fairness concern, not a stingy one.

So Station 5 is being built, like the stations before it, without a dime of sales tax revenue.

Why Fifth Street

The simplest reason is geography. When the Cross Creek Ranch station opened in October 2024, Mayor Don McCoy described it as the only staffed fire station inside Fulshear’s city limits. The district’s big central station sits at FM 1093 and Ashe Road, between Fulshear and Simonton. A new crew quartered in the original townsite puts firefighters closer to the city's historic core and the downtown businesses around it.

The second reason is momentum. The district is in a building cycle that tracks the area’s growth: the central station in 2021, Cross Creek Ranch in 2024, a Jordan Ranch station that broke ground in June 2025, and now downtown. District officials estimate that roughly 14,700 new housing units could be built within its boundaries between 2025 and 2030.

The third reason is history, and it is the one I find most satisfying.

The department’s existing Fifth Street station, the one Station 5 will stand beside, was built in 1983 on land donated by Lloyd W. Nott and his sister, Sethora West. Regular readers will recognize the name. Sethora West was the teacher and historian profiled here in July, and she later served as a commissioner of this same emergency services district.

That 1983 station was built for a department that, a year later, joined what is now ESD No. 4. It served a town of a few hundred people; the 1980 census counted 594. Its successor is being built for a district of about 120,000.

In 2024, Mayor McCoy said he hoped the downtown station could become a focal point for the area, where the city has revitalization plans. That’s a reasonable hope. A fire station is one of the few public buildings people genuinely like having in the middle of town.

The honest questions

Few people oppose a new fire station. But this one raises fair questions, and they deserve straight answers.

Will it change the feel of downtown? Somewhat. Two bays on Fifth Street mean engines pulling out onto downtown streets, and sirens. Then again, a fire department has operated from this block for more than four decades. The new building replaces activity that’s already there rather than adding to it. The design question worth watching is how the two-story building meets the street, since downtown’s character depends on scale.

Is $7.5 million a lot? It’s real money. But measured per square foot, it’s close to what the district paid at Cross Creek Ranch. I’d want to see the final contract amount before drawing a firmer conclusion.

What happens to the 1983 station? I haven’t seen a public answer yet. Given whose land it sits on and what it represents, it’s a fair question to put to the board.

The bigger issue isn’t the building.

Building a station is a one-time cost. Staffing it is forever. Living quarters for up to eight firefighters means hiring and paying crews around the clock, every year, from a property tax rate already only about a third of a cent below its legal ceiling. Two sales tax proposals have failed. Each new station adds ongoing payroll that has to come out of the same capped rate.

So the relevant question is never whether Fulshear should have a fire station downtown. It obviously should. The question is how ESD No. 4 will pay to staff six stations and counting on a property tax it can’t raise, and what residents are willing to support to make that work. That might mean relying on growth in the tax base, a revised sales tax proposal that addresses the fairness objection, or slower expansion. Each choice has costs. Residents should hear the district’s plan in plain numbers.

Want to weigh in?

The ESD No. 4 board is one of the least-watched governing bodies in western Fort Bend County, and one of the most consequential. It sets a tax that appears on every property bill in the district, and it decides where the engines that answer your 911 call are parked.

The public can attend its meetings. The board regularly meets on the third Tuesday of each month at 8 a.m.; check the district’s website for the posted agenda and location before you go. The board sets the tax rate each year in late summer, with a required public hearing whenever the proposed rate exceeds the “no-new-revenue” rate, the rate that would bring in the same money from the same properties as the year before.

Three questions worth asking there:

What is the final, board-approved cost of Station 5, and how is it being financed?
What is the plan for the 1983 Fifth Street station once the new one opens?
With the property tax rate near its cap and two sales tax proposals defeated, how will the district fund staffing for its next stations?

Sixty-three years ago, Fulshear paid for its first fire truck one oyster supper at a time. The town has changed beyond recognition since then. The underlying deal hasn’t: we protect each other by deciding, together, what we’re willing to pay for.

If you have thoughts on Station 5, or know what’s planned for the old station, reply to this post. And if you found this useful, share it with a neighbor.

Sources

Sources: Covering Katy, “Fulshear-Simonton FD breaks ground on new fire station in downtown Fulshear” (Oct. 22, 2026); Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, TABS project TABS2024020036; Community Impact, “New Fulshear fire station opens in Cross Creek Ranch” (Oct. 2024); Covering Katy, “New fire station opens in Fulshear” (Oct. 15, 2024); Fulshear-Simonton Fire Department, “History”, FAQ, ESD No. 4 page and 2025 sales tax election FAQ; Community Impact, 2024 sales tax election results and 2025 election preview; Covering Katy, 2025 sales tax election results; City of Weston Lakes, “FBC ESD 4 Proposition A”; Covering Katy, Jordan Ranch groundbreaking (June 2025).

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Want to see your business here? Contact us at sponsors@aboutfulsheartexas.org for sponsorship opportunities.

Supporting Our Local History. All proceeds from “About Fulshear, Texas” sponsorships go directly to the Fulshear Historical Association, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to preserving and celebrating the rich heritage of our community.

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54 — representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Keep Fulshear Beautiful Returns Saturday, November 7

Bob Gordon — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 12:03:58 GMT

Fulshear’s twice-a-year volunteer cleanup returns Saturday, November 7. This post covers what to expect, how the program actually works, and why a tradition that started when Fulshear was a small town matters even more now.

When Ramona Ridge organized the first Keep Fulshear Beautiful cleanup in 2011, Fulshear had roughly 1,100 residents. In a single Saturday morning, a crew of neighbors with gloves and trash bags could make a visible difference across the whole city.

That math has changed.

The 2020 census counted 16,856 residents. The Census Bureau now estimates roughly 64,600 as of July 2025. The city’s own projection for residents inside city limits is lower, at 42,000 to 46,000. (The two figures are measured differently, and nobody knows the exact number.) Either way, Fulshear has grown many times over since this program began.

The format, though, is the same as always. Twice a year, in April and November, neighbors gather at the Irene Stern Community Center on a Saturday morning, pick up their supplies, and go to work. The next one is Saturday, November 7.

The essentials

When: Saturday, November 7, 2026. Volunteers meet at 9:00 a.m. Recent events have wrapped up around noon.
Where: Irene Stern Community Center, 6920 Katy Fulshear Road.
Who: Anyone. Individuals, families, scout troops, church groups, and businesses have all taken part. It is a family-friendly event.
Cost: Free.
What to bring: Water and comfortable work clothes. They hand out supplies and safety gear at check-in. I’d add closed-toe shoes and a hat, since roadside ditches in November can still be muddy, buggy, or warm.

In April, no pre-registration was needed; you just showed up. Volunteers under the age of 18 will need to have a parent sign a liability agreement at the event. The city has offered an online sign-up form for past events, though, so if you’re bringing a large group, a quick call or email to the organizers beforehand is a courtesy they’ll appreciate (contact details are at the end of this post).

What actually happens that morning

If you’ve never been, here is what recent events have looked like.

Volunteers arrive at the Stern Center around 9:00 for a light snack, a safety briefing, supplies, a volunteer T-shirt, and an assignment. Most teams then fan out across town to pick up roadside litter. Others stay closer to home base and work on planting projects.

Last November, the to-do list included roadside litter, replanting the Stern Pollinator Garden, and collecting electronics for recycling. The April 2025 event added drive-through paper shredding and a live birds-of-prey exhibit. In past years, the city has also used these mornings to replant community vegetable gardens and put native plants into public spaces.

That pollinator garden has a future, by the way. In the draft Parks and Pathways Master Plan concepts presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission on September 11, the Irene Stern expansion adds tennis and pickleball courts but keeps the butterfly pollinator garden in place. The volunteers who replant it each season are tending something the city intends to keep.

At this November 7th event, we'll have drive-through electronic recycling drop-off, replanting the Pollinator Garden, litter removal along our roadsides, plantings along the Charger Way medians, and wildflower seeding along the Downtown wastewater treatment plant. It will wrap up with an appreciation lunch back at the Stern Center from Local Table. Wild Arts Texas will have a fun educational reptile table.

Who runs it, and how it fits together

Keep Fulshear Beautiful looks like a simple Saturday cleanup, and in one sense it is. But three organizations sit behind it, each doing a different job.

Forever Fulshear is the local nonprofit that organizes the event. Ramona Ridge founded Keep Fulshear Beautiful in 2011 and, in 2014, started the Fulshear Farmers’ Market, which Forever Fulshear still runs. Ridge remains the event’s organizer and point of contact.
The City of Fulshear partners with and sponsors the event. The event goes on the city calendar, and city employees and council members have worked alongside residents over the years. As I reported in April, City Manager Zach Goodlander has volunteered with Keep Fulshear Beautiful for seven years.
Keep Texas Beautiful is the statewide nonprofit that ties it all together. It works through local affiliates, which are community groups that join its network in exchange for training, cleanup supplies, and recognition. The Texas House noted last year that the network spans nearly 300 communities. Keep Texas Beautiful has named Keep Fulshear Beautiful a Silver Star Affiliate, one of its recognition tiers.

The November cleanup also falls under Keep Texas Beautiful’s annual Fall Sweep, a statewide campaign running this year from September 11 through November 22. Local cleanups report their results to the Texas Litter Database, so Fulshear’s bags of trash become data points in a statewide count.

That count is not small. Last fall, Texans reported 802 Fall Sweep cleanups involving 14,844 volunteers, who removed an estimated 359,800 pounds of litter. Fulshear’s morning cleanup was one part of that. The April KFB event reported taking in 1,200 pounds of electronics for recycling and 1,720 pounds of litter with 200 volunteers.

The Fall 2026 event is made possible by their generous sponsors:

GFL Environmental buys lunch for the volunteers
BGE has been a major sponsor since 2011, and a company group of volunteers is always there
Cross Creek Ranch Association has also sponsored since 2011
HEB sponsors with in-kind donations (snacks and drinks)
Wallis Bank
Ace Hardware Fulshear
Trademark Properties
DHK Dev
and of course, the City of Fulshear.

Isn’t this the city’s job?

Some readers will be thinking it, and it is a fair question. Fulshear residents pay city taxes, and many also pay MUD and HOA assessments that cover landscaping and common areas. Why should anyone spend a Saturday morning picking up someone else’s fast-food bag?

To be fair to skeptics, volunteering twice a year does not replace public works. It will not keep up with the debris that comes with this much construction traffic, and nobody involved pretends otherwise.

But the relevant question was never whether the city could pay someone to pick up roadside trash. It’s whether a city growing this fast can keep the sense that the place belongs to the people who live here.

Most of Fulshear’s residents arrived in the last few years. Much of what passes for civic life (council agendas, zoning hearings, budget workshops) asks newcomers to learn a great deal before they can take part. A cleanup asks for nothing but a morning. It may be the easiest way in Fulshear to meet the neighbors who care about this place, and to become one of them.

There's continuity here, too. The volunteers gather at a community center named for Irene Stern, whose service to the town the Fulshear Historical Association has documented. A small town that cared for itself is how Fulshear got here. A growing city that still does is how it stays itself.

How to take part

The simplest version: show up at the Irene Stern Community Center, 6920 Katy Fulshear Road, at 9:00 a.m. on Saturday, November 7.

For questions, or to give a heads-up that you’re bringing a group, contact Ramona Ridge at Forever Fulshear: 713-703-4129 or foreverfulshear@gmail.com.

Can’t make it? The next Keep Fulshear Beautiful cleanup will be in April 2027. In the meantime, Forever Fulshear’s farmers’ market runs most Saturdays, and its Holiday Evening Market is Wednesday, December 16, from 4:00 to 8:00 p.m.

If you do go on the 7th, reply to this post and tell me what you find on the roadside. I’d like to write about it.

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Want to see your business here? Contact us at sponsors@aboutfulsheartexas.org to learn about sponsorship opportunities.

Supporting Our Local History. All proceeds from “About Fulshear, Texas” sponsorships go directly to the Fulshear Historical Association, a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to preserving and celebrating the rich heritage of our community.

Sources

George Lane: From Luxury Listings to Downtown Fulshear

Bob Gordon — Mon, 02 Nov 2026 12:02:56 GMT

If you’ve followed the debate over Fulshear Town Square and Fulshear Village, you’ve heard a lot about developer Joe Veytia. Both proposals' land belongs to a partnership led by a man most residents have never met. Here is what the public record says about George Lane: four decades selling other people’s real estate in print, and more than a decade holding some of downtown Fulshear’s own.

Every downtown has a landowner whose name rarely makes the headlines.

When Joe Veytia stood before City Council on March 17 to pitch Fulshear Town Square and Fulshear Village, he spoke on behalf of the landowner, Fulshear Real Estate Partners. When he came back on October 20, the draft memorandum of understanding named a different company, 1093 FTS LLC, as the developer. Neither name tells you much about who has been holding this ground, or for how long.

George H. Lane is behind Fulshear Real Estate Partners. His professional profile lists him as the partnership’s general partner since June 2013, and business-registry records show him as president of its general-partner company, formed the same year.

If the name sounds faintly familiar, you may have seen it on a masthead. Lane also had the idea for Fulshear's own magazine.

Selling the view: four decades in real estate publishing

To understand George Lane, it helps to understand the business he built. A real estate listing magazine works on a simple trade. Brokers pay to put their best properties in front of buyers, and the publisher’s job is to get the magazine into the hands of the right buyers. (If you’ve ever picked up a glossy home magazine at a grocery checkout or found one in your mailbox, you’ve seen the model.)

According to the biography published by his company, Real Property Luxury Group, Lane has been in luxury real estate brokerage and publishing since the early 1980s. His first venture was Broker’s Choice, a magazine that promoted brokers’ listings to the public in Portland, Oregon. He then moved back to his native Texas to start something similar.

That something became Pinnacle, a high-end magazine showcasing each market’s luxury homes and distributed to a select readership in each area’s finest neighborhoods. The company says it eventually ran in 23 regions across the United States. In the early 1990s, Lane launched Texas Farm & Ranch, a newsstand magazine for farm and ranch properties, and grew it into a family of five regional magazines. In 2003, Lane launched Residence International, a worldwide title co-owned by its brokerage affiliates.

Houston-based Regency Publishing Group produced those titles, where several of Lane’s longtime staff got their start. One of them, in a staff biography, credits Lane and a colleague, Dick Lewis, with the creative atmosphere.

By 2009, Lane had consolidated his titles under Real Property Luxury Group, which describes itself as a licensed brokerage, media and referral company. His profile lists him as its chairman since June of that year. Its portfolio included Classic Properties International, American Luxury Estates, Open Country International, Fine Property International and Distinctive Properties International, among others. Lane also lists Texas Sporting Journal, Southern Country Estates, Canvas and Living Well among the publications his companies have produced.

To be fair to the reader, most of this account comes from Lane’s own company materials. That is the natural place for a self-description, but it is not independent verification. The company’s testimonials page offers the brokers’ view: one called him a pioneer in real estate marketing and said his strongest suit was his ability to “harness BIG ideas and make them happen.”

Coming to Fulshear

Lane’s Fulshear chapter begins, on paper, in 2013. His profile lists a project called “Fulshear downtown development” starting in May 2013, and a general partnership, Fulshear Real Estate Partners, LP, starting in June.

It is worth remembering what Fulshear was then. The 2010 census counted barely more than a thousand residents. Downtown was the old crossroads of FM 1093 and FM 359, not yet the commercial center of a city of tens of thousands. Two years earlier, in 2011, the Texas Legislature created the Fulshear Town Center Management District to help finance downtown mixed-use development. That district has never been activated. Nothing I found connects Lane to its creation, but the idea that downtown could be more than it was predates his arrival.

The clearest early glimpse of Lane as a Fulshear landowner comes from a market update by local realtor Michael Roller, written when Polo Ranch was just breaking ground. Roller wrote that he had sold land to “the developer, George Lane of Fulshear Investments,” for a project called Fulshear Village. He placed it on FM 359, just north of Dozier’s, at what would become the intersection with Huggins Road.

One caution about names. A company called Fulshear Investments, LLC also appears in the October 2026 council packet as a party to the Waters development agreements. The public record I reviewed doesn't establish whether that is the same entity Roller meant, and I wouldn't assume it.

Lane’s companies are registered in nearby Richmond, and his profile lists Richmond as his base.

A magazine for a town that didn’t have one

In 2014, Lane did what he had done in Portland and across two dozen Pinnacle markets: he started a magazine. This time, the subject was the town itself.

He took the idea to Daniel and Jenni McJunkin, who had run the community website Fulshear.com since the 1990s. In the launch materials, Dan McJunkin wrote that Lane, “a Fulshear resident,” had contacted the couple about a magazine made specifically for Fulshear, and that they were delighted. McJunkin became publisher; Jenni McJunkin, media director. Business records show a company called Fulshear Media Partners, LLC, formed in 2014 with Lane as president and McJunkin as his one listed business connection.

The first issues of Fulshear Magazine appeared online in the fall of 2014. The magazine later became Explore Fulshear, with a sister title, Explore Katy. By the 2024 edition, the masthead listed William Prior as publisher, Dan McJunkin as publisher emeritus and co-founder, and George Lane as chairman and CEO of Explore Magazine and its parent, Explore America, LLC.

Here is the part of Lane’s story that most Fulshear readers have already met without knowing it. Fulshear Magazine published some of the most useful local history written about this town in the last decade: Susan Lowe Strickland’s “There’s Just Something About Old Fulshear” series, her profile of Viola Gilmore Randle, and Dan McJunkin’s survey of the area’s historic cemeteries. Those articles now live on the Fulshear Historical Association’s website, each credited as used with permission from George Lane and Explore America Holdings.

Full disclosure: I serve as the FHA’s Director of Development. That permission helps keep a decade of Fulshear’s printed memory available to the public, and it is fair to note it, whatever one thinks of his downtown plans.

From magazines to marketplaces

Lane’s more recent companies carry the same business into the web era. Business records show Explore America, LLC formed in 2018, followed by Explore America Holdings, LLC and Land.Us, LLC in 2020 and Explore.Us, LLC in 2021, each with Lane as president. His profile describes him as chairman and CEO of Explore America and Land.us since January 2018, with companies spanning publishing, website development, real estate acquisition and property referral.

Land.us, which identifies itself as a division of Explore America Holdings, is a national marketplace where land brokers list farms, ranches, country homes and acreage. Lane’s profile also lists a string of state-branded sites, from ExploreTexas.com to ExploreColorado.com and ExploreFlorida.com.

The through line from Broker’s Choice to Land.us is consistent. For more than forty years, George Lane has presented property at its most appealing to the people most likely to buy it. That lens proved useful for what came next downtown.

The land under Town Square and Village

When Joe Veytia brought his renderings to council in March, the city’s agenda memo identified the two parcels as owned by Fulshear Real Estate Partners. In other words, the two most ambitious proposals for Fulshear’s commercial core sit on land held by George Lane’s partnership.

The sites themselves are familiar from earlier coverage:

Fulshear Town Square, roughly 18.8 acres at the southeast corner of FM 1093 and FM 359, beside the H-E-B property.
Fulshear Village, a smaller site closer to the historic core between Wallis and Main. The October draft memorandum describes it as about 4.7 acres near Huggins Drive and FM 359.

That second location is worth a moment. Years before anyone saw a rendering, Roller had described a Lane project called Fulshear Village on FM 359 near the future Huggins Road. The name and the general location match. What has changed is the scale of the ambition and the public financing tools now attached to it.

Here, honesty requires a clear line between what the record shows and what it doesn’t.

What it shows: In March, Lane’s partnership was identified as the landowner. In October, the draft memorandum named 1093 FTS LLC, with Veytia as manager, as the developer. Fulshear city staff recommended against approving it yet, and council took no action on October 20.

What it doesn’t show: how Lane’s partnership and 1093 FTS LLC relate. A sale, an option, a ground lease, or a joint venture would each mean something different for who carries the risk and who captures the gain. In the coverage I reviewed of the March and October meetings, George Lane did address the council on March 17, 2026. In his statement, he said he preferred a concept like Fulshear Town Square over selling the land to a big-box store such as Target or Home Depot. I found no public account of his early life, education, or family, and I won’t fill those gaps with guesses.

None of this is a criticism. Landowners holding ground for a decade while a town grows toward it is how suburban downtowns get built. The relevant question is never whether a landowner should profit when a town grows toward his land. It’s how much of that growth the public is being asked to finance, and on what terms. That question belongs to council and to us, not to any one person.

The man between the memory and the plan

Fulshear has always been shaped by the people who held its land, from Churchill Fulshear’s Mexican land grant in 1824 onward. George Lane occupies an unusual place in that line. His magazine helped record the town’s past, and his land will help decide its future.

Those two roles don’t cancel each other out, and neither excuses the other. They simply mean his name deserves to be better known.

I would welcome the chance to sit down with Mr. Lane and let him tell this story in his own words: why Fulshear, why 2013, and what he hopes downtown becomes. If you know him, or have a piece of his story the public record misses, reply and tell me. And if a neighbor has been following the Town Square debate, share this with them. It helps to know whose ground we’re talking about.

Sources

Current as of October 28, 2026.

Real Property Luxury Group, “About” (company biography of George Lane and staff) and “Testimonials”
George H. Lane, professional profile (LinkedIn; self-reported)
CorporationWiki, “George Lane – President for Fulshear Media Partners, LLC” (summary of Texas business registrations)
Michael Roller, “What is Going on in Fulshear!”, Roller Realty
Fulshear Magazine, launch media booklet (letter from Daniel McJunkin)
Explore Fulshear Magazine, 2024 edition masthead
Fulshear Historical Association, Architectural History, Black History and Cemetery History pages (republished Fulshear Magazine articles)
Land.us, home page
City of Fulshear, agenda memo for the March 17, 2026 council workshop (Item X.C), and Council Packet, October 20, 2026 (Item IX.H draft MOU)
Covering Katy News, “Two Major Mixed-Use Projects Proposed for Fulshear”, May 28, 2026
Community Impact, “City of Fulshear hears $520M Fulshear Town Square project proposal”, October 2026
Texas Special District Local Laws Code, Chapter 3903, Fulshear Town Center Management District
Prior About Fulshear, Texas coverage: “What the Waters PUD Really Changes” (Oct. 18) and “Fulshear Town Square and Fulshear Village: Following the Money”

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About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Heritage Bend's Boundary Fight Reaches the Settlement Table

Bob Gordon — Sun, 01 Nov 2026 12:03:15 GMT

For six months, Fulshear City Council has met behind closed doors with its lawyers about Heritage Bend. On October 20, a new word appeared on the agenda: settlement. Here is what that word can and cannot tell us, what MUD No. 277 actually is, and why a dispute over a district outside the city limits matters to people who already live inside them.

In August 2025, a financing deal closed that no Fulshear resident voted on. It raised $129.2 million against utility district bonds that had not yet been issued, to build roads and pipes for houses that did not yet exist, on ranch land just south of Cross Creek Ranch. At the time, not a dollar of the infrastructure it would pay for had been spent.

Fourteen months later, the dirt is moving. Highland Homes broke ground in July, and the first houses are expected on the market in 2027. And the City of Fulshear, according to a published summary of its October 20 agenda, is in a jurisdictional boundary dispute involving one of the districts behind that deal: Fort Bend County Municipal Utility District No. 277.

The agenda listed possible action, after the closed session, on a settlement involving MUD No. 277 and unnamed related parties. As of this writing, a week later, I have not found any public report of what, if anything, council did.

That silence is not unusual. It is also not the end of the story.

Four agendas, one shifting sentence

Regular readers have watched this item move through the council packet since spring. Read in order, the wording tells a small story.

April 7 (special meeting). Closed session on “boundary, ETJ, and annexation issues” related to Heritage Bend and its associated MUD(s). No action reported.
August 18. Closed session on “land, boundary, jurisdictional, and municipal authority issues.” No action reported.
September 15. The same language, broadened to “properties associated with” the development and “any related” ETJ and annexation matters, with an open-session slot to “discuss and consider action.” Separately, council consulted its attorney on a reclaimed-water agreement between Cross Creek Ranch’s MUD No. 169 and Heritage Bend’s MUD No. 275.
October 20. For the first time, a single district is named — MUD No. 277 — and the item is described as a jurisdictional boundary dispute, with possible action on a settlement involving MUD No. 277 and related parties. (That is how My Neighborhood News summarized the posted agenda in its October 15 preview; the city’s own wording should be checked against the packet.)

Two things changed in October. The target narrowed from “associated MUD(s)” to one district. The verb also changed from consult to settle.

In municipal law, you do not settle a conversation. You settle a dispute. That word suggests the city and at least one other party have staked out positions and have drafted, or at least contemplated, a written resolution.

A word about the mechanics, because they explain the silence. The Texas Open Meetings Act lets a council meet privately with its attorney about pending or contemplated litigation, or about a settlement offer (Government Code §551.071). But it cannot decide anything there. Any vote, including approving a settlement, must happen in open session. If council approved something on October 20, it did so on the record, after the closed session, and it will appear on the meeting video and in the minutes. If it did nothing, the item will likely return.

Meet MUD No. 277

A municipal utility district is a small special-purpose government. It borrows to build water, sewer, drainage, and (in Fort Bend County, usually) road and park infrastructure, then repays that debt through a property tax on whoever owns land inside it. Heritage Bend has two of them. MUD No. 275 is the “master” district that builds the regional plants and trunk lines. MUD No. 277 is a participant district that contracts to pay its share.

MUD No. 277’s family tree runs through Austin. In 2021, the Legislature created Fort Bend County MUD No. 253 by special act (House Bill 4642, now Chapter 7940A of the Special District Local Laws Code). That statute lets the district split itself into new districts so long as it has no debt and levies no tax, and each new district inherits the original’s powers. MUD 253 divided once in January 2023, creating MUD 253B. According to MUD 277’s election order, 253B divided again in early 2025, and MUD 277 was one of the resulting districts.

Its board then went to the voters. The May 3, 2025, election order asked them to confirm the district and to authorize $586 million in water, sewer, and drainage bonds, $89 million in park bonds, and $611 million in road bonds, plus operating taxes of up to $1.50 and $0.25 per $100 of value, and a contract obligating the district to help pay MUD 275’s regional bonds. The board’s own estimate: if it were all issued, the district’s debt-service tax rate would rise to $1.50 per $100 of assessed value.

A year later, on May 2, 2026, the district carved out a “Defined Area North” (and a companion “Defined Area South”) and went back to the ballot. For the north section alone, the propositions authorized:

The tallies come from the county’s unofficial election-night report, which counted 12 ballots across every MUD and water district on the May 2 ballot combined. The Defined Area South propositions passed the same way, one vote to none.

It would be easy to make that table into a scandal. It isn’t one, or at least not a new one. This is how Texas MUDs are born: on raw land, with a handful of qualified voters — often people living on the property with ties to the developer — authorizing ceilings sized for the finished community. A ceiling is not debt. Bonds are issued in tranches as houses are built and the tax base grows, with state review (the Attorney General and, for most utility bonds, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality) along the way.

But the table does make one thing plain. Every major financial decision about Heritage Bend so far has been made by people who will not live with it. The $129.2 million receivable sold in August 2025 is a 7.5 percent capital appreciation bond, meaning interest compounds rather than being paid as it accrues, backed by the future bond proceeds of MUDs 275 and 277. When My Neighborhood News reported the deal, it accurately noted that the financing does not place the cost directly on taxpayers. That is true for anyone who pays taxes today. It is not true for the roughly 7,000 households who will someday buy those homes and inherit the bill.

Which brings us to the elected bodies that represent people who already live here. One is the Fort Bend County Commissioners Court, which approved a development agreement with Hines in December 2024. The other is the Fulshear City Council.

Why a city has a say over a district it doesn’t govern

Heritage Bend sits in unincorporated Fort Bend County. So a fair reader might ask: what does Fulshear have to dispute?

The answer is in the fine print of the 2021 law that created MUD 277’s parent district. Three provisions matter.

Consent. Section 7940A.0104 says the district may not hold its confirmation election until every city “in whose corporate limits or extraterritorial jurisdiction the district is located” has consented, by ordinance or resolution, to the district’s creation and to the land included in it. Under Section 7940A.0306(k), consent given to the original district carries over to every district later split from it.
Conditions. Section 7940A.0305 requires the district to comply with any conditions a city attaches when it grants consent under the Water Code. Cities commonly use those conditions to set construction standards, cap bond terms, or preserve annexation rights.
Roads. Section 7940A.0304 says any district road project must meet the construction, zoning, and subdivision standards of the city in whose limits or ETJ it sits. Outside any ETJ, the county’s standards govern instead.

Every one of those provisions turns on a single factual question: which acres are, or were, inside Fulshear’s extraterritorial jurisdiction? Land inside the ETJ brings the city’s consent, its conditions, and its platting rules into play. Land outside it answers to the county.

That question is harder than it sounds. Since Senate Bill 2038 took effect in September 2023, landowners can petition to be removed from a city’s ETJ, and the city must release them. Fulshear has seen more than 10,000 acres leave that way, as I reported in “Fulshear’s Vanishing Buffer.” Land can also petition to be added to an ETJ, as the owners of a tract across FM 1463 from Firethorne asked to do this summer. A map of Fulshear’s ETJ is now a moving picture, and a dispute over where a line fell on a given date, and what consent attached to the land on either side of it, is exactly the kind of thing lawyers call a “jurisdictional boundary dispute.”

To be fair to everyone involved, I don't know whether this is the dispute. It is the one the statute makes most likely. It could also concern platting authority over a specific tract, the terms of a past consent, or the plumbing that already ties Heritage Bend to Fulshear: the reclaimed-water agreement between Cross Creek Ranch’s MUD 169 and Heritage Bend’s MUD 275, which surfaced on the September agenda, touches a system the city operates.

What a “settlement” could actually contain

When a city settles a jurisdictional dispute with a utility district, the document usually does one or more of four things.

It draws the line. The parties agree which tracts fall within Fulshear’s ETJ and which do not, often with exhibits and field notes, so future plats go to the right government. The city may release some land and keep the rest.

It trades consent for conditions. The city confirms its consent to land being in the district, and in exchange the district and developer accept city standards for roads, drainage, or utilities that connect to Fulshear’s system, or limits on bond terms. It is a familiar shape for MUD consent deals around Houston.

It sets the long game. A development agreement under Local Government Code §212.172 can run up to 45 years and fix the rules on both sides. A strategic partnership under §43.0751, which I explained in September, would keep land in the ETJ (it cannot be petitioned out) and let the city collect sales tax on commercial ground while the district keeps its own debt.

Or it walks away. The city concludes its claim isn't worth the legal bill, concedes the point, and the disputed acreage answers to Fort Bend County.

Residents will reasonably ask whether any of this could put Heritage Bend’s debt on Fulshear’s books. Under Texas law, the answer is no in nearly every scenario. Under Local Government Code §43.075, a city assumes a district’s debt when it annexes the district’s territory for full purposes, and while the agendas mention annexation in general terms, nothing in the public record suggests full-purpose annexation of Heritage Bend is on the table. A boundary settlement, a consent agreement, or a strategic partnership leaves the debt with the district and its future residents. But “nearly every” is doing work in that sentence, and the only way to know is to read the document.

So here is the reframe I keep coming back to. The relevant question is not whether the city “wins” the dispute. It is what the city keeps a hand on. Heritage Bend’s 7,000 households will drive Texas Heritage Parkway and FM 1093 whether or not a single one of them ever lives inside the city limits. The roads, the drainage, and any water, sewer, or reclaimed-water lines that tie into Fulshear’s systems will be built to someone’s standards. A settlement decides, for a generation, whose.

The honest limits of what we know

It would be dishonest to pretend this post is more than it is. Five cautions.

First, I do not know whether council acted on October 20. I have found no news report, press release, or posted minutes describing an action on the MUD 277 item. That is not evidence that nothing happened; minutes are typically approved at the following meeting, and the meeting video is the faster record.

Second, I do not know who the “related parties” are. Hines, MUD 275, and the lot owners are the obvious candidates, but the agenda summary I have seen does not name them.

Third, I have found no public record of a lawsuit. A settlement can resolve a threatened claim as easily as a filed one, and §551.071 covers both.

Fourth, the city still has not publicly said which Heritage Bend acres, if any, sit inside its ETJ today, or did when the districts were created. Until it does, the analysis above maps possibilities, not findings.

Fifth, the district records I relied on are election documents. They show what MUD 277’s board asked voters to authorize and the election-night tallies; the 2026 results are labeled unofficial. Authorization ceilings are not issued debt.

Want to find out what happened?

You don't need a law degree to find out. You need about twenty minutes and three tools.

Watch the tape. The city posts council video on its meeting-video site, linked from the Agendas & Minutes page at fulsheartexas.gov. The “action from executive session” items come near the end of the meeting. If council voted on a MUD 277 settlement, the motion is there.
Read the next packet. Council meets on the third Tuesday of the month, so the next regular meeting is Tuesday, November 17, at 6 p.m. at the Municipal Complex, 6611 W. Cross Creek Bend Lane (check the city calendar for any changes). The October 20 minutes should appear on that consent agenda, and an unresolved item would likely return.
Ask for the document. If the council approved a settlement, the agreement is public. The Texas Public Information Act lists “a settlement agreement to which a governmental body is a party” among the categories of public information that must be released unless another law makes them confidential (Government Code §552.022(a)(18)); the Attorney General has repeatedly ruled that cities cannot withhold them under the litigation exception. A short written request to the City Secretary is all it takes.

If you would rather say it out loud, public comment comes early in each meeting; speakers register in advance and get three minutes. Three questions would be worth putting on the record:

Did council take any action on the MUD 277 item on October 20, and if so, when will the agreement be posted?
Which Heritage Bend acres does the city consider to be inside its ETJ today?
Does any agreement under discussion create a financial, service, or maintenance obligation for the City of Fulshear?

Heritage Bend’s money was raised in 2025, before a single house existed. Its 2026 bond propositions passed one vote to none. The last open question is whose rules will shape the roads and pipes those 7,000 future households will share with the rest of us, and an elected council is answering it in our name. A settlement written behind closed doors still has to be voted on in the open. At the very least, we can read it.

I’ll report what I find. If you get there first, reply and tell me, and if you have a neighbor in Cross Creek Ranch who wonders what is happening on the other side of the tollway, share this with them.

Sources

Tiffany Krenek, “Fulshear City Council to Consider Town Square Development, 91-Acre Rezoning, Road Extension and Cell Tower at October 20 Meeting,” My Neighborhood News, October 15, 2026.
Tiffany Krenek, “As $129M MUD Bond Launches Heritage Bend, Fulshear Grapples with the Pressures of Growth,” My Neighborhood News, August 15, 2025.
City of Fulshear, Regular City Council Meeting Agenda, September 15, 2026, items XII.A–B and XIII.A–B.
Texas Infrastructure Program, Heritage Bend case study (par $129,205,286; 7.5%; capital appreciation bonds; closed August 13, 2025).
Fort Bend County MUD No. 277, Notice and Order Calling Confirmation, Directors, Bonds, Operation and Maintenance Tax, and Special Contract Elections, May 3, 2025 election (adopted February 13, 2025).
Fort Bend County MUD No. 277, Notice of Defined Area North Confirmation, Bonds, Operation and Maintenance Tax, and Special Contract Elections, May 2, 2026.
Fort Bend County Elections, MUD Municipal Election Summary Results Report (unofficial), May 2, 2026.
Texas Legislature, H.B. 4642, 87th Legislature (2021), enrolled, creating Chapter 7940A, Special District Local Laws Code (§§7940A.0104, .0304, .0305, .0306).
SAMCO Capital Markets, Official Statement, Fort Bend County MUD No. 253 Unlimited Tax Road Bonds, Series 2025(division of MUD 253 into MUD 253 and MUD 253B).
Office of the Attorney General, Open Records Letter Ruling OR2016-23940 (Government Code §552.022(a)(18)).
Covering Katy News, “Heritage Bend takes shape as first neighborhood construction begins near Fulshear”, July 30, 2026.
From this newsletter: “Who Owns Heritage Bend’s Problems?” (September 13, 2026); “What Fulshear City Council Approved at the April 7 Special Meeting” (April 11, 2026); “Heritage Bend: Eight Builders, One Developer, One Financial Sponsor” (June 7, 2026); “Fulshear’s Vanishing Buffer”; and “A Second Vote on Firethorne”.

Want to see your business here? Contact us at sponsors@aboutfulsheartexas.org for sponsorship opportunities.

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

What Fulshear Is Building: Inside the City's New Capital Projects Tracker

Bob Gordon — Sat, 31 Oct 2026 11:01:42 GMT

The City of Fulshear now publishes a public dashboard for every major capital project — water plants, sewer plants, drainage, streets, and parks. Here’s a guided tour of what’s on it, what the numbers actually mean, and the handful of projects that will shape how the city works for the next decade.

Every growing town eventually reaches the point where the hard part isn’t the rooftops. It’s everything underneath them.

The new subdivisions, the shopping centers, the schools — those are the visible parts of Fulshear’s growth. The invisible parts are the wells, pumps, storage tanks, sewer plants, lift stations, storm pipes, and detention ponds that have to exist before anyone can turn on a faucet or flush a toilet. That infrastructure is expensive, it takes years to design and build, and until recently it was hard for an ordinary resident to follow.

That has changed. The City now maintains a public Capital Projects Tracker at fulcrum.fulsheartexas.gov. It shows each project the City has marked for publication, with a project map, a timeline view, budgets, payments to date, and short monthly status updates. You can also download the full report as a PDF.

I spent some time with the most recent report, generated October 21, 2026. Here’s what I found.

What the tracker is (and isn’t)

Public Works maintains the tracker and draws on the City’s internal CIP Tracker. (CIP stands for Capital Improvement Program—the City’s multi-year list of major construction and equipment investments, distinct from day-to-day operating costs like salaries and utilities.) The figures are republished at month's end.

Before looking at any numbers, it’s worth understanding the three that appear on every project, because they are easy to misread:

Planned budget is the full estimated cost of the project from start to finish.
Current budget is the portion already placed under contract. That’s why it’s often much smaller than the planned budget—a project may have a design contract in place long before it awards a construction contract.
Budget spent is the share of the money that has actually been paid out.

The City’s own explanation makes an important point: money paid is not the same as work completed. A project can be mostly paid and still have months of construction left — or barely paid and nearly finished. Contractors are paid on a schedule of pay applications, not in lockstep with progress.

The big picture

As of the October report, the tracker lists 54 public projects. Together they carry about $140.6 million in current (contracted) budgets, of which roughly $51.2 million has been paid and about $89.4 million remains.

Here’s how that splits across the five programs:

Two things jump out.

First, water is mostly built and mostly paid for; wastewater is mostly ahead of us. The City just finished a wave of water-plant construction, so about 80% of the contracted water money has already gone out the door. Wastewater is the reverse — nearly $83 million under contract and only about 8% paid, because the largest sewer projects broke ground this year.

Second, the contracted figures understate the long-term commitment. If you add up the planned budgets of the projects listed, the total runs well past $250 million. Several of the largest projects — a new water plant, new wells, a major lift station — are funded only through design today, with construction tied to future bond sales.

The tracker shows 8 projects complete, 12 under construction, 11 in design, 2 in bidding, 6 planned, 1 on hold, and 14 marked “unknown.” Most of the “unknown” entries are newer line items that don’t yet have a budget or schedule attached.

Water: the plants are done

Over the last two years, the water story has been about catching up with demand, and the tracker shows that work is largely finished.

Pecan Knoll Water Plant ($16.7 million under contract) in Pecan Ridge added a well of up to 2,000 gallons per minute, a 1.5-million-gallon ground storage tank, and a pump station with 3.8 million gallons per day (MGD) of firm capacity. It reached substantial completion in late 2025, and the City walked the punch list — the final list of fix-it items — on May 29, 2026.
Elevated Storage Tank (Pecan Ridge) — a new 1-million-gallon water tower at the Pecan Knoll site, on land dedicated by the developer — reached substantial completion in December 2025 and is pending final closeout.
Downtown Water Plant ($8.4 million) added 3.0 MGD of pumping capacity, a 1-million-gallon ground storage tank, and replaced a 10-inch water line along Leyendecker Road to Huggins Road with a 16-inch line. The City closed it out and accepted it in June.

The next phase is bigger and less certain. The Pecan Knoll onsite and offsite wells project has a planned budget of nearly $40 million because the plant’s current well yields won’t be enough on their own; the City awarded construction to Alsay Incorporated, which has begun mobilizing. The McKinnon Water Plant in the Fulshear Central development—planned at about $42 million for a 4.0 MGD supply mixing groundwater and surface water—is listed as on hold, with only design money under contract.

One small project is worth noting because it illustrates a real-world constraint: the FM 1093 16-inch water line, which would close a gap in the distribution system between Syms Street and Harris Street. In May, the City received only one construction bid; it came in well above the engineer’s estimate, and City Council rejected it on June 16. Infrastructure doesn’t just cost money; it depends on a competitive contractor market.

Wastewater: where the money is going now

To understand Fulshear’s next five years, read this section.

The City’s long-term wastewater strategy, as the tracker describes it, is to gradually move away from the aging Downtown Water Reclamation Facility (a " water reclamation facility,” or WRF, is the current term for a sewage treatment plant) and route that flow to a much larger plant at Cross Creek Ranch — and eventually to a future Primrose WRF. Several projects on the tracker are pieces of that one plan:

Cross Creek Ranch WRF Expansion — the single largest active contract, about $26.2 million — will increase the plant from 2.0 to 3.0 MGD. Construction began in March 2026 and is scheduled to finish in February 2028. The new headworks structure (where raw sewage first enters the plant) has been poured. In August, Council also awarded EHRA the design contract for the next expansion to 4.0 MGD.
The Downtown WRF Expansion (about $3.4 million) is a bridge measure that will increase the existing plant from 0.7 to 1.1 MGD until flows can be diverted. The new aeration basin and clarifier tanks are in.
Katy-Fulshear Lift Station Expansion (about $3.8 million) will redirect up to 1.2 MGD of sewage from the downtown plant to Cross Creek Ranch through a new force main. (A lift station pumps sewage uphill when gravity can’t do the job; a force main is the pressurized pipe it pushes into.) Crews have begun boring under FM 1093.
Diversion Lift Station — planned at about $14.8 million, starting at 4.0 MGD and expandable to 8.0 — is the piece that ultimately lets the City retire the downtown plant. It’s at roughly 60% design.

The Diversion Lift Station has an interesting backstory. It was originally planned for the existing downtown plant site, but the planned Westpark Tollway expansion forced a move. Fulshear MUD No. 1 conveyed a replacement parcel to the City at no cost, on the south side of FM 1093 adjacent to the Fulshear Black Cemetery. It’s a reminder that in Fulshear, new infrastructure is always being sited next to old history.

To be fair to the City, the tracker is candid that this project isn’t fully funded. Applications to the Texas Water Development Board, supported by Fort Bend County, haven’t produced an award, so construction will depend on future wastewater bond funding.

Drainage: fixing downtown from the bottom up

Most of the drainage work traces back to the City’s FY2019 Downtown Drainage Study, and the projects are designed to work as a chain.

The Downtown Eastside Drainage (4th Street) project is the upstream link. It builds a new storm sewer along 4th Street east of Main, rebuilds the street to the Council-approved downtown cross-section, and lets the City abandon old storm lines that currently run under private buildings. The City obtained the needed easement from Huggins Ranch at no cost. As of October, construction is about 70% complete, and the City has used 53% of the contract time —a good sign.

The Eastside Tributary Drainage Improvements project is the downstream link: a regional detention facility made by deepening and widening an existing channel. It can’t be built until the 4th Street work is finished, and one of three needed parcels is still being acquired (the land appraisal was approved August 18). There’s a nice cost story here, too: when contractors built the Westpark Tollway overpass at Charger Way, they dug the first detention cell for free and used the dirt for their own project.

Council has also adopted drainage capacity fees for development in the downtown basin. Instead of every new building digging its own pond, developers pay into the regional system—which preserves buildable land downtown and makes growth help pay for the infrastructure it relies on.

Two smaller items round out the program: the Lea-Penn Outfall Channel for the Lea Lane and Penn Lane area, and Phase 3 of the Drainage Master Plan, which will study the growing areas to the north and west along FM 359 and FM 1093.

Streets: downtown takes shape

The streets program is small in dollars but very visible to residents.

Harris Street Reconstruction (about $4.8 million) is building a curb-and-gutter street with on-street parking and sidewalks from FM 1093 to 3rd Street, and a pedestrian plaza from 3rd to 5th. It also upsizes the sewer underneath. Grading is underway between 5th and 2nd.

The West Downtown Street Reconstruction project would rebuild roughly 2,800 feet of the western ends of 1st through 5th Streets in concrete, with storm sewer, street trees, parking, and broad sidewalks. Design is about 70% complete, and the engineers have been meeting with West Downtown property owners. But only the design is funded, and construction must wait for Wallis Street—a widening and extension from FM 359 to FM 1093, estimated at about $5.2 million and split 50/50 with Fort Bend County—because Wallis carries the Westside Regional Detention Pond that the downtown streets will drain into. City staff and the County are putting final touches on the Wallis design so it can go to bid.

If you live along Redbird Lane, the tracker explains why that project changed. The original plan to raise the road several feet grew far more expensive as engineering progressed and still wouldn’t have kept it dry in a Harvey-scale flood. In 2025, the City downscoped to a mill-and-overlay with Fort Bend County, targeted drainage fixes near the end of the road, and an emergency access easement to Bois d’Arc Road for residents of Shady and Country Lanes. Surveying has begun.

Parks and planning

Primrose Park Phase II — four Little League-sized fields (one a “flex” field for softball), a concession and restroom building, and a walking path — is essentially finished. Scoreboards are up, ADA dugout gates are installed, and the concession building passed its Fire Marshal inspection. The Cornelious family donated the land to the City.

Phase III is next: an amphitheater with raised lawn seating, a playground, an education garden, a second concession building, and an amenitized pond with a walking loop, with a planned budget of about $11.1 million made possible by the Parks Bond voters approved in May 2025.

The tracker also lists two planning efforts that deserve residents’ attention: a full Comprehensive Plan Update (the last plan was adopted October 19, 2021) and a Parks and Pathways Master Plan Update, both of which are supposed to include public engagement.

A few honest caveats about the data

The tracker is a genuine step forward in transparency, and I don’t want to overstate its flaws. But a careful reader will notice some rough edges:

A couple of entries appear to be duplicates. The “Pecan Knoll onsite wells” and “offsite wells” records carry identical budgets and updates, and the “Harris Street Sanitary Sewer” record carries the same $23.8 million budget as the Cross Creek Ranch 4.0 MGD expansion, along with that project’s description. Because the program totals appear to include both copies, the headline figures may overstate contracted spending by roughly $25 million. I’d treat the totals as approximate until the City cleans these up.
Some status updates are copied across related projects (for example, Primrose Phase III shows Phase II’s update).
Fourteen projects are listed with an “unknown” status and no budget.

None of this is unusual for the first version of a public dashboard built from an internal spreadsheet. Residents fix this kind of thing when they use the tool and ask questions — which is exactly the point.

The real question

It’s tempting to look at a nine-figure total and ask whether Fulshear is spending too much.

The relevant question isn’t how much the City is spending. It’s whether the pipes, plants, and ponds arrive before the rooftops do.

Read that way, the tracker tells a coherent story. Over the last two years, the City spent money catching water supply up to demand. It is now spending heavily to catch wastewater capacity up, and it has laid out a deliberate sequence downtown — 4th Street before the Eastside detention pond, Wallis Street before the West Downtown streets — so that each project builds on the last instead of requiring throwaway temporary fixes. The open questions are timing and funding: the McKinnon plant is on hold, the Diversion Lift Station is waiting on bonds, and the FM 1093 water line is waiting on a reasonable bid.

Those are the questions worth watching.

Bookmark fulcrum.fulsheartexas.gov, click around the map, and download the monthly report. If a project on your street raises a question, the tracker points you to fulsheartexas.gov to reach the City — and City Council meetings, where contracts and change orders are approved, remain the best place to hear the details firsthand.

And if you find something in the tracker I missed, reply and tell me. I’ll be following these projects in the months ahead.

Figures in this post come from the City of Fulshear Capital Projects Tracker public report generated October 21, 2026. The tracker is updated monthly, so numbers may change.

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About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Inside City Hall #19: The Commons

Bob Gordon — Fri, 30 Oct 2026 11:03:06 GMT

Fulshear may have more resort-style pools, splash pads, and trail miles per capita than almost any city in Texas — and almost none of them are public. The quality-of-life arc opens with Parks and Recreation, the smallest department with the biggest philosophical job: building the places that belong to everyone.

Here is a genuine Fulshear paradox: this city is famous for its amenities. The master-planned communities sell themselves on lazy rivers, resort pools, fitness centers, catch-and-release lakes, and trail networks that shame most state parks. Families move here, in meaningful part, for exactly those things.

And nearly all of it is private. The Cross Creek Ranch pool is for Cross Creek Ranch. The Fulbrook trails are Fulbrook’s. HOA dues fund each amenity package, and they fence it — sometimes literally—to the subdivision that pays for it.

Now count the parks that belong to everyone, residents of anywhere, no dues required. Until recently, you could do it with one hand: Frances Smart Park and its gazebo in the old town core; the Irene Stern Community Center with its playground and pavilion; Eagle Landing Park with its soccer fields. For a city closing in on 40,000 people, that is a startlingly short list — and understanding why it’s short, and what’s now being done about it, is the whole story of this arc’s first post.

The accidental privatization of fun

Nobody in Fulshear decided that recreation should be private. It happened the way most things in this series happened: structurally.

Recall the machinery from the growth arc. Developers built the subdivisions and, to sell them, built spectacular amenities — funded forever by the HOA dues of the people who bought in. Meanwhile, the city ran on a tight budget with a low tax rate, rebating much of it back to MUD residents, as we covered last time. And when the city might have asked growth itself to fund public parks, it hit a wall from post #17: Texas law forbids spending impact fees on parks. Pipes and pavement, yes. Playgrounds, no — the legislature’s list is explicit. Even the money that can flow to parks arrives through the side door we opened in post #13: the Type B development corporation, whose sales-tax dollars may legally fund parks, museums, and sports facilities.

Add it up, and you get the Fulshear pattern: world-class private recreation, minimal public inventory. For years it worked, more or less, because most residents had a pool card. But “most” does quiet work in that sentence—and a city that only recreates behind gates isn’t quite a city. It’s a federation of memberships.

The turn: Primrose and the bond

The city knows all this, which is why the last two years mark a deliberate turn.

The centerpiece is Primrose Park, Fulshear’s first genuinely city-scale public park, built in phases: ballfields celebrated their grand opening this spring, with the full build-out—playgrounds, food-truck grounds, walking paths, open lawn, and an amphitheater—slated for late 2027. In May 2025, Fulshear voters backed the ambition directly, approving bond propositions for Primrose’s Phase III (about $10.75 million) and roughly $2.75 million more to acquire future parkland—the city literally banking green space ahead of the growth curve. Behind it sits a Parks and Pathways Master Plan, refreshed with community surveys and a project slate the council has been working through section by section.

The department steering the programming side is tiny — Kelly Ravsten’s desk handles recreation and events coordination, while Public Works’ facilities crews handle mowing and maintenance, as we met in post #15. Small as it is, the portfolio is expanding fast: field rentals, community center bookings, the Art Box public-art project, and the city’s slice of the Celebrating America 250 festivities that just marked the semiquincentennial this month.

Why the commons is worth your bond money

Now, the honest argument, because I heard it during the bond campaign and it deserves a real answer: I already pay HOA dues for a pool I can walk to. Why should my property taxes also build parks?

It’s a fair question with a structural answer. Your dues bought an amenity—access for members, governed by your HOA, existing to serve (and price) your subdivision. A park is different: it’s the commons—the place where the kid from the apartment-less gated enclave, the family from the neighborhood whose developer went cheap on amenities, the old-timer from original Fulshear, and the teenager with no pool card all stand on the same grass. A city of spectacular private amenities and no commons isn’t underserved in recreation; it’s underserved in citizenship. Every arc of this series has been about the machinery Fulshear residents share — one police department, one court, one council. The park is the version of that you can picnic in.

The argument has a practical side, too. Sports leagues need fields no single HOA can host. Festivals need somewhere the whole city fits—the Primrose amphitheater will be Fulshear's first city-owned stage. And events like this month’s America 250 celebration pose the question directly: a community that intends to keep feeling like one town, at 40,000 people and climbing, has to build rooms big enough for the whole family. That’s what the bond bought. That’s what the department, small as it is, exists to program.

Your move

The parks system is unusually easy to influence right now, because it’s being designed in real time. The master plan process runs on community surveys — when the next one circulates, answer it; a few hundred responses steer millions in bond money. Primrose’s remaining phases will come back through council and P&Z agendas you now know how to read. The Irene Stern Community Center and the city’s fields are rentable today through the department for your league, reunion, or quinceañera. And if you want a longer lever, the next post covers the citizen body that advises on all of it: the Parks & Recreation Commission—the board where, as you may remember from our council profile, At-Large member Kimberly Bow got her start in city government.

The private amenities will keep being wonderful. The public ones are finally catching up. Both can be true; only one needed your vote.

What’s missing from Fulshear’s public parks — the amenity you’d build first with the land-acquisition money? Reply and tell me; I’ll pass the list along when the next survey cycle opens. And share this one with a neighbor at the pool. The private one. While you still remember the difference.

Sources: City of Fulshear — Parks and Recreation and Primrose Park pages (fulsheartexas.gov); Community Impact — parks master plan and Primrose coverage (2024–2025); My Neighborhood News — 2025 bond election coverage; About Fulshear — “The Price of Growth” (bond figures), prior arc installments. Details verified July 2026 — confirm current information at fulsheartexas.gov or (281) 346-1796.

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About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Water: Savings, or a Bill Paid Later?

Bob Gordon — Thu, 29 Oct 2026 11:01:03 GMT

Fulshear’s new surface water deal took about $40 million off the city’s to-build list. In exchange, the city agreed to buy water for 20 years whether it uses it or not. Here’s how that trade works, what it likely costs, and the dates that will tell us whether it was a bargain.

In 2005, when the North Fort Bend Water Authority (NFBWA) began planning to pipe treated surface water west from Houston, Fulshear had 875 residents. Twenty-one years later, the Census Bureau ranks us the second-fastest-growing city in the country, and not a drop of that water has reached a Fulshear water plant.

That may finally change. On September 15, council approved a long-term water supply agreement with the authority. The headline was hard to miss: the deal lets Fulshear drop roughly $40 million in planned improvements at the McKinnon Water Plant, part of what Council Member Camron Miller described as about $90 million trimmed from planned water and wastewater projects.

I wrote about the $90 million in September, in the context of what growth did and didn’t cost homeowners this year. This post asks a narrower question, the one a careful reader should ask about any deal that “saves” money: saved compared to what, and what did we agree to pay instead?

What the city actually signed

Stripped to its essentials, the agreement has five moving parts:

A guaranteed minimum. The authority must make at least 1.4 million gallons per day (MGD) of surface water available to Fulshear, measured as a 30-day average, and it cannot reduce that commitment.
Take-or-pay. Fulshear generally pays for the full 1.4 MGD even in months when it uses less. The city sized it to its average winter demand, the year's low point, when lawns and irrigation aren’t driving consumption.
A floating price. The rate is not locked for 20 years. Fulshear pays whatever the authority’s rates and fees are at the time.
A long term. Twenty years, then automatic three-year renewals unless either side gives notice.
Target dates, not guarantees. Surface water is expected at the Fulshear Bend Water Plant by December 31, 2027, and at the FM 1093 Water Plant by December 31, 2028. The authority has committed to its best efforts to meet those dates.

The two sides also agreed to work toward ending a dispute that began in 2022, when Fulshear challenged the authority’s 2021 rate increase before the Public Utility Commission of Texas. That case is now on appeal at the state’s Fifteenth Court of Appeals. City Manager Zach Goodlander has said a full resolution should be finalized soon; as of this writing, I haven’t seen it announced.

Why “take-or-pay” sounds scarier than it is

“Take-or-pay” is a phrase that makes people nervous, and fairly so. In my old line of work, offshore oil and gas, take-or-pay contracts financed pipelines and processing plants: the buyer promises to pay for capacity whether or not it uses it, and the seller can then borrow against that promise. They are ordinary instruments. They are also how a buyer ends up paying for something it doesn’t need when demand falls short.

So the first question is whether Fulshear’s demand could fall below 1.4 MGD. In a city adding thousands of residents a year, with the commitment pegged to the lowest season’s average, that seems unlikely, at least for now. The minimum looks like a floor the city will clear, not a ceiling it will strain to reach.

The second question is more interesting, and it’s the one that changes the math.

Fulshear already pays the authority for nearly every gallon it pumps. Because the city sits inside the authority’s boundaries, NFBWA also charges a fee on groundwater: $4.55 per 1,000 gallons, versus $4.90 per 1,000 gallons for surface water it delivers. Those rates took effect January 1, 2022, and remain in effect today. The city passes the fee through to us on our water bills.

That changes what “buying” 1.4 MGD really means. Here’s the arithmetic, at today’s rates:

1.4 MGD for a year is about 511 million gallons.
At the surface water rate, that’s about $2.5 million a year, or roughly $50 million over 20 years if rates never changed.
But if Fulshear pumped that same water from its own wells, it would still owe the authority about $2.3 million a year in groundwater fees.
The difference, 35 cents per 1,000 gallons, works out to roughly $180,000 a year, or about $3.6 million over 20 years.

In other words, most of that $50 million isn’t a new obligation. It’s money the city would owe the authority no matter where the water came from. Goodlander put it simply to Community Impact: instead of paying a groundwater fee and getting nothing for it, the city will be paying a surface water fee “and actually getting water.”

To be fair, that comparison leaves things out on both sides. Surface water should let the city run its wells less, which saves electricity and treatment costs. On the other hand, the agreement encourages Fulshear to keep its wells maintained as backup, so those costs don’t disappear, and Goodlander has said capital projects are planned to treat and handle the incoming surface water. I haven’t seen a price tag for those yet.

Saved compared to what?

Now the other side of the ledger.

The $40 million at McKinnon was never cash in a drawer. The city expected to build it, most likely with utility bonds; Goodlander has said it can come out of a bond package planned for spring 2027. Avoided capital doesn’t put money back in anyone’s pocket. It avoids the debt service, the annual principal and interest payments, that residents would have carried through their utility rates for decades.

How much is that? The city hasn’t published a figure, so here is an illustration, not an official estimate. Borrowing $40 million over 25 years at 4 to 4.5 percent would cost roughly $2.6 to $2.7 million a year in debt service, plus the cost of operating and maintaining the expanded plant.

Set that beside the roughly $180,000 a year the surface water premium costs at today’s rates, and the trade looks lopsided in Fulshear’s favor. Based on today's numbers, this is real savings, not a deferred obligation in disguise.

It would be dishonest to stop there, though. That conclusion rests on three assumptions, each with a date attached.

The three assumptions, and how to check them

First, that the price stays reasonable. The agreement floats with the authority’s rates, and those rates have risen before. That’s exactly what the 2022 rate challenge was about. The good news came early: the agreement called for an independent rate study within 60 days, and the city announced on September 29 that, based on current projections, the study projects no fee adjustment through 2030. The authority has also hired a rate analyst to study whether the 35-cent gap between the groundwater and surface water fees could be eliminated in favor of a single rate.

Two cautions. A projection is not a promise, and 2030 covers only the first four years of a 20-year term. And a headline finding is not the study itself. The agreement requires the authority to present the findings publicly. When it does, the details worth reading are the assumptions about growth, debt, and water sales that sit underneath “no adjustment through 2030.”

Second, that the water arrives on time. This is where I would focus the most attention, because history counsels patience. In a January 2024 filing with the Public Utility Commission, Fulshear noted that the authority had projected surface water deliveries to the city would begin in 2024. In June, I wrote here that deliveries were generally projected around 2030. The new agreement pulls the targets to the end of 2027 and 2028. That’s a real improvement, but “best efforts” is not a guarantee.

The timing matters for two reasons. McKinnon is now off the list, so if surface water runs late, the gap years fall on the wells we already have. And the regulatory clock hasn’t stopped. Under the Fort Bend Subsidence District’s 2025 Regulatory Plan, water providers in our part of the county that operate under a groundwater reduction plan, as Fulshear does through the authority, must hold groundwater to no more than 40 percent of total demand beginning in 2030. (A correction to my June post, which described the 40 percent cap as already in force since 2025. The district’s 2025 plan moved that deadline to 2030.) Late-arriving surface water runs straight into that deadline.

One question I’d like answered, and haven’t been able to confirm from public reporting: does the “pay” in take-or-pay begin when water is available at the plant, or earlier? If it’s tied to delivery, a delay costs Fulshear time but not money. If it isn’t, a delay could mean paying for water we can’t yet use.

Third, that the rest of the $90 million holds up. Only the $40 million at McKinnon has been itemized publicly. The other roughly $50 million in reductions from the Strategic Water Committee’s review hasn’t been broken out by project, and we don’t know how much of it was removed outright versus pushed into later years. Moving a project from 2028 to 2033 is a deferral, not a savings. That spring 2027 bond package will tell us.

Where the Waters PUD comes in

If you followed the Waters PUD debate, this deal should sound familiar, because it directly relates to the water question residents raised there.

As I’ve written, the Waters application never asked for new water capacity. It asked to reallocate 1,684 water and wastewater connections the city committed in 2019, shifting them toward apartments, which use more water per acre than houses or shops. Fulbrook, Polo Ranch, and Del Webb residents objected on timing: putting high-demand connections on line before surface water arrives loads them onto a groundwater system with known pressure and discoloration complaints.

The surface water agreement doesn’t settle that argument, but it sharpens it. For the first time, specific dates are on the calendar. If council decides on November 17 that some version of the Waters PUD is worth having, it could tie the phasing of high-demand uses to surface water arriving at the FM 1093 plant, rather than to the hope that it will come.

It’s just as important to say what this deal does not do. It’s a supply agreement. It doesn’t add a foot of distribution pipe, so it won’t by itself fix low pressure on a particular street. That’s what the looped water line offered in the Waters negotiations was meant to address. And it does nothing at all for drainage. Mark Williams’s October 20 warning to council that floodplain maps are only as current as the studies behind them and that a great deal of concrete has gone down since Harvey is a separate problem with a separate budget. Getting water in and getting water out are two different systems, and solving one doesn’t solve the other.

The bottom line

The relevant question was never whether Fulshear saved $40 million. It’s whether the city traded a capital project it controls for a supply it doesn’t, on terms that hold up over 20 years.

On today’s numbers, the answer looks like yes. The water the city committed to buy is water it would largely have paid the authority for anyway, and the plant it no longer has to build would have cost far more each year in debt service than the surface water premium. That’s a good trade.

But we have to verify that trade on a calendar, not take it on faith. Here are the dates I’ll be watching, and that I’d encourage you to watch with me:

November 17: The Waters PUD returns to council, including the utility reallocation. Ask whether any approval ties phasing to surface water delivery.
By mid-November: The authority’s public presentation of its independent rate study, and later, the analysis of the 35-cent fee gap.
“Soon”: A final resolution of the rate litigation at the Fifteenth Court of Appeals.
Spring 2027: The utility bond package, where the rest of the $90 million either shows up as real reductions or as projects moved down the road.
December 31, 2027, and December 31, 2028: Surface water at the Fulshear Bend and FM 1093 plants.
2030: The end of the rate study’s projection window, and the subsidence district’s 40 percent groundwater deadline.

Council meets Tuesday, November 17, at 6:00 p.m. at the Fulshear Municipal Complex, 6611 W. Cross Creek Bend Lane. Speakers register in advance and get three minutes; written comments can go to the City Secretary at (281) 346-1796. The authority’s board meetings are open to the public, and its agendas and minutes are posted at nfbwa.com.

If you have a copy of the agreement and know when the payment obligation begins, reply and tell me. I’ll update this post. If a neighbor asks what the new water deal means for their bill, please share this with them.

Sources and further reading

Covering Katy News, “New water deal helps Fulshear avoid $40 million project, with more savings identified” (Sept. 22, 2026): https://coveringkaty.com/news/fulshear/fulshear-cuts-40-million-water-project-%E2%80%94-and-officials-say-s/
Covering Katy News, “Fulshear secures 20-year water supply as study projects stable fees through 2030” (Oct. 3, 2026): https://coveringkaty.com/fulshear-secures-20-year-water-supply-as-study-projects-stab/
Community Impact, “City of Fulshear and North Fort Bend Water Authority reach water supply agreement” (Oct. 12, 2026): https://communityimpact.com/katy-fulshear/government/city-of-fulshear-and-north-fort-bend-water-authority-reach-water-supply-agreement/
City of Fulshear news release, “City of Fulshear and North Fort Bend Water Authority reach water supply agreement” (Sept. 29, 2026): https://www.fulsheartexas.gov/Home/Components/News/News/186
My Neighborhood News, “Fulshear Approves Long-Term Surface Water Agreement” (Sept. 17, 2026): https://www.newsbreak.com/my-neighborhood-news-395260092/4891896658995-fulshear-approves-long-term-surface-water-agreement-removes-need-for-40-million-in-planned-mckinnon-improvements
North Fort Bend Water Authority, “Our Fees”: https://www.nfbwa.com/our-fees
Fort Bend Subsidence District, Regulatory Plan history:

https://fbsubsidence.org/?p=339

City of Fulshear brief, PUC Docket 53363 (Jan. 29, 2024): https://interchange.puc.texas.gov/Documents/53363\_77\_1362129.PDF
About Fulshear, Texas: “The Waters PUD on Oct. 20: Residents Return, the Ground Has Shifted” (Oct. 24), “What the Waters PUD Really Changes” (Oct. 18), and “Water, Traffic, and the Waters PUD” (June 14)

Debt-service figures are my own illustrative calculations, not city estimates. Fee arithmetic uses NFBWA’s current published rates.

Want to see your business here? Contact us at sponsors@aboutfulsheartexas.org for sponsorship opportunities.

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Who Would Pay for Fulshear Town Square?

Bob Gordon — Wed, 28 Oct 2026 11:01:15 GMT

The proposal would use a new district property tax and shares of future city and county revenue. That does not automatically increase property-tax bills outside the district. It does commit public resources—and the packet does not yet provide one reconciled financing picture.

Since the October 20, 2026, council meeting, readers have asked a straightforward question: Who actually pays for this thing?

The answer has several parts. Property owners inside a proposed financing district would pay an additional property tax. Commercial tenants might pay some or all of that expense under their leases. Apartment owners would face higher operating costs, but how much they could recover in rent would depend on the market. Shoppers and hotel guests would generate taxes that the city could agree to return to the project. The city and, if it participates, Fort Bend County would dedicate some future revenue to development costs.

Those are different kinds of payments. Adding them together without explaining what each number measures can make the proposal harder to understand.

The central distinction is this: a development can avoid imposing a new tax on neighboring homeowners while still using public tax revenue. Whether that arrangement benefits the public depends on the final terms, the project’s performance, and what would happen without the incentives.

First, what is the project's cost?

Two headline prices have appeared. ABC13 reported Mayor Don McCoy’s estimate of approximately $250 million. Covering Katy reported a $520 million proposal after the October 20 presentation. Both figures appear in the reporting, but the available material does not explain the difference.[1][2]

The October packet provides a third, more specific figure. Its financing summary lists:

[NOTE: A Fulshear city staff memo says staff asked that the Fulshear Village Apartments be evaluated separately. The developer’s proposed worksheet includes a $1,000,000 “Battery Back Bldg” in the Village section. The staff memo says the contemplated battery storage component is prohibited by zoning.]

That combined figure is close to the reported $520 million, but the packet does not explain the remaining difference or reconcile either figure with the mayor’s $250 million estimate. An earlier estimate or a difference in scope could explain it. Neither explanation should be presented as an established fact. [3, p. 377]

These are total development figures, including privately financed components. They are not the amounts the city would write checks for.

The public-financing exhibits need a separate explanation.

The public numbers do not yet tell one clear story

The packet’s public-improvements worksheet lists $85,443,476 in total reimbursements required and $85,433,133 in net bond proceeds. Its listed costs include:

The worksheet also includes infrastructure, contingencies, financing costs, and an allowance for an underground detention and geothermal loop. [3, p. 376]

On the next page, however, the financing summary lists $25,317,827 in combined “MMD TIRZ proceeds”: $11,523,790 for Town Square and $13,794,037 for Village. It separately lists $115,920,422 as major equity, not district or TIRZ proceeds.[3, p. 377]

The packet does not clearly bridge the approximately $85.4 million reimbursement worksheet and the approximately $25.3 million proceeds entry. They may reflect different categories, assumptions, or versions of the financing plan. Until that is explained, treat neither as the final public commitment, and do not add them together.

Neither figure necessarily captures every proposed sales-tax or hotel-tax grant. Those terms remain to be negotiated. Upfront bond proceeds, reimbursable construction costs, and tax collections over several decades are different measures; the final analysis needs to show each separately.

Three tools, three ways of paying

1. A municipal management district: an additional property tax inside its boundaries

The Legislature created the Fulshear Town Center Management District in 2011. The draft MOU describes it as not yet activated. It proposes appointing directors, adding the Village property, and giving other existing district property owners an opportunity to opt out. [3, p. 360][4]

The district could finance eligible improvements through bonds repaid from district revenue. Its enabling law requires voter approval before imposing an ad valorem property tax or issuing bonds payable from that tax. This is a district election, not a citywide election for Fulshear voters. The electorate depends on who is eligible to vote within its boundaries. [4, §3903.204]

An assessment and a property tax are not the same thing. The district can use both. The proposed rate discussed here is an ad valorem tax—a charge based on taxable property value.

The draft says the district tax is expected not to exceed $1.41 per $100 of taxable value. The financial worksheet uses $1.01286 per $100. Neither is an adopted tax rate, and the draft’s anticipated maximum is not yet a binding ceiling. [3, pp. 360, 376]

The proposal contemplates bond terms of up to 30 years. The enabling law likewise limits a bond’s maturity to 30 years from issuance. That does not establish a promise that all district taxes end 30 years after the project starts. Issuance dates, additional obligations, and the final documents would matter. [4, §§3903.202–.203]

Who pays? The legal property-tax obligation falls on taxable property owners inside the district. Commercial leases may pass that expense to tenants. The economic burden could also affect rents, landlord returns, and property prices.

2. A TIRZ: dedicating part of future property-tax growth

A tax increment reinvestment zone establishes a base taxable value. As taxable real-property value rises above that base, participating taxing units can dedicate an agreed share of the resulting tax increment to eligible project costs.

A TIRZ does not itself increase the tax rate or freeze individual tax bills. It changes where participating taxing units allocate their tax revenue. Each participating taxing unit determines its contribution under the governing arrangements.[5]

The draft anticipates making city property taxes from the projects above $500,000 annually, along with county property taxes from the projects, available for project costs or applicable debt service. It contemplates a developer reimbursement agreement lasting up to 40 years, subject to the required approvals.[3, p. 361]

That is proposed language, not an approved commitment. The county would have to agree separately. Final documents must also explain how those proposed contributions work with the TIRZ’s base value, captured increment, and participation percentages. Describing the county contribution simply as “all county taxes” leaves out that necessary reconciliation.

At the article’s cited city rate of $0.190549 per $100, $500,000 corresponds to city property tax on approximately $262.4 million in taxable value. It is a revenue threshold, not a guarantee that the city receives $500,000 before development generates it.[6]

Who pays? Property owners pay their ordinary taxes. The public commitment is the revenue dedicated to the project instead of other authorized uses. The city and county would still have service obligations, although the retained revenue, other revenues, district services, and final cost-sharing terms would affect the fiscal balance.

That creates an opportunity cost. It does not, by itself, prove a net loss to existing taxpayers. Answering that question requires a comparison with realistic alternatives, including what would be built without the incentives.

3. Chapter 380 agreements: grants tied to sales and hotel taxes

The draft anticipates a grant of city sales-tax revenue generated within the project, excluding the hotel, to fund or reimburse public facilities. It also anticipates a hotel agreement granting the hotel owner all or part of the city’s hotel occupancy and sales-tax revenue generated by the hotel.[3, pp. 361–363]

The hotel grant would have a term and maximum amount set in definitive documents. The draft expressly makes it subject to applicable law, including the hotel occupancy tax provisions of Chapter 351. Hotel-tax revenue has legal restrictions; it should not be described as interchangeable with unrestricted general-fund money.

The MOU describes the hotel and other private facilities as privately financed, owned, and operated, while allowing negotiated incentives. “Privately owned” therefore does not mean “receives no public assistance.”

Who pays? Shoppers, diners, and hotel guests generate the taxes. The city would grant the project an agreed portion of that revenue. How much it retains remains unresolved.

What the district tax would mean in dollars

The proposed district rate deserves attention, but comparisons need a clear denominator.

Compared with the cited city rate of $0.190549, the anticipated $1.41 district maximum is about 7.4 times the city rate. The worksheet’s $1.01286 rate is approximately 5.3 times the city rate. Those comparisons do not mean the entire property-tax bill becomes seven times larger.

For illustration, using the rates cited in the original analysis—city $0.190549, county $0.407, drainage district $0.01, and Lamar CISD $1.139—the subtotal is $1.746549 per $100. Adding $1.41 raises that subtotal by approximately 81%; adding $1.01286 raises it by approximately 58%.

These are illustrative comparisons, not a verified parcel-specific tax quote. Actual bills depend on the property’s taxing units, taxable values, exemptions, and adopted rates. An emergency-services levy or another district could change the comparison. A property across FM 1093 should not be assumed to have an otherwise identical tax bill.

The examples below assume constant taxable value and constant district rates. They exclude inflation and are not developer projections or predictions of future tax bills.

A restaurant tenant

Suppose the taxable property allocated to a restaurant space is $1 million. If its lease passes through the full district property tax, the added annual expense would be $14,100 at $1.41, or $10,128.60 at the worksheet rate.

Over 30 years, those district taxes would total $423,000 or $303,858, respectively, before discounting.

The lease matters. A triple-net lease typically assigns property-tax expenses to the tenant, but you must confirm the allocation, exclusions, and other terms. The tax could affect menu prices, tenant margins, base rent, or the landlord’s return. The documents establish the tax obligation; they do not specify how the market would allocate the cost.

An apartment renter

Suppose an apartment represents $250,000 of allocated taxable value. Its share of the district tax would equal approximately $294 per month at $1.41, or $211 per month at the worksheet rate.

That is a monthly equivalent of the owner’s tax expense. This does not forecast that rent will rise by that amount. Apartment rents depend on competing supply, demand, amenities, and tenants’ willingness to pay. Owners may recover some of the cost through rent, absorb some through lower returns, or pay less for the property in the first place.

A future sale

District taxes do not disappear when a building changes hands. A buyer would consider the remaining obligations when deciding what to pay.

Using a 7% discount rate and constant annual taxes on $1 million of taxable value produces these present values:

These are values of hypothetical tax-payment streams, not appraisals or predictions of resale losses. Actual prices would also reflect the development’s amenities, income, market conditions, changing taxable values, and remaining financing terms.

If a buyer reduces the purchase price to compensate for future taxes, the seller bears that reduction. It would be misleading to count both the lower sale price and the buyer’s future tax payments as separate, fully additive costs to different groups.

Rising property values could allow a lower district rate if a larger tax base can meet the same debt service. Additional obligations, collection performance, and other district expenses could affect that outcome. A declining rate is possible, not committed, in the current proposal.

What protections are actually in the draft?

The draft says the MOU does not obligate the city or county to levy a tax, issue general obligation or certificate of obligation debt, or pledge general credit or taxing power. It also calls for separately identifying costs to avoid duplicate reimbursement.[3, pp. 360, 362]

Those provisions are useful proposed safeguards. They are not a substitute for final agreements.

Most of the MOU is expressly nonbinding. Certain provisions—including district appointments and annexation consent, exclusivity, costs, confidentiality, and miscellaneous terms—are intended to become binding if signed. Staff’s October memo recommended against approval until the Town resolved financial, operating, ownership, zoning, and legal questions.[3, pp. 357–360]

Covering Katy reported that council took no action on the Town Square proposal on October 20. It also reported the developer’s statement that it would operate and maintain the sports and conference facilities.[2]

The final agreements need to allocate those responsibilities explicitly. A $10 million operating-deficit line in a worksheet does not establish who supplies the money, how it is held, what losses it covers, or who is responsible after it is exhausted. It also does not establish that the city automatically becomes responsible.

The Home Depot comparison: a consistent test, with comparable numbers

Home Depot is a useful reference for how council evaluates incentives, provided the comparison keeps the different financing tools straight.

The proposed Home Depot agreement would have returned 25% of the city’s 1% sales tax generated by the store for five years. The original cap was $2 million, with reported staff estimates of a likely payout closer to $500,000. Reporting describes council’s August 4 rejection of that proposal.[7]

The September 15 minutes included in the October packet confirm that Home Depot reduced the proposed cap to $950,000, that traffic material had been submitted for city engineering review, and that council voted 4–3 to deny the revised agreement.[3, p. 27]

Town Square’s proposed package differs substantially: it includes a new district tax, public facilities, possible property-tax increment participation, and sales- and hotel-tax grants. A district tax paid within the development is not the same fiscal commitment as a city sales-tax rebate.

No defensible single multiplier exists until Town Square’s figures are reconciled. Comparing an estimated Home Depot rebate with total facility costs or upfront bond proceeds mixes different measures. Comparing a five-year grant with a possible 40-year reimbursement agreement also requires attention to when payments begin, what limits apply, and whether the maximum term is used.

The useful common test is straightforward: What public benefit does the incentive buy, and would that benefit occur without it?

Council can apply that test to both projects while reaching different conclusions. The analysis should distinguish development that would happen anyway, development induced by the incentive, spending brought in from outside the city, and spending shifted from existing Fulshear businesses.

What residents should have before a decision

The proposal leaves enough unresolved questions to justify a clear public accounting before final commitments:

A reconciled financing schedule. Explain the $85.4 million reimbursement worksheet, the $25.3 million proceeds entry, the $513.3 million combined cost, and the reported $520 million proposal. Separate private equity, private debt, district bonds, TIRZ contributions, and Chapter 380 grants.
Explicit limits. State the permitted district tax terms and the dollar caps, percentages, start dates, and end dates for each public revenue commitment. Explain whether additional bond issuances or refinancing could extend obligations.
A fiscal comparison with realistic alternatives. Estimate retained revenues, service costs, public benefits, and outcomes with and without incentives. Do not assume either that all proposed development happens without assistance or that none does.
An operating agreement. Identify ownership, maintenance duties, insurance, reserves, and responsibility for operating losses, including after any initial allowance is exhausted.
Named directors and clear accountability. Explain the city’s existing appointment role, director eligibility, vacancies, conflicts, and public reporting. The enabling law already gives the city an appointment role; the practical question is how it will exercise that authority.[4, §§3903.051–.054]
The law must clearly describe what becomes binding. Residents should be able to distinguish a discussion framework from an enforceable financial obligation.

Fulshear can reasonably consider using future project revenue to help create public facilities and a downtown destination. Residents can also reasonably ask whether the proposed benefits justify the commitments.

The developer’s promise about taxes on other people’s property addresses one part of that decision. The larger question is what the public agrees to contribute, what it receives in return, and who carries the risk if the projections fall short.

Sources and calculation notes

ABC13, “Fulshear city leaders consider $250 million town square development.”
Covering Katy, “Fulshear Town Square proposal outlines $520 million investment, special financing plan,” October 21, 2026.
City of Fulshear, October 20, 2026 council packet. Relevant printed pages: 27, September 15 Home Depot minutes; 357, staff memo; 358–366, draft MOU; 376, public-improvements and reimbursement worksheet; 377, financing summary. These exhibit figures are developer estimates, not independently validated forecasts.
Texas Legislature, enrolled H.B. 3827, 82nd Legislature, establishing Special District Local Laws Code Chapter 3903.
Texas Comptroller, Tax Increment Financing Frequently Asked Questions.
Covering Katy, “Inside Fulshear’s tax increase,” September 10, 2026. Source for the cited $0.190549 city rate. The combined-rate example uses the other rates stated in the original article and is conditional on their applicability; it is not a certification of a particular parcel’s tax bill.
Katy-Fulshear Times, “Fulshear rejects Home Depot deal, loses path to require traffic study,” August 10, 2026.

Annual district tax is assumed taxable value multiplied by the rate divided by 100. Thirty-year totals hold both constant and do not adjust for inflation. Present values assume annual payments at year-end and use a 7% discount rate. No illustration predicts actual rent changes, resale prices, or future district tax rates.

This article examines the October 20 proposal and its accompanying packet. Do not read the proposed terms as approved agreements or as a report of subsequent council action. Prepared with AI assistance; financial exhibits and arithmetic were checked against the cited material.

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About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, buy investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Twinwood, Five Months Later: A Factory Opens, a Highway Narrows, and a Tax District Comes Into View

Bob Gordon — Tue, 27 Oct 2026 12:08:47 GMT

Twinwood's industrial side just had its biggest season yet. The Fort Bend side is still moving one luxury lot at a time. TxDOT has narrowed the freight highway that could make or break the master plan. And I found a taxing district I should have told you about in August. Here is where things stand.

On September 15, a Japanese power-electronics company cut the ribbon on a 280,000-square-foot factory on Twinwood Parkway in Brookshire. By the company’s own count, it is the largest and most advanced of its 13 plants worldwide.

If you drive north on FM 1489 from FM 1093 today, you would never know it. Mostly, you still see cattle.

That contrast is the whole Twinwood story right now. In May, I walked through what had actually been built. In June, I looked at whether our roads, drainage, and utilities could carry a new city. In August, I went through the paper trail and named three filings that showed the big project was waking up. This is the five-month check-in: what changed, what didn’t, and one thing I reported incompletely.

The short version: the jobs engine near I-10 is accelerating, the homes in Fort Bend County are arriving slowly and expensively, and the financing machinery on the Fort Bend side is further along than I told you.

The jobs engine had its biggest season yet

Everything in this section sits near I-10 at Woods Road in Brookshire, in Waller County. None of it is in Simonton or Fort Bend County. That matters, and I’ll come back to it.

TMEIC opened its flagship plant. TMEIC Corporation Americas, a joint venture of Toshiba and Mitsubishi Electric, opened its Twinwood factory on September 15. It builds industrial-scale uninterruptible power supplies for data centers, plus medium-voltage drives and other power electronics. When it broke ground in April 2025, the plan was 267,000 square feet, with production starting in June 2026. The finished building is 280,000 square feet, and the ribbon-cutting came about three months after that June target. The company invested more than $65 million and expects more than 200 jobs at first, growing to 500 as production scales. The plant opened with its own solar generation and battery storage.

A wind-energy giant signed on. In August, Vestas-American Wind Technology, the Danish turbine maker's North American arm, leased a new 131,300-square-foot warehouse and office building at Enterprise Park at Twinwood. The 17-acre site is about a mile south of Woods Road, off Discovery Hills Parkway. Vestas will run spare-parts distribution for North America from it. The landlord is Twinwood Industrial Owner LLC, an affiliate of the national industrial developer Panattoni.

The biggest building changed hands. In June, Clay Development & Construction sold the 767,520-square-foot Twinwood Distribution Center III to Bridge Logistics Properties. Crane Worldwide Logistics is fully leasing it through spring 2028.

And the spec space keeps coming. Two small flex-industrial buildings on Twinwood Parkway, Discovery Hills Commerce Park Buildings 1 and 2, totaling 78,000 square feet, were completed this year and are on the market.

Two patterns stand out. First, Twinwood is acting as a master developer on this side, not a builder. Others are building and owning the buildings: Clay, Panattoni, Bridge, and TMEIC itself. Twinwood supplies the land, the roads, and the utilities.

Second, look at who is moving in. A data-center power supplier, a wind-turbine maker, and (already here) a solar-panel manufacturer. The high ground near I-10 is becoming a cluster for data-center equipment and the power grid, a sturdier foundation than warehouses alone.

Orchid Estates: still the only dirt moving in Fort Bend

On the Simonton side, Orchid Estates remains the whole residential program, and it is moving at the pace of a luxury enclave, not a master-planned community.

Both builders still have finished or nearly finished homes on the market. Partners in Building lists a 5,606-square-foot home on Kinabalu Way at $2,349,000. Fedrick Harris by Newmark Homes lists a 5,667-square-foot home on Brassavola Terrace at $2,389,500.

The entry price has shifted. The launch marketing promised estate homes “from $1.8 million.” Today, Fedrick Harris advertises ten floor plans starting at about $1.38 million, and Partners in Building advertises homes starting at $1.3 million. To be fair, a base price leaves out lot premiums and options, which is how finished homes reach $2.3 million and more. Whether the lower starting point reflects a softer luxury market or a deliberate push to widen the pool of buyers, the listings don’t say.

Two details from the Kinabalu Way listing are worth knowing if you are shopping: a mandatory owners’ association fee of $3,000 a year, and a combined property tax rate of 3.16 percent, with a municipal utility district disclosure. Hold that last item in mind for the next section.

In August, I reported that Section 2 of Orchid Estates, 48 more lots, had construction plans submitted and a sidewalk variance request before Commissioners Court. I have not yet seen its final plat recorded. When it is, that will be the clearest sign the first 25 lots sold well enough to justify the next 48.

The district I should have told you about

In August, I described Simonton Management District No. 1, created by the Legislature in 2015 for the future town center, as a shelf entity that has never borrowed or taxed. As far as I can tell, that is still true. But I missed a second district that is very much awake, and I would rather correct the record than have a reader do it for me.

It is called Twinwood Municipal Utility District No. 1. A municipal utility district, or MUD, is a small local government that can levy property taxes and sell bonds to build water, sewer, drainage, and, in some cases, roads. It is how nearly every master-planned community around Houston gets its pipes in the ground.

Here is what the record shows:

It is old. According to the Senate bill analysis, the district was created in 1988, decades before the 2015 development agreements.
The Legislature retooled it in 2023. House Bill 5411, carried by Rep. Stan Kitzman and Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, gave it the power to build roads, issue bonds, and divide itself into smaller districts. The bill analysis says division lets residents’ tax rates drop sooner in a smaller district. There is a catch: a district may divide only if it has never issued bonds.
Simonton renewed its consent in 2024. The city council adopted Resolution 2024-06, an amended and restated consent for a district of about 809 acres, with part of it in Simonton’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), the ring of land just outside the city limits.
It is levying a tax. The district’s 2025 adopted rate is $1.50 per $100 of assessed value, all for maintenance and operations, with none for debt. The district posted a notice of its 2026 tax-rate hearing on the same page.

Two things follow from those numbers.

First, a zero debt-service rate means the district has not yet sold tax-supported bonds. That keeps its option to divide alive, and it means the big borrowing decision is still ahead.

Second, $1.50 per $100 is real money. On a home assessed at $2 million, that's $30,000 a year before any county, school, or other tax. I haven't confirmed that Orchid Estates sits in this district. But the Kinabalu Way listing’s municipal utility district disclosure and 3.16 percent combined rate are consistent with it, and any buyer should confirm before signing.

In June, I wrote that Twinwood’s infrastructure would be financed through district bonds, and that in a district’s early years, the board borrowing the money is chosen before most of the people who will repay it arrive. This is that district. Its first bond election, or an order dividing it, would be among the project's most consequential filings, and I have added it to my watch list.

Highway 36A: three routes left, and a long wait

In August, TxDOT narrowed the southern half of Highway 36A, the proposed freight and evacuation route from near Needville to I-10 west of Katy, from eight preliminary routes to three. The numbers on each are worth seeing side by side.

Costs are from Community Impact’s report on TxDOT’s materials. A year ago, the southern segment was described as a $2.5 billion project. Funding for any version remains unidentified; a route decision is expected in summer 2028, and construction is penciled in for 2037.

The northern half, from I-10 west of Katy to US 290 west of Waller, is a separate study a step behind. TxDOT showed five route alternatives at scoping meetings in Brookshire and Hempstead this summer. A final northern route is not expected until late 2029.

Here is why this matters for Twinwood specifically. In May, I described Twin Woods Corp.’s dedication of 14 miles of its own land for the 36A alignment as one of the more astute moves in Texas real estate. That judgment depends on which highway gets built. TxDOT’s 2025 screening document described new-location routes crossing FM 1093 between about 0.7 and 1.3 miles east of Simonton, with one reaching I-10 about 0.7 miles west of FM 1489. Alternative 9 takes a different path, running above existing highways.

The relevant question for Twinwood is not whether Highway 36A gets built. It is which 36A. If TxDOT chooses the elevated option, the land Twinwood set aside could matter much less. The public hearing on the southern route is expected in early 2028, and TxDOT accepts written comments at any time.

The scorecard: three signals, plus one

In August, I named three filings that would tell us the Fort Bend side of Twinwood was speeding up. None of them have happened yet, as far as I can tell, and I am adding a fourth.

The rest of the picture is also unchanged. No shopping center, grocery store, or restaurant has been announced for the Fort Bend portions of the project. The “Knowledge City” educational vision still has no named institutional partner. And the roads to Twinwood’s front door remain a decade away: the toll road authority carries a $152 million placeholder to extend the Westpark Tollway to Simonton, with construction likely in the 2030s, and widening FM 1093 from FM 359 to FM 1489 is listed at about $70 million with a 2035 bid date and no funding.

The bottom line

Readers still ask me whether Twinwood is real. It is. But the relevant question is never whether Twinwood is happening. It is where, and in what order.

This fall, the answer is plain. The jobs are arriving first, on the high ground by I-10 in Waller County, built by other companies on Twinwood land. The homes in Fort Bend County are arriving second, slowly and at the top of the market. And the financing machinery that will eventually pay for a town, a management district waiting on the shelf and a utility district already collecting taxes, is built and idling.

When that machinery switches on, the decisions that shape western Fort Bend County for decades will be made in small rooms most of us never visit: a utility district board, a city council of a few hundred residents, and a TxDOT route study. Those rooms are open to the public.

Want to keep watch with me?

Twinwood MUD No. 1. Its tax information and 2026 tax-rate hearing notice are posted at districtdirectory.org. Its tax assessor, Assessments of the Southwest, answers questions at (281) 482-0216. Like any Texas utility district, its board meetings are open to the public.
Simonton City Council. The council meets on the third Tuesday of each month at City Hall, 35011 FM 1093, with agendas posted at least three business days in advance at simontontexas.gov. Check the agenda for the start time. Meetings now stream on the city’s YouTube channel.
Highway 36A. The formal comment window on the southern routes closed September 4, but TxDOT accepts correspondence anytime at HOU-PIOwebmail@txdot.gov or TxDOT Houston District, Advanced Project Development, P.O. Box 1386, Houston, TX 77251-1386.

Next on my list: pulling those two wastewater permit packages, because the gallons per day will tell us how big Twinwood expects its first neighborhoods to be. If you spot a plat, a permit notice, or a district election before I do, reply to this email. This series gets better every time a reader beats me to a document.

About Fulshear, Texas is an independent newsletter covering Fulshear, Simonton, and the western Fort Bend County community. All sponsorship proceeds benefit the Fulshear Historical Association.

How this post was made: I drafted it with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked it. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them.

Sources

Industrial

Residential

Districts

Highway 36A

Prior coverage in this newsletter

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Drought Now, Floods Later? Where Fulshear Stands on Flood Risk This Fall

Bob Gordon — Mon, 26 Oct 2026 11:03:48 GMT

Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published

                                 An El Niño may bring heavy rains this winter.

It has been a dry fall and a record-quiet hurricane season. Don’t get comfortable. A strong El Niño is lining up a wet winter, federal flood insurance faces a December 11 deadline, and flood-control money is moving at every level of government. Here is what has changed, and what you can do while the ground is still dry.

In 2014, parts of the Brazos River ran dry. By June 2016, the same river crested at Richmond at roughly 54.7 feet, a record at the time. Fifteen months later, Hurricane Harvey pushed it to 55.19 feet on September 1, 2017. That mark still stands.

If you’ve watched cracks open in your lawn this October, you know which half of that cycle we’re in.

This post is about the other half. It covers what forecasters expect over the next six months, which rules have already changed, and what the city, the county, the state, and Washington are doing about flood risk in and around Fulshear.

Where we are right now: dry ground, quiet tropics

The drought is back. On the U.S. Drought Monitor’s October 13 map, about 97% of Southeast Texas was in drought or pre-drought conditions, with nearly 80% in moderate drought and about 19% in severe drought. One week earlier, only about 66% of the region was in drought or pre-drought, and none of it was severe. Fort Bend County commissioners imposed an outdoor burn ban for unincorporated areas on August 27, when the county’s Keetch-Byram Drought Index read 634 on a scale that tops out at 800.

The tropics, meanwhile, have been almost eerily calm. The 2026 Atlantic season produced no hurricanes at all until Isaias became one on October 8. That tied 1905 for the latest first hurricane on record. Isaias made landfall near Destin, Florida, the next day as a Category 3. Forecasters put nearly all the blame on a strengthening El Niño, which increases the wind shear that tears developing storms apart.

To be fair, “quiet” did not mean “dry” for our part of the coast. Three tropical storms made landfall along this stretch of the Gulf. Arthur came ashore near Matagorda Bay in mid-June. Bertha made a second landfall near the Texas-Louisiana border in July. Edouard came ashore near Johnson Bayou, Louisiana, on September 1 and dumped more than 20 inches on parts of Hardin and Tyler counties. The heavy rain forecast for Greater Houston mostly didn’t materialize because Edouard landed farther east than expected.

That near miss is the lesson. In Fort Bend County, water, not wind, is the hazard, and a storm doesn’t need a hurricane’s name to deliver it.

The season officially runs through November 30. But Texas landfall odds drop sharply by mid-October, and the Houston Chronicle says Texas hasn't seen a hurricane landfall in El Niño years since 1950.

What’s coming: El Niño and a wet winter

The same El Niño that quieted the Atlantic is expected to soak the South this winter. NOAA’s U.S. Winter Outlook, released October 15, favors wetter-than-average conditions across the southern U.S. from December through February and expects drought to improve for most of Texas. The Climate Prediction Center gives better-than-90% odds that El Niño reaches strong-to-very-strong levels this winter, and better-than-80% odds that it lingers into spring 2027.

That’s good news for lawns and reservoirs. It is also a flood setup.

Here’s how it works, in plain terms. Dry ground absorbs the first rain. The Houston Chronicle estimates most Houston-area counties would need roughly 4 to 6 inches just to saturate the soil right now. After that, each additional inch runs off more than it soaks in. A wet winter delivers rain in repeated rounds from slow-moving fronts, so the soil fills up, stays full, and the next storm hits ground that can’t take any more.

The Brazos adds a second layer. It drains a watershed that begins in New Mexico, so a flood at Richmond can arrive days after rain fell hundreds of miles upstream. In 2016, all 11 reservoirs fed by the Brazos were 95% to 100% full while the river was setting records in Fort Bend County. Ditches were already full, the river was already high, and the water simply had nowhere to go.

So the relevant question is never “Is it raining here today?” It’s “How wet is the ground, how full are the reservoirs, and what’s falling upstream?” Drought doesn’t cancel flood risk. It only changes the timing.

One honest caveat about the longer view. The CPC’s forecasts hint at possible La Niña conditions by autumn 2027, and hurricane researcher Phil Klotzbach has noted that the year after an El Niño often brings a warmer Atlantic. No one can say yet whether 2027 will be busy. But nobody should assume it will look like 2026, either.

The rules that already changed

If you’ve wondered why new homes in Fulshear sit on such tall pads, the answer is a 2018 rainfall study called NOAA Atlas 14. It re-examined about a century of rainfall records and concluded that Fort Bend County’s “100-year” storm (a storm with a 1% chance of happening in any given year) is much bigger than we had been designing for. The county’s 100-year, 24-hour rainfall standard rose from 12.5 inches to 16.5 inches. That’s a 32% increase in the design storm.

Fort Bend County’s interim Atlas 14 drainage criteria took effect January 1, 2020, and Fulshear City Council adopted them on March 17, 2020. Under the new standard, a new structure generally must sit 2 feet above the new Atlas 14 base flood elevation and no lower than the Atlas 14 500-year water level. The alternative path is 4 feet above the older, pre-Atlas 14 estimated base flood elevation. On land as flat as ours, a few feet of required elevation means a lot of fill dirt.

The detention ponds in nearly every new subdivision follow the same logic. They aren’t decorative. They’re engineered to hold back the extra runoff pavement and rooftops create, and to release it no faster than the land would have shed it before development. That’s why the city's fee schedule includes a line item called “regional detention capacity fees,” and why that fee schedule matters more than its name suggests.

Fulshear: small dollars, targeted fixes

Readers of the “Following the $332 Million” series will remember that drainage is the smallest of the four big categories in the city’s five-year capital plan, at roughly $23 million. That’s against about $126 million for wastewater and $94 million for streets. In the preliminary FY2026-27 capital plan presented in May, the drainage line for the coming year was about $280,000, covering Phase 3 of the drainage master plan and an FM 359 and Fourth Street drainage improvement. Council adopted the FY2026-27 budget on September 1.

It's easy to read those numbers as neglect. I don’t think that’s the right reading. Most new subdivisions carry their own drainage load through the detention requirements described above, built and financed by developers and their utility districts. The city’s drainage dollars go mainly to the place that predates all those rules: historic downtown.

The flagship is the Downtown Eastside Drainage project. On November 18, 2025, council unanimously approved a $2.33 million contract with Conrad Construction to build a new storm sewer on downtown's east side. The project also rebuilds Fourth Street as a concrete curb-and-gutter street with on-street parking and an 8-foot sidewalk. Its published timeline ran from January to November 2026. The project traces back to the city’s FY2019 Downtown Drainage Study, and it drains toward the Fulshear Lake tributary, which the companion Eastside Tributary Drainage project is designed to improve.

Two drainage-related items were on the agenda for tonight’s council meeting (October 20). One is an amendment to the design agreement for the Downtown Eastside Drainage (4th Street) Phase I and Phase II project. The other is a set of amendments to the city’s regional detention capacity fees. The agenda did not include a new construction schedule, and I’ll report what council decided once the minutes are posted.

There’s also the greener side of the ledger. As I wrote in “Bessie’s Creek and the 2026 Prairie Openings,” the city plans to combine stormwater detention with native vegetation on its 11.5-acre Bessie’s Creek site in the 100-year floodplain, preserving roughly half the site as habitat. Engineered ponds and preserved prairie do the same job: they slow and hold water.

Fort Bend County: bonds, a dashboard and the river itself

The Fort Bend County Drainage District is the county’s flood-control arm. Commissioners Court governs it, and it's funded by its own small tax rate, proposed to stay at one cent per $100 of value for FY2027. Its proposed operating budget rises about 5.4%, to roughly $13.71 million. Its drainage debt service more than doubles, from about $3.35 million to $7.24 million. The district’s main borrowing authority remains the $82.9 million flood mitigation bond voters approved in November 2019 with more than 60% support.

On September 24, commissioners added $50,000 to a flood dashboard project with the consulting firm Halff, bringing its total to just under $300,000, all drawn from the flood bond’s contingency budget. The dashboard is built for county staff, not the public. It pulls the county’s growing network of flood gauges into one view so emergency decisions can be made faster, and officials say future versions could add AI-assisted forecasting. Commissioners still have to approve a final scope of work.

The bigger regional story is the Brazos itself, which doesn’t just flood but moves. In May 2024, the Texas General Land Office delivered $68.4 million for three Brazos erosion projects in Fort Bend County. That included $25.8 million for the Simonton Pinch Point project, administered by the Houston-Galveston Area Council. The “pinch point” is the narrow neck of an oxbow bend near the FM 1093 bridge, which has long been at risk of being cut through. If it did, the river would straighten and speed up, raising erosion and flood hazards along that reach. Commissioners Court acted on the project’s plans in July 2025.

Closer to Weston Lakes, the record is less settled. In early 2019, Commissioners Court approved a hazard mitigation grant application for a Bessie’s Creek detention basin, described at the time as protecting about 5,000 residents near Weston Lakes from flooding off the creek and the Brazos. The court also passed a resolution supporting legislation to create a Bessie’s Creek Flood Control District. I could not confirm the current status of either. That’s an open question worth putting to our commissioner.

One more note for the November 3 election: no Fort Bend County bond is on the ballot. Drainage, however, is a theme in the county judge and commissioner races, and whoever wins will set this district’s budget.

Austin: a real pipeline, and a long line

Until 2019, Texas had no statewide flood plan. After Harvey, the Legislature passed Senate Bill 8, which split the state into 15 flood planning regions drawn along river basins. Fulshear and Weston Lakes sit in Region 8, the Lower Brazos, whose planning group is sponsored by the Brazos River Authority. The first regional plans were finished in 2023 and rolled into the first State Flood Plan in 2024, which recommended more than $54 billion in projects. The Texas Water Development Board is due the second Lower Brazos plan by January 10, 2028, and it will feed into the 2029 State Flood Plan.

Here’s the mechanism that matters. The state’s main flood grant and loan program, the Flood Infrastructure Fund, can only fund projects that appear in an approved regional or state flood plan. Getting a project into the regional plan puts a community in line for state money. The City of Fulshear already has entries in the amended Lower Brazos plan.

The line is long. About $312 million is available in the 2026-27 funding cycle, and a TWDB official told House lawmakers this summer that requests total roughly $6.9 billion. To date, the program has committed about $830 million to 118 projects statewide.

More money is coming. In November 2025, Texas voters approved Proposition 4 with about 70.5% of the vote. Starting in 2027, it dedicates up to $1 billion a year in existing state sales tax revenue to the Texas Water Fund for 20 years. At least half goes to new water supply, and the rest is split among programs, including the Flood Infrastructure Fund.

The July 4, 2025, Hill Country floods, which killed at least 135 people, also shifted the state’s attention from concrete toward warning. In a special session, lawmakers passed Senate Bill 3 on outdoor flood warning sirens and set aside $50 million through Senate Bill 5 for sirens and flood gauges in the 30 counties named in the disaster declaration. Kerr County installed and tested the program's first sirens in May 2026.

Washington: the December 11 deadline

The National Flood Insurance Program, which carried nearly 4.5 million policies and more than $1.3 trillion in coverage as of August 31, is authorized only through December 11, 2026. Its latest extension came in a continuing resolution signed September 2. That was the 36th short-term reauthorization since 2017, and the program briefly lapsed from February 1 to 3 earlier this year. As of early October, the Congressional Research Service identified no pending bill for long-term reauthorization.

What a lapse would mean, according to CRS:

FEMA could not sell new flood policies.
Existing policies would stay in force until the end of their one-year terms, and valid claims would still be paid.
The program’s borrowing limit would drop from $30.425 billion to $1 billion.

Congress has usually patched past lapses retroactively. Still, a lapse can stall home sales that require flood insurance and leave a homeowner who waited until the last minute unable to buy a policy.

The maps deserve a word too. Fort Bend County’s effective flood insurance rate maps date from April 2, 2014. FEMA released revised preliminary maps for Fulshear, Simonton, Weston Lakes and unincorporated Fort Bend County in April 2023. Before you rely on a zone designation, check the current status on FEMA’s Map Service Center or with your floodplain administrator. FEMA’s reminder is worth repeating: more than 25% of flood damage occurs outside mapped high-risk zones.

Finally, a project you hear a lot about, but that isn’t ours: the coastal barrier often called the “Ike Dike.” It’s designed to stop storm surge at the mouth of Galveston Bay. The Gulf Coast Protection District that sponsors it covers Harris, Galveston, Chambers, Jefferson, and Orange counties, not Fort Bend. Texas has appropriated about $950 million for the effort, and it approved design contracts for the gates and dunes in late 2025. Even supporters say completion is likely decades away. For us, the threat is rain and rivers, not surge.

What you can do before the rain comes back

Check your flood insurance now, not in December. Most homeowners policies do not cover flood. An NFIP policy you buy for a home you already own generally has a 30-day waiting period before it takes effect. Buying before December 11 also removes the reauthorization question for your household. Also ask your agent about private flood coverage, since an NFIP lapse doesn't affect it.
Look up your flood zone. Search your address on FEMA’s Map Service Center (msc.fema.gov), and ask your city or the county drainage district whether the 2023 preliminary maps change anything for you.
Bookmark the Brazos River gauge at Richmond (water.noaa.gov/gauges/RMOT2). The National Weather Service sets the action stage at 20 feet, minor flooding at 45, moderate at 48, and major at 50. At 55 feet, the NWS notes significant home flooding in places, including Valley Lodge near Simonton. The record is 55.19 feet, set September 1, 2017.
Keep your own drainage working. Clear yard drains and the culvert under your driveway before the winter rains. Don’t fill or block roadside ditches. If you live in Fulshear, report a clogged culvert to the city; if you're in an unincorporated area, report it to the Fort Bend County Drainage District.
Show up where the decisions are made. Fulshear City Council meets at 6 p.m. at the Municipal Complex (6611 W. Cross Creek Bend Lane), with agendas posted on fulsheartexas.gov. Speakers must register in advance and get three minutes. The Lower Brazos Regional Flood Planning Group’s meetings are public too, and its schedule is on lowerbrazosflood.org. And on November 3, Fort Bend County voters choose the officials who set the drainage district’s budget.

The bottom line

The Brazos is a large part of why Fort Bend County exists. Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred settled along its bottomlands, and every generation since has relearned that the river that feeds this land can also take it back.

What has changed is that we now have tools to plan instead of react. We have better rainfall science, a state flood plan with real money behind it, and a county that is wiring its creeks with gauges. What hasn’t changed is that those tools only work if they’re funded and maintained between floods, when almost nobody is paying attention.

We are in that window now. The ground is dry, the tropics are quiet, and the forecast says the rain is coming back.

The real choice isn’t whether Fulshear will flood again. It’s whether we spend this dry season getting ready.

If this was useful, please share it with a neighbor, especially one who moved here after Harvey. If you know the current status of the Bessie’s Creek detention basin proposal, reply and let me know. I’ll follow up.

Sources

Figures verified October 20, 2026. Items flagged for a second check before publishing: Fulshear’s October 20 council outcomes; the status of FEMA’s 2023 preliminary maps; the status of the Bessie’s Creek detention basin and flood control district proposals.

Conditions and forecasts

Local rules and projects

Fort Bend County

State and federal

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About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Can Fulshear's Roads Carry What's Coming?

Bob Gordon — Sun, 25 Oct 2026 11:02:59 GMT

Fulshear’s commute east toward Houston is in better shape than ever. The two-lane state highways feeding our newest neighborhoods aren't, and the money to fix them hasn’t been found. Here’s where the road network is keeping pace, where it isn’t, and how we compare with the other Texas boomtowns.

In 2000, Fulshear was home to 716 people. The Census Bureau’s latest estimate puts us at 64,630, after adding more than 11,000 residents in a single year. If you’ve waited through two light cycles at FM 1093 and FM 359, or followed a loaded gravel truck up the two-lane stretch of FM 359 toward Brookshire, you know the roads have been running to catch up.

Every so often, a reader asks me a hard question: Are the roads we have, plus the roads we’ve been promised, enough to carry the growth that’s coming, and to carry it safely?

The short answer is “partly.” The longer answer depends on which road you’re standing on.

How many people, and how fast

Fulshear grew 21.0% between July 2024 and July 2025, the second-fastest rate of any U.S. city with at least 20,000 people. Only Celina, north of Dallas, grew faster. The 2020 census counted 16,856 of us, so the city has nearly quadrupled in five years.

To be fair, not every count agrees. City Manager Zach Goodlander has put the population inside city limits closer to 42,000 to 46,000. Keep that gap in mind whenever anyone, including me below, quotes a per-person figure.

The county numbers point in the same direction. Fort Bend grew from about 354,000 people in 2000 to nearly 954,000 in 2025. The Fort Bend Regional Partnership’s Fort Bend 2050 report expects more than a million residents by 2030 and somewhere between 1.6 and 2 million by 2050, depending on which projection you read. In a survey of 72 county stakeholders, they ranked transportation and mobility as the top priority.

And the next wave is already platted. Hines’ Heritage Bend, off FM 1093 just south of Cross Creek Ranch, plans nearly 3,000 homes and closed a $129.2 million MUD bond to start its infrastructure. Fulshear Central is rising at FM 1093 and Texas Heritage Parkway. Lamar CISD plans a new campus up FM 359 near the Waller County line.

The good news: the east–west spine

Start with what has actually been built, because it is considerable. In roughly a decade, the corridor that carries most of us to work went from a two-lane farm road to a tolled expressway with free frontage lanes on both sides.

Westpark Tollway extension. The Fort Bend County Toll Road Authority is adding two toll lanes each way for four miles in the FM 1093 median, with no new right-of-way. The first two miles opened February 28, 2026, about nine months ahead of the November 3, 2026 contract deadline. The final two miles to Charger Way were targeted for August. The construction contract runs about $72 million; the authority’s FY2025 financial report puts the total project budget at $116.5 million. Toll revenue, not property taxes, pays for it.
FM 1463. TxDOT’s $108.4 million, 6.9-mile widening from I-10 to FM 1093 began in February 2022. It goes to six lanes north of Spring Green and four divided lanes south of it. TxDOT’s most recent schedule shows construction finishing in December 2026.
Texas Heritage Parkway. This 6.4-mile, four-lane boulevard from I-10 to south of FM 1093 uses roundabouts in place of most traffic signals. Landowners paid half the construction cost, plus all design costs, and the land. A southward extension through Heritage Bend is planned.
Grand Parkway. A $157 million, toll-funded project adds a main lane in each direction. Separately, county-managed frontage-road packages were scheduled to go to bid this summer, aiming for continuous frontage roads from I-10 to the Westpark Tollway.
I-10. The widening from Snake Creek to Mason Road, from six lanes to ten, is expected to go to bid in 2027.
FM 723. TxDOT’s $144.7 million widening from the Brazos River to FM 1093 is under way, with completion expected in September 2028.

Closer to home, the $6.6 million Huggins Drive rebuild is open, the Main Street–Wallis Street one-way pair downtown is in design, and all 26 Precinct 1 projects from the 2023 county mobility bond are in design or beyond.

For the daily commute toward Houston, Fulshear’s road network is in better shape than it has been in years, and it is still improving. That is a real accomplishment, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

The harder news: the two-lane problem

The trouble is that growth isn’t only arriving along FM 1093 east of downtown. It is arriving along the farm-to-market roads that radiate out of town: FM 359 south toward Richmond, FM 359 north toward Brookshire, and FM 1093 west toward Simonton. Those are state highways. TxDOT owns them, and only TxDOT can rebuild them.

Here is where each one stands, based on the most recent schedules I could find:

FM 359, FM 1093 to Mason Road (about 9.5 miles). Today, it has two undivided lanes. TxDOT’s plan would add a fourth lane, a raised median, turn lanes, straighter curves, and shared-use paths. TxDOT’s own fact sheet says the road needs work “to increase safety and reduce flooding,” and estimates construction at $138 million. It also says, plainly, that the project is not currently funded. A late-2022 county project list showed a January 2035 letting date.
FM 1093, FM 359 west to FM 1489 in Simonton. Also two lanes. The same county list showed a January 2035 letting date and an estimate of about $70 million, also unfunded.
FM 359, downtown north to I-10. Commissioner Vincent Morales has said he intends to pursue a widening, and the Fulshear City Council passed a resolution supporting it. I have found no published cost, funding source, or schedule. Part of the road lies in Waller County, beyond Fort Bend’s reach.
The Westpark Tollway west of Charger Way. The toll road authority’s capital plan includes a $152 million placeholder to extend the tollway to Simonton, and schematic design is underway. The city’s bowtie study found a downtown underpass feasible at about $51.8 million. My best reading of the schedules puts construction in the 2030s.

A “letting” date, for readers new to the jargon, is when TxDOT opens bids for construction. Construction follows, and it is not quick: TxDOT let FM 1463 in August 2021, and it's still finishing five years later.

Put those dates next to the growth curve, and the mismatch is plain. The roads serving Fulshear’s newest neighborhoods, apartments, and schools have no construction funding attached. At Fulshear’s current pace, the city could add tens of thousands more residents before the first shovel goes into FM 359 south of town.

Another design question to watch: where the new tollway ends. In 2024, Commissioner Morales said he was working to extend the toll lanes about 3,300 feet past Charger Way so they wouldn't drop 65-mph traffic in front of Fulshear High School. Wherever the lanes finally end, that transition from expressway to school zone deserves careful attention.

What the safety numbers say, and what they don’t

Inside the city limits, Fulshear’s record is better than you might expect. TxDOT’s crash database, built from officers’ reports statewide, recorded no fatal crashes inside Fulshear in either 2024 or 2025. Total reported crashes rose from 163 to 178.

The number that caught my eye is the serious ones. Crashes causing a suspected serious injury went from 1 in 2024 to 6 in 2025. With numbers that small, one bad month can swing the trend, so I wouldn’t call it a pattern yet. But it is the right number to watch.

The Fulshear Police Department’s own monthly figures show the same upward pressure. In August 2026, officers worked 39 collisions, 11% more than in August 2025; 37 were minor, and 2 were major.

Now the caveats, because they matter:

City limits aren’t where the risk lives. TxDOT’s city figures count only crashes inside the city. Long stretches of FM 359 and FM 1093 beyond downtown run through unincorporated county, so their crashes don’t show up in Fulshear’s totals.
Not every crash makes the database. The state counts crashes with an injury, a death or enough property damage to require a report. Fender-benders in parking lots generally don’t appear.
Rebuilt roads are safer roads. The streets inside town are the ones that have been widened, divided, or fitted with roundabouts. BGE, the engineers behind Texas Heritage Parkway, say its roundabouts essentially eliminate T-bone and head-on collisions.

The corridor’s history makes the point even more stark. In February 2023, an 18-wheeler reportedly ran the red light at FM 1093 and FM 1463/FM 359 and struck another truck, killing its driver. That is the same signal the new toll lanes now let through traffic bypass. The pattern, in short, is that risk concentrates where heavy volumes still meet old geometry, at the signals, curves and two-lane stretches that haven’t been rebuilt yet.

How we compare with the other boomtowns

Fulshear is not the only Texas city trying to pour a highway system around a population explosion. Three others are worth a close look: Celina, our near twin; Princeton, a cautionary tale; and Leander, the closest thing to a model.

Celina is almost exactly our size and grew 24.6% last year. Its bet looks like ours: the North Texas Tollway Authority is extending the Dallas North Tollway about six miles north from US 380 to FM 428, nearly tripling the lanes through Prosper and Celina. Nearly 60% of Celina’s residents work outside the city, and until the tollway opens, many rely on Preston Road, one of the region's most congested highways. In that sense, Celina is a year or two behind us on its spine.

Princeton was America's fastest-growing city in 2024, growing 30.6% in a single year. US 380 remains largely two lanes between Princeton and McKinney, and commuters describe 30-minute drives that stretch to an hour. In September 2024, the city council imposed a 120-day moratorium on new residential development, citing strain on roads and services, then extended it for 180 days. Under Texas law, extending such a pause requires the city to show reasonable progress on the problems behind it. Princeton also recorded three traffic deaths inside city limits last year. It happens when rooftops outrun the trunk road for years, and the city reaches for its bluntest tool.

Leander shows the other path. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority has built the 183A toll road in phases timed to growth. Phase II opened in 2012, more than seven years ahead of its original schedule. Phase III, extending north to Liberty Hill, opened in April 2025, roughly seven years ahead as well, financed with toll-revenue bonds and a federal loan. Even there, Williamson County Commissioner Cynthia Long offered a caution: because toll roads are paid for by the traffic they carry, an authority can’t get too far ahead of growth.

One more comparison, with the boundary caveat above in full force: Fulshear’s reported in-city crash count per resident last year was roughly half of Celina’s.

Read together, the three tell a simple story. On the east–west commute, Fulshear looks like Leander: a toll authority building ahead of schedule with toll money. On the rural state highways north, south, and west of town, we look more like Princeton: two lanes, rising traffic, and an unfunded fix.

So, is it adequate?

For the commute east, mostly yes, for the next several years. Once the toll lanes reach Charger Way, FM 1463 ends, and work on the Grand Parkway and I-10 proceeds, the main path between Fulshear and Houston will have more capacity and fewer signals than ever.

For safety on the roads that ring the town, not on the current schedule. FM 359 south, FM 359 north and FM 1093 west are carrying subdivisions, apartments, school buses and trucks on two-lane rural geometry. The planned fixes are about a decade out and, as of the last published schedules, unfunded.

Residents who tell me traffic is getting worse are not imagining it, and their concern is fair. But the relevant question is never whether Fulshear will get more roads. It will. The question is whether the right roads arrive before the rooftops, and what keeps people safe in the years before they do.

That second half matters because the city’s leverage is limited. The worst corridors are state highways, much of the new growth sits outside city limits, and since 2023 state law has let landowners petition out of a city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), the ring of land where a city can enforce its development rules. Halting growth inside the city wouldn’t stop it next door. It would only move it beyond the city’s reach.

What would close the gap, and how you can weigh in

None of this requires heroics. It requires steady pressure in the right places, and most of those places accept public comment.

Fund FM 359 and FM 1093 west. TxDOT’s Unified Transportation Program (UTP) is its 10-year construction plan, and a state highway project without UTP money rarely gets built. TxDOT takes public comment on each year’s draft, usually in the summer. A city resolution, a county request and a few hundred resident comments naming these two projects all count.
Fix the worst spots before the full widening. Turn lanes, signals, shoulders and curve corrections cost a fraction of a rebuild. Fort Bend County has long proposed realigning the FM 359 curve near Fulshear-Gaston Road, and new signals at FM 359 and Candela Heights and at FM 359 and Fulshear-Gaston Road went to bid this summer. More of that, sooner, along every two-lane stretch taking new traffic.
Tie new development to its traffic. When a subdivision or apartment complex fronts FM 359 or FM 1093 west, its traffic impact analysis should model full buildout, not opening day, and its approval should come with the turn lanes and signals that analysis calls for.
Protect the right-of-way now. Fulshear’s Major Thoroughfare Plan reserves room for future roads. Securing every dedication before the houses go up means the state won’t have to condemn the land later.
Use the next county bond. Commissioner Morales has said the county is preparing for a possible mobility bond in November 2027, and each precinct is compiling its wish list now. That list gives a resident’s request the most leverage.

To watch the work, Precinct 1 posts monthly mobility updates on the Fort Bend County website, and the commissioner’s office takes calls and emails. Fulshear City Council meetings include time for public comment.

Fulshear grew up in the 1890s around a railroad and a crossroads. The two farm roads that meet there, FM 359 and FM 1093, now carry a city of nearly 65,000. We’ve done the hard work of turning FM 1093 east of town into a modern corridor. The choice before us is whether we finish the job on FM 359 and FM 1093 west before the next 50,000 neighbors arrive, or after.

If a stretch of road worries you, reply and tell me where. I’d like to map the spots readers worry about most. And if this was useful, share it with a neighbor.

Sources

Population and growth

Fulshear-area road projects

Safety data

Comparison cities

Prior coverage in this newsletter

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

The Waters PUD on Oct. 20: Residents Return, the Ground Has Shifted

Bob Gordon — Sat, 24 Oct 2026 11:02:34 GMT

Four months after a standing-room crowd asked council to slow down, Waters PUD opponents and one group of supporters returned to the podium on October 20. This time they spoke into a different legal landscape. Here is what they said, the background you need to follow it, and what council's choice really is now.

In June, the dais argued that Fulshear’s hands were tied. Residents were told the 2019 development agreements obligated the city to allow apartments on Lou Waters’ land along FM 1093 and FM 359. The Waters PUD was presented as the city’s best tool for controlling them.

On Tuesday night, nobody at the podium had to argue that point anymore.

The city’s own legal counsel now says the obligation was never there. So when residents returned to the October 20 council meeting, most of them were not pleading against a done deal. They were arguing against a choice. Harry Follater, president of the Fulbrook Community Association, put it plainly: “This isn’t a promise you have to keep. It’s a choice.”

That shift changes what the residents’ arguments are for. In June, traffic and drainage concerns were reasons to delay something the city believed it owed. Now they are the substance of the decision itself.

How we got here

If you’re new to this story, here is the short version.

The Waters PUD would rezone roughly 91 acres across five tracts near FM 1093, FM 359, and Lifestyle Boulevard into a single Planned Unit Development. A PUD is a custom zoning district. Instead of choosing from the city’s standard menu, the landowner and the city negotiate a tailored set of rules, and council adopts them by ordinance. The tracts that drew the crowds were the 32 acres on FM 1093 across from Fulbrook and the frontage on FM 359 across from Polo Ranch and Del Webb, where the plan would allow multi-story apartments.

The proposal rests on a chain of contracts that goes back a decade:

January 2016. Council approves development agreements with Mr. Waters for what became Polo Ranch and Del Webb. A development agreement is a contract, usually signed while land is still outside the city limits, that trades development standards and eventual annexation for written promises about what can be built.
February 2016. The city annexes the Polo Ranch land, including the 32-acre FM 1093 tract. According to city staff, that tract has never been formally zoned.
July 2019. Council amends the agreements and commits 1,684 water and wastewater connections to the land. The amended land-use exhibit contemplates multifamily or commercial uses on several tracts. This amendment formed the basis for the June apartment case.
June 5, 2026. The Planning and Zoning Commission recommends approval of the PUD. One commissioner reasoned that a PUD gave the city more control than the alternative.
June 16, 2026. About 20 residents ask council to slow down, get a second legal opinion, or vote no. Council closes the public hearings and postpones the item, in part to wait for an updated FM 1093 traffic study timed to capture back-to-school traffic.

Notably, the application never asked the city for new water or sewer capacity. It asked to reallocate connections the city had already committed, shifting them toward apartments, which use far more water and wastewater per acre than houses or shops. The meters were always the real asset.

What changed between June and October

As I wrote before Tuesday’s meeting, the October 20 packet reversed the city’s position. The planning memo reports that, after additional analysis, the city’s legal counsel concluded the city is not obligated to allow apartments on any of the tracts where the Waters PUD would place them.

The reasoning turns on sequence. Texas law lets a city sign development agreements for land in its extraterritorial jurisdiction (the ETJ), where it has no zoning power. Once land is inside the city, the public is supposed to set its allowed uses: notice, a hearing, a vote, an ordinance. A city generally can’t hand that power to a private contract. The legal term is contract zoning.

The city acquired the Polo Ranch land in 2016. The amendment that seemed to promise apartments came in 2019. In staff’s reading, that makes the amendment unenforceable as a zoning commitment, and the 32-acre FM 1093 tract can be developed under the original 2016 agreement, which calls for single-family homes.

On that basis, staff recommended that council postpone the rezoning, the code amendment, one development-agreement amendment, and the utility reallocation to the November 17 meeting, and deny the fourth development-agreement amendment. (The same memo also asks, a sentence later, to postpone the fourth amendment.)

To be fair to everyone involved, two cautions apply. First, this is the city’s counsel’s opinion, not a court ruling, and the landowner may read the documents differently. Second, the reversal doesn’t kill the PUD. Council can still approve a negotiated PUD if it decides the package is worth having.

What changes is the starting point. Council would choose apartments, not accept them.

The traffic study, read cover to cover

The most detailed comment of the evening came from Mr. Follater, who obtained the updated traffic impact analysis through a public records request and, in his words, read all 201 pages so council didn’t have to.

A traffic impact analysis, or TIA, estimates how many trips a project will generate, where those trips will go, and how long drivers will wait at nearby intersections and driveways, today and years out. Its recommendations, such as turn lanes or signals, typically become the improvements a developer must build. That is why the study matters so much: the PUD, Mr. Follater noted, requires only the fixes the analysis calls for.

His critique, as he presented it:

Scope. The study covers 32 of the project’s 91 acres, one of five tracts. That one tract alone generates more than 11,000 car trips a day.
Counts. Traffic was counted on one Tuesday in August and grew at 5% a year. He did not conduct Saturday counts, for a project he described as mostly shopping and fast food.
What’s missing. The study does not mention Fulshear Junction, the 251-home, 21-acre commercial development the city approved in 2024 next to Polo Ranch. It also omits Fulbrook’s three entrances across the road and everything west of the site, where the study’s own maps send 40 to 45 percent of the traffic.
Results. By 2036, drivers leaving one driveway would wait nearly eight minutes during the evening rush, and the study says no other feasible mitigations are possible. Southbound Main Street at FM 1093 downtown goes from about one minute of delay to more than six, with no recommended fix.
Authorship. The developer’s engineering firm, not the city, prepared the study.

On that last point, it’s fair to say that applicant-prepared traffic studies are common practice, with the city’s engineers reviewing them. The more pointed argument was legal. The ordinance asks council to find that the PUD has no undue adverse effect on traffic. “On this record,” Mr. Follater said, “you can’t make that finding.”

He asked council to follow staff, deny the Fourth Amendment, and not bring the PUD back without a city-led traffic study of the whole project and the whole corridor, including Fulshear Junction.

I have not yet checked these figures against the study itself, and readers should treat them as one resident’s careful reading. But they are specific and checkable, which is exactly what a council needs before making a finding on the record.

The other voices at the podium

The rest of the opposition was shorter but consistent, and several speakers began by thanking city staff.

Dave Boland of Fulbrook said he was pleased the legal analysis had moved away from treating approval as automatic. He repeated what he told council earlier: he has heard no one support the apartments, and the infrastructure at these locations can’t carry them. He urged council to “put this matter to bed.”

Ben Donahue of Cross Creek West, who suggested townhomes or duplexes as an alternative in June, simply thanked staff and council for taking another look rather than being backed quickly into a decision that may have been unnecessary.

Christy Soderman, a process-safety engineer with two engineering degrees from Texas A&M, framed the traffic numbers as a safety problem rather than a nuisance. She warned that drivers leaving the apartments would try to turn left onto a busy highway and that TxDOT has pushed to widen that stretch of FM 359 to at least 2035. Approving the volume without infrastructure changes, she said, would mean accepting predictable loss of life. She also raised runoff into Bessie’s Creek, which she said is already polluted, and left reference material for council.

Keith King, who moved to Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek from Huntington Beach, California, five years ago, said he had lived with high-density development firsthand and came to Fulshear to get away from it. Robert Fairbauer of Fulbrook asked council to reconsider the zoning because his commute to the Energy Corridor keeps getting longer.

The case for the PUD

One speaker came to support it. Loretta Farkas of Del Webb said Del Webb residents had met with the developer’s representative and seen his presentation, and that several hundred people attended, far more than the 20 or 30 such meetings usually draw. She said they back the plan “100%.”

She described the 32-acre development as high-quality, luxury apartments set about 700 feet behind the commercial frontage on FM 1093, with two large detention ponds surrounded by walking trails and benches.

Her comments deserve the same serious hearing as the opponents’. A well-designed project with real amenities is a legitimate outcome of a PUD negotiation, and Del Webb residents live with this land too. It would help everyone, though, to see the current site plan side by side with June’s, so that both Fulbrook and Del Webb know exactly which tracts would carry apartments and how many units.

Two comments that widen the frame

Two speakers didn’t name the Waters PUD, but what they said directly relates to it.

Mark Williams of Fulbrook told council about moving into Canyon Gate, near Mason Road and FM 1093, in 1998. His realtor assured him he was outside the 500-year floodplain. A friend who farmed rice around Katy told him otherwise: once houses and strip centers replace rice fields, the water has nowhere to go. During Harvey, Mr. Williams left his house by boat.

His point to council was about dates. A floodplain map is only as current as the analysis behind it, and since Harvey nine years ago, a great deal of concrete has gone down west of Houston. He urged council to get the Fort Bend County Drainage District on record, with current watershed and detention studies, before assuming new development is safe.

That story is also a piece of our history. Much of the land around Fulshear and Katy was rice country within living memory. Every rezoning along FM 1093 is, among other things, a decision about where that old farmland’s water will go next.

Tajana Surlan of Fulshear Lakes, a commercial real estate professional who serves on the city’s Capital Improvements Advisory Committee, argued for urgency. She described a wave of regional growth, citing a new TMEIC manufacturing plant in Waller County, Tesla’s expansion near Brookshire, and a proposed semiconductor project in Grimes County. She argued those employers will need workers, and those workers will need places to live. She urged council and the region’s MUD boards to plan for that demand rather than wait for it. (Full disclosure: Ms. Surlan sponsors this newsletter.)

She and the Waters opponents are not as far apart as they might seem. Both say growth must be matched by roads, water, and drainage. They disagree about which should come first.

Where it stands, and the real question

The City Council voted to follow staff recommendations and postpone further consideration of this development until the November 17 meeting.

Whatever happened procedurally on Tuesday, the ground under this decision has moved.

For most of this year, the debate was framed as damage control. If the apartments were owed, the PUD was the city’s way to shape them, and a resident’s best hope was better setbacks and buffers. That framing is gone. The relevant question is no longer how Fulshear lives with apartments it promised. It’s whether these tracts should carry apartments at all, given the roads, the water, and the drainage we actually have.

That is a harder question for council, not an easier one. A choice carries more responsibility than an obligation. It also means the record matters more. If council is asked to find that the project has no undue adverse effect on traffic, it will need a traffic study it trusts. If it is asked to rely on drainage plans, it will want them current.

The residents who came back on Tuesday seemed to understand that. The tone was measured. They read the documents, quoted page counts, and asked for studies.

How to stay involved

Council’s next regular meeting is Tuesday, November 17, at 6:00 p.m. at the Fulshear Municipal Complex, 6611 W. Cross Creek Bend Lane. The city streams meetings live and archives them on its website, and posts agendas and packets on the Agendas & Minutes page the week before.

Speakers register in advance and have three minutes to speak. The public hearings on the Waters rezoning closed on June 16, so if you want to speak to the zoning itself, call the City Secretary’s office at (281) 346-1796 to ask how that rule applies. Written comments to the City Secretary are always an option.

In 2019, a few lines in a land-use exhibit nearly decided what would happen to 91 acres of old farmland. This time, we'll make the decision the way it should be: in public, on the record, by people we elected. If you know a neighbor in Fulbrook, Polo Ranch, or Del Webb who missed Tuesday, please share this with them.

Sources and further reading

Fulshear City Council regular meeting, October 20, 2026: citizen comments (meeting transcript)
City of Fulshear, Council Packet, October 20, 2026: agenda memos for Items IX.C–IX.G
City of Fulshear, Regular City Council Meeting Agenda, October 20, 2026
About Fulshear, Texas: “What the Waters PUD Really Changes” (Oct. 18), “Residents Pack City Hall to Oppose the Waters PUD” (June 17), “Planning & Zoning Recap: A New Commission Tackles the Waters PUD” (June 11), “The Waters PUD Is Back”, and “Fulshear Isn’t Being Overrun by Apartments” (Sept. 15)
City of Fulshear, meeting calendar (November 17 regular meeting)

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About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Inside City Hall #18: The City That Married Its MUDs

Bob Gordon — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 11:03:37 GMT

More than nine in ten Fulshear residents live in a municipal utility district—a second layer of government under the first. I’ve written about what MUDs are. This is about a strange question: how a city and forty-odd little governments share the same ground, the rebate system that keeps the peace, and what happens when the math breaks.

Last year, in “The Hidden Government on Your Property Tax Bill,” I gave MUDs the full anatomy treatment — what they are, how developers create them, how their bonds turn into your tax rate, and why their board elections draw single-digit turnout. If you haven’t read it, start there; today’s post assumes it.

Because today’s question is the sequel that piece left hanging, and it’s the more distinctly Fulshear question: what happens when the hidden government and the visible one occupy the same ground?

In most of Texas, MUDs live in unincorporated county, beyond any city’s limits—that’s the classic model, and it’s Weston Lakes’ story. Fulshear’s story is stranger. As this city boomed, it grew by consent: developers sought MUDs, the city agreed, and the subdivisions rose inside Fulshear’s limits and its ETJ. The result is a city where — by the city’s own accounting when it last overhauled the arrangement — more than 95 percent of residents live within a MUD. Here, having only one government on your tax bill isn’t the norm. It’s the exception, mostly reserved for the old town core.

This post closes the pipes-and-pavement arc with that arrangement: the marriage, the prenup, and the recent argument about the checkbook.

The double-taxation problem, and the prenup

Layered governments create an obvious injustice if left alone. A MUD resident pays the MUD’s tax — servicing the bonds that built their neighborhood’s pipes, as covered in the anatomy piece — and the city’s tax. But the city doesn’t provide their water or sewer; the MUD does. Without adjustments, MUD residents would pay the city full price for services they largely don’t receive. Double taxation, plain and simple.

Fulshear’s answer, dating back years, is a rebate: the city hands part of its own tax rate back to residents of in-city MUDs. For a long stretch the rule was simple — the city kept a dime per $100 of valuation and rebated everything above it. In 2019 the council reworked this into a tiered structure that scaled the rebate with the tax rate, and paired it with something quietly significant: standing annual talks about regionalizing water service, plus immediate cuts to base water and sewer rates.

Understand what this rebate actually is, structurally: it’s the peace treaty that makes the whole layered arrangement tolerable. The city gets a unified community — one police department, one parks system, one council, with the boundaries of post #1 intact — without pretending it built infrastructure it didn’t build. MUD residents get city services, minus a fair-sized offset for the utility government they already fund. It is unglamorous, technical, and holding up a remarkable amount of civic weight.

Which is why it mattered when the math broke.

When the checkbook argument arrived

During last summer’s budget season — the same contentious cycle that produced the 23.5-percent-proposed, 3.74-percent-adopted tax rate story we covered in the Finance-adjacent posts — a quieter problem surfaced in the hearings: errors in the MUD rebates. The city had underpaid what the rebate structure owed, and putting it right became part of the budget’s reckoning; council ultimately steered roughly a million dollars of surplus toward MUD underpayment corrections and taxpayer relief, and the rebate errors were among the reasons members called for a full budget workshop before adoption.

I want to frame this fairly, because it would be easy to score cheap points. A rebate system spanning dozens of districts, each with its own boundaries and rates, administered across a city doubling in size, is genuinely hard bookkeeping — the surprise isn’t that errors occurred, it’s that the structure works at all. But the honest lesson goes the other way, too: when nearly your whole electorate’s fair treatment depends on a spreadsheet, the spreadsheet isn't a back-office detail—it’s a governing document. The residents who caught city hall’s attention on this weren’t wrong to treat an accounting error as a trust question. That’s what it was.

The endgame nobody has scheduled

Here’s the forward-looking question this arc leaves open, and I flag it now because it will eventually define a decade of Fulshear politics: how does this end?

MUDs are financing devices at heart. Their bonds are paid down on multi-decade schedules; the infrastructure ages into the maintenance phase; and then each district faces a fork in the road. One path is the Weston Lakes model from the anatomy piece — the MUD simply persists, a permanent little government running its own utilities indefinitely. The other is consolidation into the city: annexation or dissolution, the city absorbing the system — and, crucially, the remaining debt, the aging pipes, and the service obligations, presumably folding customers into the utility operation we toured two posts ago. Between those poles sit hybrids, including the regional water arrangements those 2019 agreements committed the city and districts to keep discussing every year.

Every path moves money, debt, and control. None of it is scheduled yet, to my knowledge — and that’s the point of raising it. The time to understand the marriage is before anyone files papers.

Your move

Three practical notes to close the arc. First, identify your district — the city publishes a MUD boundary map in its GIS portal, your tax bill names it on its own line, and the anatomy piece walks through the rest. Second, keep both levers in mind: your MUD board election (often decided by a few dozen votes, as covered last year) and the city’s budget season, because the council—not your MUD—sets the rebate structure that determines what the layering costs you. Third, if your MUD’s bonds are approaching payoff, ask your board the endgame question now; don't let the answer be decided by default.

With that, the pipes-and-pavement arc is complete: Public Works builds and keeps, Utilities bills and plans, the CIAC checks growth’s math, and the MUDs—the forty-odd quiet partners—carry the rest. Next, the series turns to what all this infrastructure is for: the quality-of-life arc, starting with Parks and Recreation, the department in charge of why people actually move here.

Do you know your MUD’s name without looking? Reply with it — no fair checking the tax bill first. Share this with a neighbor who thinks they only pay one local government; more than nine times out of ten in this city, they’re wrong.

Sources: About Fulshear — “The Hidden Government on Your Property Tax Bill,” “A City of Rooftops”; Community Impact — Fulshear rebate restructuring (July 2019); Covering Katy and CitizenPortal coverage of FY2026 budget deliberations and MUD rebate corrections; City of Fulshear GIS (MUD boundaries dataset). Details verified July 2026 — confirm current information at fulsheartexas.gov or (281) 346-1796.

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How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Fulshear Town Square and Fulshear Village: Following the Money

Bob Gordon — Thu, 22 Oct 2026 11:02:55 GMT

On October 20, developer Joe Veytia returned to City Council with a bigger, more conventional version of Fulshear Town Square and Fulshear Village. The vision is easy to picture. The financing takes more work. Here is what was presented, what the numbers in the packet actually say, and how the deal stacks up against town centers that other Texas cities have built, or tried to.

Fulshear has no hotel. It collects no hotel occupancy tax, because there is nothing to tax. The two properties at the heart of this proposal pay the city less than $5,000 a year in property taxes, according to the developer.

If you’ve driven to LaCenterra or Sugar Land Town Square for dinner, you understand the appeal of changing that.

On Tuesday night, Mr. Veytia of Town Square Development Advisors asked council to consider a package of special districts and tax-sharing agreements for a project his team values at more than half a billion dollars. Council took no action. Mayor Don McCoy, who placed the item on the agenda, stressed that council was reviewing a concept, not approving an agreement.

That makes this the right moment to look closely. Fulshear's question isn't whether a town square would be nice. It’s what share of the project’s future tax revenue the city should commit to building it, for how long, and who carries the risk if the attendance projections don’t pan out.

What was proposed

The proposal has two pieces on two separate sites, tied together by a single financing plan.

Fulshear Town Square would sit on about 18.7 acres along FM 1093 near Fulshear Trace, next to the property planned for a new H-E-B. Its centerpiece is a sports and events complex aimed at youth tournaments, with an emphasis on girls’ and women’s sports. Around it would be a conference center operated by Norris Conference Centers, the city’s first hotel, restaurants, shops, medical offices, a public market, and structured parking.

Fulshear Village Luxury Lofts would put market-rate apartments over ground-floor retail and restaurants on about 4.7 acres along FM 359 between Wallis Street and Main Street, just south of Frances Smart Park. Although the sites are separate, Mr. Veytia wants both inside the same special taxing district.

Mr. Veytia framed the goal as something downtown residents can enjoy, something that attracts employers and visitors, and something that adds amenities Fulshear doesn’t have.

How it changed since March

This is the second version council has seen. When Mr. Veytia presented in March, the reception was cool, largely because a firm called Sustainability Partners would have owned the public facilities and leased them to the city for 99 years. Several council members saw that as debt by another name.

The October version drops that lease as the primary plan (the draft MOU keeps tax-exempt lease financing as an option) and makes the facilities larger and the price higher:

The headline cost has varied in public. Mayor McCoy told ABC13 before the meeting the project could cost around $250 million. Covering Katy reported the presentation as a $520 million investment. The financing summary in the council packet adds to $513.3 million. The differences probably reflect whether the Village is counted and which version of the numbers is used, but the city should publish one reconciled figure.

Following the money: the financing stack

The developer would build and own the private buildings (the hotel, restaurants, shops, offices, and apartments) with private money. The public tools would pay for what the draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) calls the “Public Facilities”: water, sewer, drainage, streets, parks, and, notably, the sports complex, the conference center, and their parking.

Mr. Veytia’s pitch to council was that the project itself would fund this money. “We’re not here to raise anybody’s property taxes on anyone else’s property except our own,” he said, according to Covering Katy. That is largely accurate as to tax bills. As we’ll see, it is less accurate for tax revenue.

Three tools would be stacked together:

A municipal management district (MMD). This is a special taxing district, a commercial cousin of the MUDs that finance water and roads in our subdivisions. Fulshear already has one on paper. The Legislature created the Fulshear Town Center Management District in 2011, and it has never been activated. Mr. Veytia asked for permission to impose a district tax of up to $1.41 per $100 of taxable value on property inside the project's own property, adding that the project probably won’t need that much. One packet worksheet models a rate of about $1.01. MMD bonds could run up to 30 years. Under the district’s enabling law, voters must approve the tax and any bonds it backs.
A tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ). A TIRZ sets a base value for an area. Property taxes on growth above that base can repay improvements. The draft would dedicate all of Fort Bend County’s property taxes from the project, plus the city’s property taxes from the project above $500,000 a year, to a developer reimbursement agreement lasting up to 40 years. The county would have to agree separately.
Chapter 380 economic development agreements. These grants let a city share tax revenue to promote development. The draft anticipates one granting the developer the city’s sales tax from the project (excluding the hotel) to pay for public facilities, and a second granting the hotel owner all or part of the city’s hotel occupancy tax and sales tax generated there. Limits and terms are still to be negotiated.

What the packet’s numbers show

The financial exhibits, marked confidential but included in the posted packet, contain these key figures:

The packet does not reconcile the $85.4 million and $115.3 million figures. They may measure different things, such as costs to be reimbursed versus the gross proceeds of the districts over time, but the documents don’t say.

The protections, stated plainly

To be fair to the proposal, the draft contains real safeguards. The MOU says nothing obligates the city or county to issue general obligation or certificate-of-obligation debt, levy a tax, or pledge its general credit. District and TIRZ obligations would be payable only from their own revenue streams. It also bars reimbursing the same cost twice through different tools. And Mr. Veytia told council the developer would take responsibility for operating and maintaining the sports and conference facilities.

Those provisions matter. They mean a bad outcome is unlikely to show up as a line on Fulshear’s general debt. They don’t settle what happens to the tax revenue the city gives up, or who covers the facilities if they lose money.

Working the numbers

The figures below are my own arithmetic on the packet’s numbers and the city’s adopted tax rate of $0.190549 per $100. Where I’ve had to make an assumption, I say so. None of this projects what the project will actually be worth.

1. The $500,000 threshold

The draft lets the city keep up to $500,000 a year in property tax from the project. Above that, the city’s share flows to the developer through the TIRZ. At today’s rate, $500,000 is the city tax on about **$262 million** of taxable value.

What happens next depends on what the finished project is worth on the tax roll, which is usually less than what it costs to build. Here are three illustrative cases:

The developer’s framing, that the city goes from under $5,000 a year to about $500,000, is true. But it’s the floor, not the ceiling. In a strong outcome, the city would be giving up roughly half of the project’s city property tax for up to 40 years. Fort Bend County would give up its entire share.

None of that comes out of anyone’s tax bill today. The city would otherwise collect that revenue in the future from new buildings that serve new visitors and residents, who rely on city police, streets, and other services.

2. The district tax

The MMD tax would apply only to property inside the district. At the $1.41 ceiling, it would be about 7.4 times the city’s own rate. On the same illustrative values:

That is real money, and in the first instance, it is the developer’s own money. But it doesn’t stay with the developer. In commercial leases, property taxes usually pass through to tenants, and Village renters pay them through rent. A restaurant or medical office here would carry a noticeably higher tax load than one across FM 1093. Whether tenants will accept that is a market question the developer is betting on.

A governance note: Texas special districts are typically approved by the voters who live inside them when the election is called. In a district created for a development, that electorate can be very small. That’s normal for MUDs, but it means Fulshear voters at large wouldn't make the most important tax decision.

3. The share that’s public

Against a total project of about $513 million, the packet’s $85.4 million in required reimbursements is about 17%. The $115.3 million in combined district and TIRZ proceeds is about 22%. No reliable statewide benchmark exists for that ratio, and the comparisons below suggest the more useful question is not the percentage, but what it buys and who controls it.

4. The facilities are the risk

Together, the sports complex and conference center carry about $55.6 million in capital costs. The $10 million operating-deficit allowance is about 18% of that. It suggests the developer’s model expects these facilities to need support in at least some years.

For scale, Bryan’s Legends Event Center, an indoor sports venue that draws tournaments, reported about $1.95 million in revenue against $2.65 million in expenditures in fiscal 2024, a gap of about $700,000. If a Fulshear facility ran a gap that size (a big if, since the buildings differ), $10 million would cover about 14 years. Long enough to look good at a ribbon cutting. Not long enough for a 30-year bond.

Mr. Veytia said the developer would take responsibility for operating and maintaining the facilities. That is the right instinct. The single most important thing the city can ask for is a written answer to who pays when the operating allowance runs out, and what happens to the buildings if no one does.

5. The hotel taxes

Fulshear’s first hotel would create a revenue stream the city has never had. The packet doesn’t project it, so here is a rough range. A 171-room hotel at 60 to 70% occupancy and an average nightly rate of $140 to $170 would gross roughly $5.2 to $7.4 million a year in room revenue. A 7% city hotel occupancy tax on that would be about **$370,000 to $520,000 a year**, assuming the city levies one.

State law limits hotel tax spending to tourism-related uses, including convention facilities. The draft would grant all or part of that revenue back to the hotel owner. That would leave less to help run the very sports and conference facilities that are supposed to fill the hotel. Round Rock faced the same choice, and we’ll come back to what it did.

How it compares with other Texas projects

Fulshear is not the first Texas suburb to want a town center with a hotel and a place to hold events. Several have tried, using the same tools now available. Their experience is the best evidence we have.

Five lessons from the comparison

1. Who holds the pen matters. Sugar Land and Katy ran their deals through public entities the city controls: a local government corporation and a development authority. Fulshear’s draft would activate a dormant district by appointing directors the developer recommends, and the exhibit that should name them is blank in the posted packet. That’s a structural difference, not a detail.

2. The conference hotel is the hardest piece. Katy has the land, the lake, the TIRZ, and a willing public partner, and eleven years after the announcement, it still has no hotel. Hotel financing depends on lenders believing the rooms will fill. A project that leans on a hotel to justify a conference center, and on a conference center to fill the hotel, should expect the same scrutiny.

3. Sports venues bring visitors, but rarely pay their own way. Bryan’s Legends Event Center appears to be doing what it was built to do. The city credited it, among other attractions, with a 19.4% rise in hotel tax collections in 2024. Its own reported revenue still didn’t cover its listed costs. That is a reasonable trade for a city that chooses it with eyes open. It is a poor surprise.

4. Caps and clocks protect the public. Frisco’s hotel tax rebate is 50%, capped at $5 million, for ten years. Friendswood split its TIRZ revenue between debt and upkeep from the start. Fulshear’s draft runs the TIRZ for up to 40 years and leaves the hotel rebate limits to be negotiated. Those numbers aren’t wrong, but they’re open-ended, and open-ended is where cities get hurt.

5. Protect a revenue stream for operations. Round Rock deliberately kept part of its new resort’s hotel tax out of the incentive deal so it could keep paying for its sports center. If Fulshear rebates most of its first hotel’s taxes to the hotel owner, it gives up the revenue most naturally suited to running the facilities.

To be fair, the comparison isn’t all cautionary. Sugar Land Town Square shows what a well-structured public-private town center can do for a Fort Bend County city. It is home to Sugar Land’s City Hall and has become the city’s civic center. Fulshear’s proposal aims for the same goal, and it’s a worthy one.

What council said, and what comes next

Council took no action, as staff had recommended. According to Covering Katy, council members asked about financing, traffic, drainage, and whether there would be enough demand to fill the facilities. Mayor McCoy, the proposal’s strongest supporter, acknowledged that much still needed to be worked out and corrected before council could consider an agreement.

Staff’s memo had already listed much of that work. The incentive application hasn’t completed economic development review. Legal review of the MOU isn’t finished. Current zoning doesn't allow a battery-storage component on the site plan. And staff asked council whether a sports complex and conference center should be public facilities at all.

During citizen comments, Bill Clifford of Fulshear Run Trace argued that the large undeveloped tract of land downtown south of FM 1093 is the city’s most important remaining commercial land. He said several owners own it, and he opposed an MOU that would take over the existing district, negotiate tax deals for one parcel, and limit the city’s talks with neighboring owners. He asked council to lead a unified plan for the whole project.

The same evening, council approved a $100,000 update of the city’s economic development strategic plan with TIP Strategies, split between the two EDC boards. That plan is the natural place for Fulshear to decide its incentive rules before any single deal writes them.

What a good deal would need

The proposal may well offer amenities residents want. Based on the packet and the experience of other cities, here is what I would want to see before council signs anything:

One reconciled public financial summary showing what each component costs, which entity owns it, which revenues repay construction, and which remain for operations.
An independent market study for the hotel, conference center, and sports complex, commissioned by the city, not the developer.
A city-controlled district board, or at least named appointees the public can see before the city consents.
Caps and sunsets on the TIRZ and the Chapter 380 grants, in dollars and years, not just terms to be negotiated.
A written operating backstop: who covers shortfalls, major repairs, and replacement after the $10 million allowance is gone.
Keep a share of hotel taxes for operations, as Round Rock did.
Sequencing: finish the strategic plan and consider the downtown parcels together before committing to exclusivity for one.

Fulshear can have a town square. The choice is whether the city sets the terms or the first proposal does. Sugar Land set the terms. Katy is still waiting on its hotel. Both are within a half-hour’s drive and worth a look.

If you’ve read the packet and see something I’ve missed, reply and tell me. And if you know a neighbor who’s been wishing for a hotel or a place to eat out without driving to LaCenterra, share this with them. They’ll want to know what it might cost.

Sources and further reading

Fulshear

City of Fulshear, Council Packet, October 20, 2026: staff memo, draft MOU, and financial exhibits for Item IX.H
Covering Katy News, “Fulshear Town Square proposal outlines $520 million investment, special financing plan” (Oct. 21, 2026)
ABC13, “Fulshear city leaders consider $250 million town square development” (Oct. 20, 2026)
Texas Legislature, H.B. 3827 (2011), Fulshear Town Center Management District
Texas Comptroller, TIRZ FAQ
About Fulshear, Texas: “A $296 Million Pitch — and a Skeptical Council” (March 24), “What the Waters PUD Really Changes” (Oct. 18), and “Fulshear Town Square Has Changed. So Have the Questions.” (Oct. 20)

Texas comparisons

Hotel Online, Sugar Land Marriott Town Square and Conference Center (2002); Sugar Land EDC, TIRZ boards
Covering Katy News, Katy Boardwalk enters next phase (July 22, 2026); Community Impact, Katy Boardwalk hotel and conference center
Community Impact, Friendswood City Center and infrastructure costs; Bisnow, groundbreaking
City of Bryan, hotel tax collections, 2024 and FY2024 Q4 budget report; KBTX, Midtown Park bonds
City of Round Rock, Sports Center opening and FY2023 financial update
City of Frisco, Toyota Stadium Chapter 380 agreement

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

The Developer Who Planted Vineyards: Doug Konopka and Three Decades of Building Fulshear

Bob Gordon — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 23:52:39 GMT

Doug Konopka is not a household name, even in Fulshear. But the man behind Fulshear Run also launched Fulbrook, started the community now called Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek, built the Fulshear Town Center, and lent the land where the Fulshear Farmers’ Market began. Here is what the public record says about him, and why his approach to development matters as the city grows.

In 2000, the U.S. Census counted 716 people in Fulshear. By July 2025, the Census Bureau estimated 64,630, after a single-year jump of about 21 percent. If you’ve driven FM 1093 lately, you didn’t need the Census to tell you that.

Most of the credit (or blame, depending on where you sit) for that growth goes to the big master-planned communities with recognizable corporate names: Johnson Development’s Cross Creek Ranch, Tamarron, Jordan Ranch, and now Hines’ nearly 3,000-acre project off Texas Heritage Parkway.

But long before the big players arrived, a small Houston firm bought land around Fulshear and bet people would pay for something other than tract housing. The firm is DHK Development, Inc. Douglas H. “Doug” Konopka is the man behind it.

His company has fewer than a dozen people. Its fingerprints are on roughly 2,000 acres of Fulshear.

Who he is

Konopka founded DHK Development in 1991. Texas Secretary of State records show the corporation was filed on January 21 of that year, with Konopka as president, director, and registered agent. The company works out of a modest office on Yoakum Boulevard in Houston’s Montrose area.

DHK’s own profile says Konopka has developed and managed projects across the South, from Texas to Georgia. The projects range from ten commercial acres to more than 1,000 residential acres. Outside Fulshear, the firm’s current projects include Raintree Village, a 400-acre community in Katy, and Woodshore, a 205-acre mixed-use community in Clute. Past work includes residential communities in Pasadena and Sugar Land, commercial land in League City, and consulting on a 4,000-acre master-planned community near Atlanta.

Outside real estate, he has served as chairman of the Board of Trustees of Annunciation Orthodox School in Houston.

To be fair to readers, I should say up front what I couldn’t find. Konopka has kept a low public profile. I found no published interview covering his upbringing, education, or the career that came before DHK, and his professional profile online is sparse. I assembled what follows from newspaper coverage, city records, state filings, and his company’s own materials. Where those sources leave gaps, I say so.

The philosophy: “communities,” not “subdivisions”

Most developers have a mission statement. DHK’s is unusually specific, and it explains nearly everything the firm has done in Fulshear.

The company says plainly that it does not build “subdivisions.” It builds “communities.” The reasoning is that "subdivision" puts the entry sign and the houses first, while "community" puts the residents first. Four other principles follow from that:

A community succeeds through a team effort of the developer, creative consultants, strong financial partners, and enthusiastic residents.
Hire the most honest, creative consultants you can find, let them run wild with ideas, and rein them in when necessary.
Successful communities are alive with simple but memorable events.
Every property has its own character. Preserve its natural environment and honor its history.

That last principle will sound familiar to anyone who cares about Fulshear’s past. Konopka has told reporters the same thing for years. In one Houston Chronicle story, he described what residents here don’t want from developers: to “mow down all the trees and put up tract housing.”

Whatever you think of growth, Konopka’s Fulshear projects were built on the premise that a developer could make money by keeping the country in the countryside. Whether that premise holds up as land values climb is one of Fulshear's more interesting questions today.

Fulbrook: the first bet

Konopka’s first big Fulshear project was Fulbrook, a gated estate-lot community south of FM 1093 and west of downtown, accessed via Fulbrook Road. DHK lists it as a 1,036-acre development.

According to a builder who worked there, Fulbrook began with about 900 acres of rolling countryside: native oaks and pecans, prairie and wildflower meadows, oxbow lakes, creeks, and frontage on the Brazos River. Another 136 acres were added later. They set aside more than 200 acres as permanent open space, and divided the rest into one- to four-acre homesites on Oxbow Lake, Pecan Lake, and the river. One builder described the cap as 480 lots.

The exact timing of Konopka's arrival is a little fuzzy, and the sources don’t fully agree. A Chronicle story from around 2011 said he committed to Fulshear about ten years earlier, with Fulbrook. A 2016 Chronicle story said he had been developing in Fulshear for two decades. The honest reading is that his Fulshear work began somewhere between the mid-1990s and about 2000, years before most of today’s residents had heard of the town.

Fulbrook was the template. It had preserved landscape, large lots, an approved-builder list, and neighborhood events. DHK’s materials mention a gazebo at Fulbrook Green where neighbors gathered each April for concerts, neighborhood vineyards, and a Cork and Culinary Fair featuring Mediterranean wines.

Fulshear Town Center: a downtown before there was much of one

While Fulbrook was selling, DHK also built the Fulshear Town Center, a 16,000-square-foot office and retail block. A 2008 Chronicle story said it opened a few years earlier, and a later Chronicle piece called it a block of old-fashioned, brick-fronted shops and restaurants that had become a prominent downtown feature.

Back then, Fulshear shopping was limited to stores selling staples. The Town Center was an early signal that the old downtown could offer more than a feed store and a barbecue joint. In 2008, Konopka told the Chronicle that the center could more than double in size.

Fulshear Creek Crossing: the community that became Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek

Most residents don’t know this part, and it took me some digging to pin down.

Konopka’s second big residential project was Fulshear Creek Crossing, a 670-acre mixed-use development just east of downtown and south of FM 1093. In 2008, DHK had just finished the first 123 lots. Konopka told the Chronicle he planned to finish the project in about eight years, but warned the credit crisis could slow him down.

His plans for the northern end were ambitious for a town of a few hundred people. He told the paper he was setting aside the northernmost 30 acres for a “new downtown.” It would include a public square, a new City Hall, and space for a European-style transit station if commuter rail ever reached Fulshear.

The Fulshear Creek Crossing Homeowners Association was incorporated in 2008, with Konopka as a director. The community’s signature amenity was a two-acre vineyard planted in 2006 at the center of its sports and recreation complex on the shore of Huggins Lake. Konopka told the Chronicle that longtime Fulshear residents Carol McCann and her late husband, Mike, who grew grapes on their own property, came up with the idea. In one harvest, despite a summer drought, residents who volunteered picked roughly 1,000 pounds of Blanc du Bois grapes. The Chronicle reported it was the first neighborhood in the Houston area where residents could drink wine made from grapes they’d picked in their own neighborhood.

Today, you know it as Fulshear Creek Crossing by another name. The community was rebranded as Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek, and its HOA still legally operates as the Fulshear Creek Crossing Homeowners Association, Inc., doing business as the Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek Association. MLS listings in Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek still show “Fulshear Creek Crossing” as the master-planned community.

At some point, the project's public face shifted from Konopka to Trend Development, the Houston firm of Robert Fondren and David Cannon. Trend presented the community’s plans to City Council in late 2018. Its principals serve on the HOA board, and recent state filings list Trend’s address for the landowner entity. The paper trail suggests the two firms were connected: state business records list Konopka as a director or member of the general-partner entities behind Fulshear Land Partners and Fulshear Land Investment Partners, the same partnerships that now own the community’s amenities and its FulBrook Plaza retail center under Trend’s management.

I could not find a public record explaining exactly how or when leadership passed from DHK to Trend, so I won’t guess. DHK lists both Fulbrook and Fulshear Creek Crossing among its past developments.

One part of Konopka’s 2008 vision did come close to happening. Fulshear’s City Hall sits at 30603 FM 1093 today, and according to Trend’s 2018 presentation to council, Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek’s commercial tracts surround it to the west, east, and south.

Fulshear Run: the current project

That brings us to Fulshear Run, the community DHK is still building today.

Fulshear Run covers about 250 acres south of the intersection of FM 1093 and Bois d’Arc Lane, a mile east of downtown. It is named for a small creek that runs north to south through the property. Its marketing materials say it drains toward Bessie’s Creek through rolling hills, ponds, woods, and prairie.

Its selling point is the combination of lot size and city services. Homesites range from half an acre to more than an acre, and the development bills itself as the area's only estate-lot community served by city water and wastewater. It sits in Fulshear Municipal Utility District No. 2 (a MUD is a special taxing district that finances water, sewer, and drainage infrastructure and repays the debt through a property tax on homeowners inside the district). Fulshear Run’s MUD rate was listed at $1.20 per $100 of value, within a combined rate of about $3.20.)

Konopka developed Fulshear Run through Trendmaker Homes' development division, which later became Tri Pointe Homes. Tri Pointe bought roughly 93 acres from DHK and built on the half-acre sites. Custom builders, including Partners in Building and Fairmont Custom Homes, took the acre-plus lots. Fairmont’s founder, Michael Pelletier, has said that soon after he started building in Fulbrook, Konopka asked Fairmont to build in Fulshear Run as well.

The amenities follow the DHK playbook closely:

Named parks, including Song Bird Park and Fish Lake Park, plus an observation hill, a birdhouse village, and picnic areas.
Agriculture as amenity: vineyards and olive groves planted on the property, and a Farm and Vineyard Faire.
Preserved trees: the pecans and oaks are part of the marketing.

The paper trail shows steady investment. In 2016, the DHK Fulshear partnership registered a roughly $1.5 million amenity package with the state, covering sign walls, trails, planting, a play area, a pier, and picnic and mailbox shelters. In December 2024, DHK registered another project, a $200,000 park in Section 6 with more vineyard planting and a relocated windmill and cistern. More than a decade into the project, Konopka is still planting grapes.

Drainage, Atlas 14 and Harvey

Readers who follow drainage (and in Fort Bend County, who doesn’t?) will want to know how Fulshear Run handled rules that changed midstream.

In 2018, the National Weather Service published Atlas 14, an updated statistical study of extreme rainfall. For much of the Houston region, it significantly raised the estimated rainfall of a “100-year” storm. Every development still in the pipeline had to recheck its detention ponds and storm sewers against the new numbers.

At the June 7, 2019, Planning and Zoning Commission meeting, Konopka presented an updated Fulshear Run land plan that revised the drainage and detention system for the higher Atlas 14 rainfall totals. He presented documentation showing that the Fort Bend County Drainage District approved the new infrastructure. The drainage changes also forced a reshuffling of lots. The original development agreement allowed up to 160 half-acre lots; the revised plan had 144. The commission approved it 5–0.

Hurricane Harvey also tested Fulshear Run in 2017. The community’s website still features a resident’s account of staying high and dry, with power, while the creek turned into a fast-running river flowing away from the homes. That is a developer’s own marketing, and one resident’s experience, so treat it accordingly. It is still worth noting in a county where many neighborhoods cannot say the same.

The honest complications

It would be dishonest to profile a developer and skip the friction.

At that same 2019 meeting, John Dowdall, then a P&Z commissioner, recused himself because the item affected him as an adjacent landowner. He told the commission he had concerns about an access point between his property and Fulshear Run and about the number and size of lots along his property line. (Dowdall is now Fulshear’s Planning Director.)

In June 2025, Julie Dowdall filed a civil lawsuit in Fort Bend County District Court against Tri Pointe Homes Texas and DHK Development. The case concerns the design and construction of the Fulshear Run development, and court filings identify the defendants as the builder and developer involved. From the public docket, I could not determine the specific claims in detail or the case’s current status. A lawsuit is an allegation, not a finding, and both companies are entitled to their defense. I’ll follow it and report back if it resolves.

Beyond the property lines

The record also shows Konopka involved in Fulshear life outside his own developments, and this is where his story connects most directly with the town’s identity.

He served as a consultant to the town’s planning commission when Fulshear was writing its first serious development rules. He argued then for landscaping, signage, and park standards. His comment to the Chronicle has aged remarkably well: “We don’t want to see FM 1093 look like Highway 6 or 1960.”

He helped launch the Fulshear Farmers’ Market. In 2014, Ramona Ridge looked for a place to connect produce grown by Bois d’Arc-area gardeners with families in the new master-planned communities. Konopka had recently bought the old Winter Gordon dirt yard at FM 1093 and Bois d’Arc Lane, the land that would become the entrance to Fulshear Run. He knew it would sit idle for a couple of years, so he offered Ridge the five-acre field at no cost. He envisioned a permanent public market there someday. DHK was also among the market’s first sponsors and helped pay for the permits. The market opened on August 2, 2014, with about a dozen vendors. Recent counts show it draws 40 to 50 vendors every Saturday.

Konopka also served as an unpaid director on the board of Forever Fulshear, the nonprofit behind the market. State business records also list him as a member of two small companies formed in 2011, named for community events: one for a Fulshear Creek Crossing scarecrow festival, the other for a Fulbrook “CCF,” which matches the initials of the Cork and Culinary Fair.

That pattern matches the fourth principle on DHK’s list: successful communities are alive with simple but memorable events. A vineyard harvest, a cork-and-culinary fair, a scarecrow contest, and a Saturday market are small things. They are also the kinds of things people remember when they explain why they moved here.

What it means for Fulshear

It’s tempting to cast every developer as either a villain bulldozing the past or a visionary building the future. Konopka’s record doesn’t fit either role neatly.

He is a businessman who has made money turning Fulshear ranchland into rooftops, and his projects contributed to the very growth that longtime residents sometimes lament. His developments have had their disputes with neighbors. And his vision for a transit station on FM 1093 remains, for now, a vision.

He also argued for tree protection and sign standards before they were fashionable here. He planted vineyards where others would have put another retention pond with a fountain. He loaned an empty field to a farmers’ market when he could have left it fenced. And he kept coming back to the idea that a property’s history and landscape are assets to protect, not obstacles to clear.

The relevant question isn’t whether Fulshear will keep growing. It will. Development agreements signed years ago, MUDs already created, and land already sold guarantee that. The relevant question is what kind of growth the next generation of developers will offer, and whether the city will ask them for the kind of features that Konopka built in voluntarily.

Fulshear Run is in its final sections now. When the last lot sells, the agriculture-as-amenity approach DHK has used here for roughly 30 years may leave with it, unless residents and city leaders decide it’s worth asking for.

If you live in Fulbrook, Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek, or Fulshear Run, and have stories from the early days (the first grape harvest, the original concerts on the green, the farmers’ market on the old dirt yard), I’d love to hear them. Reply to this post or leave a comment. Those memories are part of Fulshear’s history, too, and the Fulshear Historical Association would like to preserve them.

Sources

DHK Development, Inc., Company Profile and Projects
Corporation Wiki, Dhk Development, Inc. (Texas SOS filing summary) and Douglas Konopka (affiliated entities)
Houston Chronicle, Tiny town of Fulshear gets ready as Houston sprawl nears (2008)
Houston Chronicle, Fulshear officials prepare for return of growth
Houston Chronicle, Developers sell bucolic lifestyle near fast-growing Fulshear (Nancy Sarnoff)
Houston Chronicle, Fulshear residents enjoy wine made from neighborhood grapes
Fulshear Run, Home, Facts, Development Team, Home Builders
City of Fulshear, Council liaison report, Planning & Zoning Commission, June 7, 2019
Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation, TABS EABPRJB6810006 (Fulshear Run amenities, 2016), TABS2025006971 (Fulshear Run Park, Section 6), TABS2022015595 (Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek pool pavilion)
Community Impact, H-E-B considers building another store in Fulshear
HOAproxy, Fulshear Creek Crossing Homeowners Association, Inc. dba Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek Association
Katy-Fulshear Real Estate, Fulbrook on Fulshear Creek (formerly Fulshear Creek Crossing)
Fairmont Custom Homes, Crafting Fulshear’s Finest Homes and Fulbrook
Courtland Building Company, Fulbrook
Fulshear Farmers’ Market, About Us; Voyage Houston, Meet Ramona Ridge
ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, Forever Fulshear Inc
Harvey-Cleary Builders, Annunciation Orthodox School project testimonial
UniCourt, Julie Dowdall vs. Tri Pointe Homes Texas, Inc. and DHK Development, Inc. (Fort Bend County District Court, filed June 24, 2025)
Covering Katy, Houston developer files plans for 348-unit apartment complex (Census population figures)

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

How to Vote in Fulshear: Your Guide to the November 3, 2026 Election

Bob Gordon — Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:01:24 GMT

Early voting is open now and runs through Friday, October 30. Here is everything a Fulshear or Weston Lakes voter needs: where and when to vote, what to bring, and a plain, nonpartisan rundown of every race on your ballot.

Your ballot is longer than you think

Every two years, a reader asks me some version of the same question: “I know who I’m voting for at the top. What is all the rest of that stuff?”

It’s a fair question. A Fulshear voter's ballot this November runs to 47 contests. A U.S. Senate seat, an open congressional seat, and the governor’s race sit at the top. Below them come six more statewide executive offices, seven seats on Texas’s two highest courts, eight appeals court seats, six district courts, a district attorney, the county judge, five county courts, the district clerk, county clerk and county treasurer, two justices of the peace, and three seats on the appraisal district board that sets the value of your home.

The races at the bottom of the ballot are the ones most likely to touch your daily life, and the ones most voters skip.

This guide doesn’t tell you how to vote. It tells you how voting works in Fort Bend County, where to go, and who is running for what. The candidate lists come from Fort Bend County’s official sample ballot for the precincts covering the City of Fulshear and Weston Lakes (precincts 1006, 1148 and 1149, ballot style 2). Your own ballot may differ slightly if you live outside city limits, so check yours before you go. I’ll show you how below.

The dates that matter

If you missed the October 5 registration deadline, you can’t vote in this election. If you’re registered but moved within Fort Bend County, you can still vote; update your address at VoteTexas.gov. If you moved here from another Texas county and didn’t re-register, you may qualify for a limited ballot, which covers only the races common to both counties. It is available only during early voting and only at the county’s main early voting site, the Elections Office at 3730 Bamore Road in Rosenberg.

Who can vote by mail

Texas is stricter than most states. You can vote by mail only if you are 65 or older on Election Day, sick or disabled, expecting to give birth within three weeks of Election Day, away from Fort Bend County for all of early voting and Election Day, or confined in jail but otherwise eligible.

Many of my readers qualify on age alone. If that’s you, you must mail the application to Fort Bend County Elections by Friday, October 23. Mail it to 301 Jackson St., Richmond, TX 77469, fax it to 281-341-4418, or email it to absenteevoter@fortbendcountytx.gov. If you fax or email it, you must also mail the original within four business days.

One common stumble: the application and the ballot envelope both ask for an ID number. Use your Texas driver’s license number or the last four digits of your Social Security number, and use the same one in both places. A missing or mismatched number is one of the most frequent reasons Texas mail ballots get rejected.

What to bring

Texas requires one of seven forms of photo ID:

Texas driver’s license
Texas Election Identification Certificate
Texas personal ID card
Texas handgun license
U.S. military ID with photo
U.S. citizenship certificate with photo
U.S. passport (book or card)

If you’re 70 or older, your ID can be expired for any length of time. If you’re under 70, it can be expired for up to four years.

If you don’t have one of these and can’t reasonably get one, you can still vote. Bring a supporting document with your name and address, such as your voter registration certificate, a utility bill, a bank statement, or a government check, and sign a Reasonable Impediment Declaration at the polls.

Where and when to vote

Here is the single most useful fact in this post: in Fort Bend County, you can vote at any polling place in the county, early or on Election Day. You are not tied to a neighborhood precinct. If the line at the library is long, drive to the next site.

Early voting hours

The county runs 38 early voting sites. More than half appear to be closed on Sunday, October 25, and the county’s posted schedule is hard to read. If you plan to vote that Sunday, call Fort Bend County Elections at 281-341-8670 first.

Early voting sites closest to Fulshear and Weston Lakes

For Weston Lakes residents, the closest early voting site is the ESD No. 4 building on FM 1093. Firethorne Clubhouse, a familiar polling place, is marked closed on the county’s early voting list but is open on Election Day. The county’s early voting page lists all 38 sites.

Election Day vote centers near Fulshear

On Tuesday, November 3, polls are open 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at 101 vote centers countywide. These are the closest:

If you’re in line by 7 p.m., you get to vote. The county website has the full list of 101 vote centers.

If you live just over the county line

Some addresses with Fulshear, Katy, or Brookshire mailing addresses are actually in Waller or Harris County. You must vote in the county where you are registered; a Fort Bend site can’t take a Waller County voter, and vice versa. Your voter registration card names your county.

Waller County (Brookshire): Early voting is at the Brookshire Convention Center, 4027 5th St. On Election Day, Waller County voters must use their assigned precinct polling place, not any site. Call Waller County Elections at 979-826-7600 for hours.
Harris County (Katy): Early voting runs 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., and on Sunday, October 25, it runs from noon to 7 p.m. Nearby sites include the Katy Branch Library (5414 Franz Rd.) and the Maud Smith Marks Branch Library (1815 Westgreen Blvd.). See HarrisVotes.com for the full list.

What’s on the ballot

Candidates are listed in the order they appear on the sample ballot, with party labels as printed: R (Republican), D (Democrat), L (Libertarian), G (Green). “Incumbent” means the person now holding the seat. Texas eliminated straight-ticket voting in 2020, so you’ll mark each race individually.

First, what is not on the ballot. There are no propositions this November: no state constitutional amendments (those were decided in November 2025), no county bonds, and no Fulshear, Lamar CISD, Katy ISD, or ESD No. 4 measures. The City of Fulshear also has no election this fall. The city filled every council seat and the mayor’s office in May under the city’s new council districts, and the next city election is in 2027.

Federal offices

The Senate seat is open because Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated Sen. John Cornyn in the May Republican runoff. In Congress, Fulshear stays in District 22 under the map the Legislature redrew in 2025. Rep. Troy Nehls is retiring, and his twin brother, Trever, is the Republican nominee.

Statewide executive offices

Two of these deserve a word of explanation. The comptroller is the state’s chief tax collector and revenue estimator; Gov. Abbott appointed Don Huffines to the office in July after he won the March primary. The Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads. It regulates Texas oil and gas, which surprises newcomers and, after 38 years in the offshore industry, I appreciate. The Agriculture and Railroad Commission races have no incumbent on the ballot because both sitting commissioners lost their primaries.

Texas Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals

Texas has two high courts: the Supreme Court for civil cases and the Court of Criminal Appeals for criminal ones.

State Board of Education and Legislature

No Texas Senate race appears on the Fulshear ballot this year. Voters in some precincts just outside the city see a race for Senate District 18 (Lois W. Kolkhorst, R, incumbent, and Erica Gillum, D), and some see House District 26 (Matt Morgan, R, incumbent, and Elizabeth “Eliz” Markowitz, D) instead of District 28. Your sample ballot will tell you which apply to you.

Courts of Appeals

These intermediate courts hear appeals from trial courts. The 1st and 14th Districts both sit in Houston and cover Fort Bend County; the 15th, created in 2023, hears appeals involving the state government and is elected statewide.

District courts and district attorney

District courts are Fort Bend County’s main trial courts, handling felonies, major civil suits, and family law. The 501st and 502nd are new courts; Gov. Abbott appointed their first judges in November 2025.

County offices

The county judge’s race needs some context. The county judge presides over Commissioners Court, which sets the county budget and tax rate, and serves as the county’s emergency manager. County Judge KP George, elected as a Democrat and later a Republican, was suspended from office this year following a felony conviction. Daniel Wong, who won the March Republican primary with 54 percent in a five-way field that included George, was appointed interim county judge. That appointment was challenged in court, and in August a judge ruled Wong could continue serving. Dexter McCoy won the Democratic nomination in a May runoff.

Not on the ballot: Fulshear and Weston Lakes are in Commissioner Precinct 1 (Commissioner Vincent Morales), which isn’t up until 2028, and the Precinct 1 constable isn’t up this year.

Fort Bend Central Appraisal District board (nonpartisan)

Most voters will skip this race, and it's arguably the one closest to your wallet. The appraisal district sets the taxable value of every property in the county; the board hires the chief appraiser, approves the district’s budget, and appoints the review board that hears protests. It does not set tax rates. Under the property-tax law the Legislature passed in 2023, voters in large counties now elect some of these directors rather than leaving the choice entirely to local taxing units.

A note for Weston Lakes residents

The City of Weston Lakes website lists an election on November 3 for three at-large alderman seats. That race does not appear on the county’s sample ballot for Weston Lakes. In 2023 and 2025, the city canceled its elections because the candidates were unopposed, and it may have done the same this year.

At the polls

A few rules catch people every election:

Phones stay off in the voting room. You can’t use a phone or any wireless device, or take photos or recordings, within 100 feet of the voting stations. Printed notes, including a marked-up copy of your sample ballot, are fine.
No campaign gear. Campaign signs and literature aren’t allowed within 100 feet of the entrance, and you can’t wear campaign clothing or buttons inside.
Curbside voting is available if you can’t physically enter. Park in the marked curbside space and call the number on the sign.
No straight-ticket option. Plan for 47 separate choices, or skip the races you don’t know. A partly marked ballot still counts for every race you did mark.

Doing your homework

The best thing you can do before you go is print or download your own sample ballot. Find your precinct on the county’s precinct map or your voter registration card, then pull up that precinct’s ballot on the county’s sample ballot page.

For candidate information, these sources are nonpartisan:

VOTE411.org, run by the League of Women Voters, publishes candidates’ answers to the same questions side by side and builds a personal ballot from your address.
Ballotpedia profiles candidates in nearly every race, including judicial and county contests.
The Texas Tribune covers the statewide and legislative races in depth.
VoteTexas.gov, run by the Secretary of State, confirms your registration and explains voting rules.

For judicial races in particular, the State Bar of Texas and local bar associations often publish judicial preference polls of lawyers who practice before those courts. Treat them as one input among several.

The highest-leverage hour of the year

It is easy to treat the bottom of the ballot as an afterthought. To be fair, there’s a reason: few of us know who our justice of the peace is, let alone who should be.

But consider what those offices do. In this county, district courts decide custody cases and felony sentences. The county judge leads the body that sets your county tax rate. The appraisal district board oversees the office that values your home. Those decisions arrive in your mailbox and your neighbors’ lives long after the national headlines move on.

Fulshear has grown from a farm town of a few hundred people into a city of tens of thousands in a single generation. Our voice in county and state government grows with it, but only if we use it.

Early voting is open through October 30 at any county site. Bring your ID and sample ballot, and if you have a neighbor who could use a ride or a reminder, share this post with them.

Questions? Fort Bend County Elections is at 3730 Bamore Road in Rosenberg, 281-341-8670, or vote@fbctx.gov.

Sources

Fort Bend County Elections, Early Voting & Election Day Information (Nov. 3)
Fort Bend County Elections, Early voting locations PDF and Election Day vote centers PDF
Fort Bend County, Sample ballots (Nov. 3), including the precinct 1149 ballot
Fort Bend County, Vote by mail
Texas Secretary of State, Important election dates
VoteTexas.gov, Photo ID requirements and Mail voting eligibility
City of Fulshear, Elections
City of Weston Lakes, Election 2026
Texas Standard, Middleton and Johnson advance in attorney general race
KPRC, Judge rules Daniel Wong may remain as appointed Fort Bend County judge
Texas Public Radio, Gov. Abbott appoints Don Huffines comptroller
Waller County, Notice of joint general election

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About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

Fulshear Town Square Has Changed. So Have the Questions.

Bob Gordon — Tue, 20 Oct 2026 11:03:33 GMT

The October proposal for Fulshear’s proposed Town Square includes a larger sports complex, a smaller conference center, and fewer hotel rooms than the March proposal. Its financing documents include an allowance for operating losses but don't make clear who ultimately bears the risk.

Fulshear’s proposed Town Square is back before City Council, and residents who have followed the project since March should take a fresh look. The March proposal was summarized in “About Fulshear, Texas.”

The October packet describes a larger sports complex, higher project costs, and a financing framework built around a special taxing district, tax-increment financing, and potential economic-development grants. It also includes something worth a close look: a $10 million allowance for operating deficits at the sports and conference center.

That allowance does not mean the project will lose exactly $10 million. It does mean the developer’s financial model anticipates funding operating shortfalls.

Before deciding whether these facilities belong in the public column, the council needs to establish who would own them, who would pay to operate them, and who would be responsible if the money runs out.

City staff is asking those questions too. Its recommendation for the October 20 meeting is to discuss the broader concepts, but not approve the memorandum of understanding yet. October 20 council packet, p. 357

In March, the proposal included a roughly 76,000-square-foot sportsplex, a 46,000-square-foot conference center and a 180-room hotel. The proposed public facilities would be financed through a 99-year lease arrangement with Sustainability Partners.

October’s documents tell a different story. The draft MOU names 1093 FTS LLC as the developer, with Joe Veytia listed as Manager in its unsigned signature block. Council packet, p. 366

The architectural presentation lists a 136,195-square-foot sports complex, a 40,517-square-foot convention center and a 171-room hotel. Compared with March, the sports complex is nearly 80% larger, while the conference center and hotel are smaller. A separate financial worksheet uses different dimensions: 139,900 square feet for the sportsplex and 45,299 square feet for the conference center.

The financing summary puts Town Square’s total project cost at approximately $384.1 million, plus $129.2 million for the Village apartment development—a combined $513.3 million. Those are developer projections for the overall developments, not a proposed bill to the city.

The differences between the architectural presentation and the financial worksheets need explaining. Until they are reconciled, residents should treat the dimensions and costs as estimates for a proposal still taking shape. Council packet, pp. 376–377 and 394

The October draft proposes three principal financing tools.

A municipal management district, or MMD, would finance public facilities through district revenues and bonds. The proposed public facilities include infrastructure, the sports complex, the conference center, and their associated parking.

A tax increment reinvestment zone, or TIRZ, would direct agreed portions of future property-tax growth toward eligible project costs. A TIRZ establishes a base value for calculating the increment; it does not freeze property owners’ tax bills. Fort Bend County would have to agree separately to participate. Texas Comptroller’s TIRZ explanation

Finally, Chapter 380 agreements would provide potential grants tied to project sales taxes and hotel revenues. The draft anticipates a grant of city sales-tax revenue from the project, excluding the hotel, for public facilities. A separate hotel incentive could grant all or part of the city’s hotel occupancy and sales taxes generated there, with limits and a term still to be negotiated. Section 2.3.5 conditions these grants on their being legally permitted without negative consequences for the maximum tax-rate calculation required by the Tax Code. Council packet, p. 361

The draft also retains an option for tax-exempt lease financing. So while it shifts away from March’s specified 99-year arrangement, it does not eliminate leasing as a possibility. Council packet, §§2.1–3.1

Two numbers deserve attention.

The MOU anticipates an MMD tax no higher than $1.41, but it doesn't specify the unit. If it means the customary dollars per $100 of taxable value, that would be about 7.4 times Fulshear’s current city rate of $0.190549. It would be a district tax on property within the district, not a replacement for the city’s rate or a citywide tax increase. A financial worksheet elsewhere in the packet models a lower district rate of 1.01286.

The draft also anticipates that city property-tax revenue from projects above $500,000 annually, together with county property-tax revenue, will fund the projects. At today’s city rate, $500,000 corresponds to approximately $262.4 million in taxable value. That calculation helps explain the threshold; it does not establish the eventual taxable value or settle how a final TIRZ agreement would work. Council packet, pp. 360–361 and 376, adopted city tax rate

The draft includes meaningful protections. It says the MOU does not obligate the city or county to issue general-obligation or certificate-of-obligation debt, levy taxes, or pledge general credit. It also prohibits reimbursing the same cost more than once through different financing tools. Council packet, §1.2, p. 360, and §2.3.8, p. 362

Those provisions matter. But they do not answer the operating question.

The financial exhibits—marked “CONFIDENTIAL,” yet included in the publicly posted packet—contain approximately $42 million for the sportsplex, $13.6 million for the conference center, and the $10 million operating-deficit allowance.

One worksheet shows approximately $85.4 million in total reimbursements required. Another shows approximately $115.3 million in combined MMD/TIRZ proceeds for the two developments. The packet does not clearly reconcile those figures.

Council should ask what each total includes, how the operating allowance would be funded, whether those costs qualify for the proposed financing, and what happens after the allowance is exhausted. Council packet, pp. 376–377

Experience elsewhere shows why those questions matter.

Bryan’s Legends Event Center attracts tournaments and visitors. The city reported a 19.4% increase in hotel occupancy tax collections in 2024, reaching $2.9 million, and credited several tourism initiatives and partners, including Legends. City of Bryan

Yet Bryan’s preliminary, unaudited fourth-quarter FY2024 budget report lists approximately $1.954 million in Legends revenue against $2.650 million in facility expenditures, including annual capital spending—a difference of about $696,000.

That is not evidence of a $696,000 general-fund transfer: the broader Midtown Park fund had other revenues, and the report shows no actual general-fund transfer that year. It does show that the facility’s own reported revenue did not cover its listed expenditures. Bryan preliminary quarterly budget report, printed p. 12

A venue can attract visitors while requiring financial support. Whether that is worthwhile depends on the public benefits, the full costs and the community’s priorities.

Round Rock offers another useful lesson. Its sports center opened in 2014 with a reported building cost of $14.5 million, funded primarily through hotel occupancy taxes. When the city later negotiated incentives for Kalahari, it kept the resort’s 2% hotel venue tax outside the incentive agreement, preserving that revenue for the sports-center fund. Opening announcement, city financial update

For Fulshear, the practical question is how much revenue would remain available for public operations after construction reimbursements and hotel incentives.

“Economic impact” estimates alone cannot answer that. They describe estimated economic activity, sometimes including ripple effects. They are not equivalent to tax receipts available to pay city expenses.

There is also an immediate governance question.

Fulshear already has a legislatively created Town Center Management District. The MOU says it has not been activated. One expressly binding provision would approve recommended directors and consent to adding the loft property to the district.

But Exhibit E, where the director appointments should appear, is blank in the posted packet. The draft describes recommendations from existing board members; residents cannot see the proposed appointees there. Separately, state law requires voter approval before the district imposes an ad valorem tax or issues bonds payable from it. Appointing a board does not itself authorize that tax. Council packet, pp. 360 and 374, district enabling act

The developer also proposes adding a separate tract near Huggins Drive and FM 359 to the same special district for a mixed-use development. Staff has requested that the district evaluate this proposal separately. Council packet, p. 357

The MOU is generally nonbinding, with five expressly binding sections. That makes it worth resolving the missing appointment information before anyone signs.

Staff has identified additional unfinished work: legal review, incentive review, ownership arrangements, maintenance responsibilities, and potential city liabilities. It also flagged a proposed battery-storage component that current zoning does not allow.

A useful next step would be a single, reconciled public financial summary showing:

What would be built and what each component would cost.
Which entity would own each public facility.
Which revenues would repay construction costs and which would remain for operations.
Who would cover operating shortfalls, major repairs, and eventual replacement.
What residents would receive in local access, programming and pricing.

The proposal may offer amenities residents want. Evaluating those benefits requires knowing the obligations that come with them.

Council is scheduled to consider the MOU on Tuesday, October 20, at 6 p.m., at the Fulshear Municipal Complex, 6611 W. Cross Creek Bend Lane. The agenda provides for public comment, with advance registration and a three-minute limit.

Staff has asked council for input on whether the sports complex and conference center should be public facilities. Staff memo, p. 357: Residents deserve a clear account of the costs, revenues, and responsibilities before that question is answered. Official meeting agenda

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Soccer at Eagle Landing, Nearly a Year In: Who Plays, Who Runs It, and What Comes Next

Bob Gordon — Mon, 19 Oct 2026 11:00:54 GMT

Eagle Landing Park opened last November with a ceremonial first kick. Eleven months later, here is who actually plays soccer there, how the city decides who gets the fields, and what to watch before the park’s first birthday.

On November 15, 2025, Fulshear cut the ribbon on a 26-acre park at 4131 Woods Road. It cost $5.18 million to build, roughly half a million dollars more than the initial projection. And it sits on ground that, as Kimberly Bow—then co-chair of the Parks and Recreation Commission, now a council member—said when explaining the park’s name, “used to be rice fields, and many birds used to land here.”

The birds have competition now.

If you have a child in cleats, you already know where your Saturdays go. For everyone else, here is the short version: soccer at Eagle Landing is not one league. It is a city-owned park, one priority partner, and a second nonprofit that runs the Saturday recreational games. Understanding how those three fit together explains almost everything else about the place.

What’s actually out there

The fields are natural grass, not artificial turf. At the grand opening, Covering Katy News counted three full-size fields and several youth-sized ones, served by a 2,000-square-foot concession building and two parking lots: 180 spaces off Tamarron Park Drive on the north side and 130 off Woods Road on the south. For rental and sponsorship purposes, the city divides the playing surface into four fields, lettered A through D.

Two of those letters picked up stories of their own this year.

Field A is the lit field, with 60-foot permanent light poles. It is also now “META Field.” META Planning + Design (the Houston-area land-planning firm, not the social-media company) asked to sponsor it, and the parks commission reviewed a proposal this spring for a four-year naming-rights sponsorship for $12,000. By the commission’s June 12 meeting, the council liaison reported that the naming rights were approved. The park itself keeps its name.

Field B is the one getting new lights. More on that below.

One housekeeping note: the park was technically outside the city limits when it opened. Council annexed it on January 6 of this year.

How Fulshear decides who gets the fields

The city owns the park. It does not run a soccer league.

Instead, Fulshear uses a tool called a Recognized Sports Association, or RSA. The city designates one organization as the facility's home club. That club gets first call on scheduling. In return, it takes on work the city would otherwise have to staff and pay for.

At Eagle Landing, that club is HTX Soccer, a nonprofit that describes itself as the largest youth soccer club in Greater Houston, with more than 8,500 players. Council chose HTX on January 28, 2025, for an initial two-year term. According to the agenda documents, as Community Impact summarized them, HTX gets priority scheduling and is responsible for three things:

Running its recreational and competitive leagues, including two to three local or regional tournaments a year.
Maintaining the fields: mowing, line painting, and waste management.
Operating the concession stand.

The city, for its part, committed to holding back two fields for general public use. (Staff’s phrasing to the parks commission that February was a shade softer: up to two.)

It would be dishonest to pretend the choice was a foregone conclusion. According to Citizen Portal’s summary of that January meeting, staff ranked a local applicant, the Fulshear Sports Association, highest. The parks commission’s own advisory vote ended in a split decision. Council made the call.

I mention this not to relitigate it. I mention it because it matters for what happened this August.

Three levels of soccer, two organizations

In my August council recap, I described HTX as the group that “runs recreational youth soccer” at the park. That shorthand needs sharpening.

HTX holds the designation. But its own website says it has partnered with Fulshear Youth Soccer to give that league’s players what it calls a “developmental pathway” into HTX’s programs, and it points families to Fulshear Youth Soccer for recreational play. So a Fulshear family meets soccer at Eagle Landing at one of three levels:

Recreational, ages 3 to 17. Fulshear Youth Soccer, which identifies itself as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, runs the rec league. Matches are on Saturdays at Eagle Landing, which the league calls its north location. Practices are on weeknights, mostly at its south fields; the league lists Huggins Elementary as its south location. A season runs 12 weeks, with eight regular-season games and a league tournament.
Youth Academy, U7 to U10. HTX’s Fulshear Youth Academy trains at Eagle Landing on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 5:30 to 6:45.
Competitive, U11 to U18. HTX’s West Competitive program lists Eagle Landing as one of its field locations, alongside sites in Katy and Richmond. These are tryout-based teams led by licensed coaches.

(If the shorthand is new to you: “U10” means players under 10, and so on up the ladder.)

Adults are not left out. Fulshear Youth Soccer also advertises an adult league for players 18 and older: full 11-on-11 games on Sunday evenings, with separate men’s and women’s divisions.

Those two organizations aren't the only ones on the grass. In January, the city’s recreation coordinator told the parks commission that renters to date also included G3 Soccer and an Under Armor flag football program.

What’s on the calendar

The recreational league’s fall season runs from September to December and builds toward the Fulshear Cup on November 14 and 15 at Eagle Landing. That tournament is open only to Fulshear Youth Soccer’s teams, and league registration includes entry.

A small coincidence: the park’s first birthday is that Sunday.

HTX’s academy season wraps the following Friday, November 20. Then the cycle restarts. The rec league’s spring season runs February through May, with registration closing January 11, and ends with a second hometown tournament, the Fulshear Cities, on April 24 and 25, 2027.

The event that reaches beyond the home league is the 3v3 Memorial Day Kickoff, a one-day small-sided tournament that was held at Eagle Landing on May 23 this year. HTX’s tournament calendar lists the 2027 edition for May 29 in Fulshear, for boys and girls from U7 to U14, with registration opening January 1.

That is the kind of event the RSA agreement had in mind when it called for two to three tournaments a year.

Lights on Field B, and a longer term

The biggest change of the year happened at City Hall, not on the grass.

Field B has no lights, which limits it to daylight hours. That is a real constraint for weeknight practices once the clocks change. In February, HTX came to council with an offer: it would install four LED light poles, 25 to 30 feet tall, and front the cost. Staff compared the HTX approach at roughly $ 28,000 against a larger permanent installation like Field A’s at roughly $160,000. In exchange, HTX asked for either credits tied to its partnership with the city or a longer RSA term.

The deal took until August 4 to finish. Council approved it without dissent. HTX pays to buy and install the four lights, and its term as the recognized association goes from two years to four.

The conditions matter as much as the trade. The city keeps the lights as public infrastructure. They must be available to other renters on nights HTX isn't using the field. They must run on timers, within the city’s dark-sky lighting rules, so they do not burn late over the neighbors.

Two things I cannot tell you yet. I haven't confirmed whether the new poles are standing, and I haven't seen the amended agreement, so I don't know the exact date the four years end. I will update this post when I do.

Council Member Bow added one caveat worth remembering: when the four years are up, the designation should reopen so other organizations can apply.

The fair questions

Three questions come up whenever a city gives one club first call on a public park. Each deserves a straight answer.

Can everyone else still use it? The commitment is to hold back two fields for the public. If you want a guaranteed field for your own group, though, the city’s reservation system requires at least 21 days’ notice, processes requests in the order received, and offers no guarantees. The city is currently booking fields, the pavilion, and concessions through December 31, 2026. That is more structure than simply showing up to play, and it is reasonable for residents to wish it were simpler. Outside groups are also getting on the fields.

How is the grass holding up? Natural turf under heavy youth use takes a beating. In January, Public Works crews filled holes and divots with sand, with HTX slated to take on more maintenance. A new field’s first year often needs that kind of attention. It is also exactly the obligation the RSA exists to enforce.

Does a four-year term lock out competition? To be fair to both sides: no club will spend its own money on light poles for a field it might lose in months, and the city gets lighting without buying the poles. But a longer term also means a longer wait for any other organization, including the one staff once ranked first.

The relevant question is never whether one club gets first call on a public park. It is what the public gets in return, and whether the arrangement comes back up for review.

On the first, the list is concrete: maintained fields, a staffed concession stand, tournaments, and soon a second lit field. On the second, Bow’s caveat is the safeguard.

It only works if someone remembers it in four years.

If you want to play, rent, or weigh in

To play. Recreational registration runs through Fulshear Youth Soccer. Fall registration closed July 31, but the league keeps a free waitlist, and spring registration closes January 11. For the academy and competitive levels, HTX’s tryouts page says its May tryouts are over, but a limited number of roster spots remain at its West location, which covers Fulshear and Katy. Tryout registration is free.

To rent a field. Start on the city’s Eagle Landing Park page, review the facility-use policies, and submit your request at least 21 days in advance. Questions go to parkrentals@fulsheartexas.gov.

To weigh in. The Parks and Recreation Commission is an advisory board, which means it recommends, and the council decides. It also discusses field maintenance, rentals, and sponsorships before they ever reach the council. This year, meetings are on Friday mornings at 9:00 at the Municipal Complex, 6611 W. Cross Creek Bend Lane, and each includes a citizen-comment period near the start. The city posts agendas on its website.

The park turns one on November 15, the Sunday of the Fulshear Cup. If you have never seen Eagle Landing doing what it was built to do, that is the weekend to go.

And if your family plays, coaches, or referees there, reply and tell me what I got wrong or left out. The people on the sidelines every Saturday know things no agenda packet does.

Sources

City of Fulshear: Eagle Landing Park Officially Opens (Nov. 24, 2025); Eagle Landing Park rentals page; Parks and Recreation; Park Sponsorship Opportunities
Parks and Recreation Commission minutes: January 10, 2025; January 16, 2026; June 12, 2026 (in the July 10 packet)
Community Impact: HTX selected as recognized sports association (Feb. 7, 2025); grand opening and final cost (Nov. 17, 2025); annexation (Jan. 7, 2026)
Covering Katy News: Eagle Landing Park opens (Nov. 15, 2025)
Citizen Portal meeting summaries: Jan. 28, 2025 council; Feb. 14, 2025 parks commission; Feb. 17, 2026 council, Field B lights; parks commission, META naming rights
HTX Soccer: West program; Katy/Fulshear recreational; Fulshear Youth Academy; West Competitive; tournaments; tryouts; club description and player count
Fulshear Youth Soccer: home; programs and registration; FAQ; tournaments; adult league; contact and locations
About Fulshear, Texas: Eagle Landing Park: Fulshear’s New Community Hub Takes Flight (Sept. 10, 2025); A “No” to Home Depot, a Warning From Below, and a Date to Circle (Aug. 5, 2026)

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them.

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

What the Waters PUD Really Changes

Bob Gordon — Sun, 18 Oct 2026 11:01:02 GMT

In June, the city said it had its hands tied on the Waters apartments. The packet for Tuesday’s council meeting says they aren’t. Here is what changed, what the rezoning, the contract amendments, and the water-meter shuffle actually do, and why the same agenda’s Town Square deal belongs in the same conversation.

Four months ago, the City of Fulshear’s position on the Waters Planned Unit Development came down to one proposition. City staff and the city’s regular counsel advised that the 2019 development agreements obligated Fulshear to permit some multifamily housing on Lou Waters’ land near FM 1093 and FM 359, and that a PUD was the city’s best tool for controlling how and where those apartments would go.

If you were in the standing-room crowd on June 16, you heard that argument from the dais and the challenge from the podium.

In the agenda packet posted this week for Tuesday’s meeting, that proposition is gone. The planning department’s memo now reports that, after “additional analysis,” the city's legal counsel has concluded the city is not obligated to allow apartments on any of the three tracts where the Waters PUD would place them. Staff is recommending that council postpone the rezoning, the code amendment, one development-agreement amendment, and the utility reallocation until November, and deny the other amendment.

That is a significant reversal, and it is worth understanding precisely, because it changes who holds the leverage on 91 acres along FM 1093 and FM 359. It also sits alongside a proposed memorandum of understanding that would begin assembling a special-district financing structure for the Fulshear Town Square project. Together, the two items say a lot about how this city is learning to handle the value locked up in its dirt.

What’s on Tuesday’s agenda

The Waters proposal arrives as five separate items under Business on the October 20 agenda, plus a sixth related in spirit, if not in paperwork. Here is each one, with staff’s recommendation:

Ordinance 2026-1540 (Item IX.C) would rezone 91.1 acres into the Waters PUD. Staff: postpone to the November regular meeting.
Ordinance 2026-1541 (IX.D) would amend the Coordinated Development Ordinance (the CDO, Fulshear’s combined zoning and subdivision code) to dissolve the Wallis Street PUD and replace it with the Waters PUD. Staff: postpone to November.
A fourth amendment to a development agreement (IX.E) among the city, Fulshear Investments, LLC, Fulshear Equine, LLC, Mason Equest Investment, LLC, and Louis A. Waters. Staff: deny and instead reaffirm that the properties are already zoned under the existing agreement. (The same memo, in its next sentence, also asks council to postpone the item to November, so expect some discussion of which it is.)
A fifth amendment to a development agreement (IX.F) between the city and Fulshear Investments, LLC. Staff: postpone to November.
A utility agreement reallocating utility connections (IX.G) among all Waters entities, plus Pulte Homes of Texas, L.P., Fulshear WF-I Land, LLC, and Integrated Fulshear II SLP, LLC. Staff: postpone to November.
A memorandum of understanding with 1093 FTS LLC (IX.H) on “the development and financing of the Fulshear Town Square Project.” Staff: not recommended for approval at this time.

A development agreement, if you’re new to the term, is a contract between the city and a landowner, usually signed while the land sits outside the city limits, that trades development standards and eventual annexation for a written promise about what can be built. A PUD is a custom zoning district: instead of choosing from the city’s standard menu, the landowner and the city negotiate a tailored set of rules for a particular tract, and council adopts them by ordinance.

How the city changed its mind

The new memo does something the June materials did not: it lays out, tract by tract, the order in which things happened. The order becomes the whole argument.

According to the staff memo, the history runs like this:

January 5, 2016. Council approves two development agreements with Lou Waters, one for Polo Ranch (Municipal Utility District 174) and one for what became Del Webb (MUD 245).
February 11, 2016. The city annexes roughly 270 acres of the Polo Ranch land, including the 32-acre tract along FM 1093 (Ordinance 2016-1207). It is never formally zoned, and the memo says it remains unzoned today.
July 16, 2019. Council acts on amendments to the development agreements. The amended land-use exhibit contemplates multifamily or commercial uses on several tracts. This is the amendment the June apartment case rested on.
January 19, 2021. A second amendment. Its general plan designates one tract as commercial only.
August 3, 2021. The city annexed roughly 280 more acres, including the Pulte tract, the Del Webb commercial tract, and a crescent-shaped parcel west of Bessie’s Creek (Ordinance 2021-1350).
June 21, 2022, and July 18, 2023. Those tracts are zoned Semi-Urban Residential, and then the commercial tract is rezoned General Commercial, consistent with the second amendment (Ordinances 2022-1375 and 2023-1428).

Now look at items 2 and 3 together. The Polo Ranch land came inside the city limits in 2016. The amendment that seemed to promise apartments came three years later.

That sequence matters because development agreements serve a specific purpose. Texas law lets a city sign these contracts for land in its extraterritorial jurisdiction (ETJ), where the city has no zoning power. Once land is inside the city, the public is supposed to set its allowed uses: notice, a hearing, a vote, an ordinance. A city generally cannot hand that power to a private contract. The legal term is contract zoning, and the memo uses it: because the amendments were executed after the land was annexed, staff writes, they create “a contract zoning issue,” and the property is “not bound to any of the amendments.”

The practical consequence is the part residents will care about. In staff’s reading, the 32-acre FM 1093 tract is unzoned and can be developed under the original 2016 agreement, which calls for single-family homes. The two tracts on either side of Lifestyle Boulevard at FM 359 were zoned commercial through the normal process, consistent with the 2021 amendment. Either way, the city’s legal opinion is now that nothing in the agreements forces it to approve apartments.

To be fair to everyone involved, three cautions.

First, this is the city’s counsel’s opinion, not a court ruling. The landowner and his buyers may read the documents differently, and they have a financial reason to.

Second, the reversal does not kill the Waters PUD. Council can still approve a negotiated PUD if it decides the package of setbacks, buffers, phasing, and commercial requirements is worth having. The starting point changes: council would choose apartments, not accept them.

Third, credit where it is due. Several residents, including attorney Trevor Hall at the June 16 hearing, argued that the agreements did not clearly require multifamily, and several of us asked for an independent review of the documents. When council postponed the item on June 16 to wait for an FM 1093 traffic study, it bought time for exactly that kind of second look. The applicant has since completed an updated traffic impact analysis. The legal analysis has also moved in a direction that changes the negotiation.

What the Wallis Street PUD has to do with it

Not much, as it turns out, and that is worth saying plainly because the item’s title makes it sound dramatic.

The Wallis Street PUD was an older custom zoning district covering roughly 20.7 acres near FM 1093 and Wallis Street, on the edge of downtown. At the January 20 council meeting, staff said the council rezoned those properties to the Downtown District, the walkable, Main Street-style zoning that governs the historic core. That left the Wallis Street PUD as an empty entry in the CDO: a set of rules with no land under them.

Ordinance 2026-1541 would delete that entry, in Table 28-2-3 and Section 28-2-10 of the code, and write the Waters PUD standards into the same slot. In other words, dissolving the Wallis Street PUD is housekeeping. It doesn’t change what can be built on Wallis Street. The ordinance's substance depends entirely on what replaces it.

One detail in the memo is worth noticing. Staff writes that the Planning and Zoning Commission recommended approval in June “prior to full legal review of the zoning status of the properties.” That is not a criticism of the commission, which acted on the advice it had. It acknowledges that the advice changed.

The water meters are the real asset

If you want to know where the value in a deal like this lives, follow the utility connections.

As this newsletter reported in June, the Waters application never asked the city for new water or sewer capacity. It asked to reallocate the 1,684 connections the city committed to this land in 2019. Item IX.G is the contract that would do it. Its title lists seven private parties: the four Waters parties (three LLCs and Mr. Waters himself), Pulte Homes of Texas (the builder of Del Webb Fulshear), and two others, Fulshear WF-I Land, LLC and Integrated Fulshear II SLP, LLC.

The staff memo describes the agreement in three sentences that are worth reading slowly. It would shift “service units (water meters)” across properties owned by Mr. Waters and properties owned by Pulte. It “does not add additional capacity to these properties, nor does it obligate the City to provide additional service units.” The memo also says those units “have been taken into consideration” in the city’s water and wastewater master plan since 2019. If the Waters PUD is denied or doesn’t happen, the memo adds, the reallocation “will not be necessary.”

Here is why that matters. A water meter is permission to build on the land. An apartment complex needs far more meters per acre than a strip of shops or a row of houses, so moving meters from one tract to another lets a landowner turn a paper entitlement into a buildable one. The total stays the same. What changes is where the density can go, and who holds it.

The public packet has honest limits to what it shows. The reallocation agreement itself isn't attached to the agenda item, so I can’t tell you how many units would move, from which tracts to which, or what Pulte would receive or give up. The packet also doesn't say how the two newer LLCs relate to the Waters family or to the buyer described in the June submittal as the intended recipient of the land. Those are fair questions for Tuesday, and fair questions for a public-information request if the answers aren’t offered.

The memo does make the dependency clear. The meter shuffle exists to serve the PUD. If the city’s new legal position holds, and the apartments are no longer owed, the meters become a negotiating chip rather than a done deal.

A few items later: the Town Square MOU

Item IX.H is a different kind of document, and it is on the agenda for a different reason. The staff memo notes that the mayor asked to place it there, under Article III, Section 3.09(e) of the City Charter. Staff did not bring it forward.

The counterparty is 1093 FTS LLC, whose signature block names Joe Veytia as manager. Readers will remember Mr. Veytia of Town Square Development Advisors from the March 17 workshop, where he pitched Fulshear Town Square and Fulshear Village. The draft MOU covers two properties: about 18.7 acres on FM 1093 that adjoin the H-E-B property (the “Town Center Property”), and about 4.7 acres near Huggins Drive and FM 359 (the “Mixed Use Lofts Property”). The town center would include offices, restaurants, and retail; structured parking; a sports complex; a conference center; and a hotel. The lofts site would hold ground-floor retail with market-rate apartments above, under the Downtown District rules.

In March, the financing idea was a lease structure through a firm called Sustainability Partners, in which a private owner would hold the public facilities and lease them to the city. Several council members warned then that a long lease can behave like long-term debt, and the mayor asked staff to compare it with conventional tools. The October draft moved to conventional tools, stacking three of them.

A municipal management district (MMD). This is a special taxing district, similar in spirit to the MUDs that finance water and roads in our subdivisions, but built for commercial areas. It can levy its own property tax on land inside it and issue its own bonds. The draft would use the MMD to finance the “Public Facilities”: water, sewer, drainage, streets, parks, and, notably, the conference center, the sports complex, and their parking. MMD bonds could run up to 30 years, and the draft anticipates an MMD tax that “will not exceed $1.41.” The draft doesn’t state the unit, but Texas district tax rates are conventionally expressed per $100 of value; if that is what is meant, it would be more than seven times the city’s own rate of about 19 cents.

A tax increment reinvestment zone (TIRZ). A TIRZ freezes an area's taxable value at today’s level and sets aside some or all of the property taxes on any growth above that base to repay the cost of improvements. The city would create one around the project and ask Fort Bend County to join. Under the draft, a developer reimbursement agreement could run up to 40 years, funded by all of the county’s property taxes from the project and all of the city’s property taxes from the project above $500,000 a year.

Chapter 380 agreements. These are the economic development grants this newsletter wrote about in the Home Depot debate. The draft anticipates one that would grant the developer the city’s sales tax from sales inside the project (other than at the hotel) to pay for public facilities, and a second for the hotel, granting its owner all or part of the city’s hotel occupancy tax and sales tax generated there.

A little arithmetic helps with the $500,000 figure. At the new city rate of $0.190549 per $100, the city tax on roughly $262 million of taxable value is $500,000 a year. So the city would keep its property tax from the project up to about that level, and the excess would flow back to the project. Whether that threshold is generous or stingy depends on what the private buildings would actually be worth on the tax roll. The developer’s cost and valuation estimates are in an exhibit that the draft says should be treated as confidential trade secrets until final agreements are signed.

The draft states plainly that nothing in it obligates the city or county to levy a tax, issue general debt, or pledge its credit; MMD and TIRZ obligations would be payable only from their own revenue streams. That’s a meaningful protection, and it should be said.

But the MOU is not entirely the “non-binding term sheet” its first section describes. Five provisions would be binding as soon as it's signed. One of them, Section 2.1.1, concerns an existing district, which leads to the most interesting history in the packet.

Fulshear already has a municipal management district. The Texas Legislature created the Fulshear Town Center Management District in 2011, when Fulshear was still a small town, to facilitate mixed-use development in downtown Fulshear. It has never been activated. The Town Center Property sits within the district's boundaries. Under the binding Section 2.1.1, by signing the MOU, the city would approve and appoint the developer-recommended directors to the district’s board and consent to annexing the lofts property into it. Other property owners already inside the district would be offered a chance to opt out. The draft’s own timeline puts “Activate MMD” in the first month.

The other binding provisions give the developer 180 days of exclusivity, during which the city would not negotiate with anyone else for a similar town center on these properties; set out how costs are reimbursed (the developer has already reimbursed the city $1,500 in third-party costs); and govern confidentiality. The MOU would last up to 24 months, and either side could end it on 30 days’ notice, though the binding provisions would survive.

Staff’s memo is unusually direct about what hasn’t been done. Economic development staff has not completed its review of the incentive application. Legal review of the MOU is not finished. Staff found a zoning prohibition on a battery-storage component shown on the site plan, and wants more detail on the Huggins and FM 359 site, the right way to set up the MMD, who would finance and own the public facilities, long-term operating and maintenance costs, and the city’s potential financial or liability exposure. Staff asks council for input on broad concepts, including whether a sports complex and conference center should be public facilities at all, but does not recommend approving the MOU at this time.

And the $200,000 downtown lot

The third piece came through the budget, not the agenda. On September 1, as council worked through the fiscal 2027 spending list item by item, it kept $200,000 in the general fund for a potential downtown land purchase, then set the tax rate at $0.190549 per $100 on a 5-2 vote.

As Covering Katy reported, the exchange over that line is the clearest statement yet of the two philosophies on the dais. Mayor Don McCoy argued that residents of the newer subdivisions need a reason to turn toward the historic center rather than away from it, and that postponing downtown investment year after year is how nothing gets done. Council Member Abhijeet Utturkar, who voted against the rate, objected not to downtown but to paying for it with property-tax money when the city’s economic development corporations might fund it instead. Mayor Pro Tem Sarah Johnson told Community Impact the city should buy now. Finance Director Angela Alvarado put a number on the choice: without the purchase, the rate would have been about 18.69 cents instead of about 19.05, a difference of roughly $19 a year on a $528,000 home.

The public record doesn’t yet show which parcel the $200,000 is for. I couldn’t find it identified in the budget coverage or the October packet. (Tuesday’s executive session lists a real-property item, but it is described as parkland acquisition, and I would not assume a connection.)

Meanwhile, the economic development corporations own property on FM 1093. The Type B board’s October 19 agenda takes up, in closed session, “EDC-Owned Property: 30603 FM 1093 & 30619 FM 1093,” the same listing that appeared on both EDC boards’ agendas in March. In earlier years, 30603 FM 1093 was City Hall’s address. The boards' plans for those parcels are not public. The EDCs also fund the Harris Street project, the civic spine of East Downtown, and the Type B agenda includes an update on Harris Street and the Downtown Eastside Drainage project, which council also amends on Tuesday’s consent agenda.

So is the city assembling a downtown financing structure?

The honest answer is: the parts are on the table, but nobody has assembled them, and the clearest evidence of that is the city’s own staff memo.

Lay the pieces side by side, and you can see why the question arises. A dormant special district, created in 2011 specifically to finance a downtown mixed-use project, that a developer now proposes to switch on. A proposed TIRZ that would capture decades of future property-tax growth for the city and county. Chapter 380 grants that would return sales and hotel taxes to the project. Two economic development corporations, funded by sales tax, that already own land on FM 1093 and pay for downtown streets. And a general-fund land purchase that council kept in the budget over a pointed objection. Those are, in fact, most of the tools a Texas city uses to build a downtown.

But a financing structure implies a plan: a decision about which tool pays for which public good, how much future revenue the city is willing to pledge, and where the limits are. No adopted form exists yet. What exists is a developer’s proposal, sponsored onto the agenda by the mayor, that staff says hasn't been reviewed, hasn't gone through legal, and contains binding commitments the city should understand before signing.

That distinction matters because of the order in which these tools usually get decided. The relevant question isn’t whether Fulshear should use an MMD, a TIRZ, or a 380 agreement downtown. It’s whether the city decides its rules for those tools before a specific deal arrives, or lets the first deal write them. A TIRZ boundary drawn around one project, a district board appointed on a developer’s recommendation, an exclusivity clause, a confidential valuation exhibit: each is defensible on its own. Together, adopted first, they become the template.

To be fair to the proposal, the alternative to these tools is not a free downtown. Conference centers and sports complexes rarely pencil out on private money alone, which is why cities finance them. And the draft does keep the city’s general credit out of it. Reasonable people can conclude that a town square at the front door of the historic district is worth committing future growth to. The point is that it is a commitment, and it should be weighed as one.

The first business item on Tuesday’s agenda is a proposal from TIP Strategies to update the city’s economic development strategic plan. That is the kind of document where a city sets its incentive rules in advance. Whether or not the timing is deliberate, the order in which council takes up the plan and the deal is worth watching.

The financialization of dirt, running both directions

I have used the phrase “the financialization of dirt” before to describe what happens to land around a fast-growing city: it stops being primarily a place and becomes primarily a yield instrument, valued by what it can return, with the cost of making it usable financed by debt someone else retires later. It’s a description, not an accusation. This week’s agenda shows the idea working in two opposite directions at once.

On the Waters land, the city is marking down the value of dirt. An entitlement to build apartments is worth far more to a landowner than an entitlement to build single-family homes or a strip center, because apartments produce a rent roll lenders and investors can underwrite. If the city’s new legal reading holds, that entitlement never really existed, and the 1,684 connections attached to the land are worth only what council decides to allow. Nobody spent a public dollar to cause that change. A lawyer reread a 2019 contract against a 2016 annexation ordinance.

On the Town Square land, the proposal would mark up the value of dirt, using public tools. An MMD tax, a TIRZ increment, and sales-tax grants are all ways to take revenue the city and county would otherwise collect in the future and direct it toward making a particular tract work. That can be good public policy. It also converts a public revenue stream into private project feasibility.

The two items look unrelated on the agenda. They are really one question asked twice: when a city decides what a piece of land may become, who captures the value that decision creates? In June, the city was told that question had already been answered for it, in 2019. This month, it is learning that it gets to answer it, on the Waters tracts and at Town Square alike.

What to watch Tuesday, and how to be heard

A few things will tell you a lot about where this goes:

Whether council follows staff and postpones the Waters items to November 17, the next regular meeting, or acts anyway.
What happens to the Fourth Amendment, which staff recommends denying. A denial would be the council’s first formal statement of the new legal position.
How the applicant responds to the contract-zoning reading, on the record.
Whether anyone asks for the utility reallocation agreement itself, and who Fulshear WF-I Land and Integrated Fulshear II SLP are.
What direction council gives on the Town Square MOU: whether a sports complex and conference center should be public facilities, whether to wake the 2011 management district, and whose board recommendations to follow.
Which parcel the $200,000 downtown purchase is meant for, if it comes up.

The meeting is Tuesday, October 20, at 6:00 p.m. in the Council Chambers of the Fulshear Municipal Complex, 6611 W. Cross Creek Bend Lane. It is streamed live and archived on the city’s website the following day. The city posts the full agenda and the 555-page packet on its Agendas & Minutes page.

Citizens comment early in the meeting. Speakers must register in advance and are limited to three minutes. One procedural note: the agenda says comments can’t be received on matters that were the subject of a public hearing once that hearing has closed, and the public hearings on the Waters rezoning closed on June 16. If you want to speak to the zoning itself, call the City Secretary’s office at (281) 346-1796 first to ask how that rule applies. The development-agreement amendments, the utility agreement, and the Town Square MOU have not had hearings. You can also send written comments to the City Secretary before the meeting.

In June, the question in the room was how to live with apartments the city had supposedly already promised. On Tuesday, the city’s own staff will tell council that promise was never binding. That puts the decision where it belongs, with an elected council in a public meeting, and it makes the Town Square deal a test of whether the city has learned the lesson of 2019: decide what the land is worth to the public before you sign the paper that says what it’s worth to someone else.

If you’ve read the agreements or the packet and see something I’ve missed, reply and tell me. And if you know a neighbor in Polo Ranch, Del Webb, or downtown who hasn’t heard about Tuesday, please share this with them.

Sources and further reading

Current as of October 17, 2026; council has not yet acted on these items.

City of Fulshear, Regular City Council Meeting Agenda, October 20, 2026
City of Fulshear, Council Packet, October 20, 2026: agenda memos for Items IX.C–IX.H and the draft MOU with exhibits (packet pp. 294–381)
Fulshear Development Corporation, Agenda, October 19, 2026
Texas Special District Local Laws Code, Chapter 3903, Fulshear Town Center Management District, and the bill analysis for H.B. 3827, 82nd Legislature (2011)
Covering Katy News, “Inside Fulshear’s tax increase,” Sept. 10, 2026
Community Impact, “City of Fulshear approves FY 2026-27 budget and tax rate”
Citizen Portal, “Developers propose $296 million Fulshear Town Square” (March 17, 2026 meeting)
Community Impact, “H-E-B considers building another store in Fulshear” (City Hall at 30603 FM 1093)
Prior About Fulshear, Texas coverage: “Growing Pains and Blueprints” (Jan. 2), “Fulshear Town Square and Fulshear Village: Still in Play” (May), “The Waters PUD Is Back” (June 2), “The Waters Precedent”, “Residents Pack City Hall to Oppose the Waters PUD” (June 16 recap), and “Fulshear Isn’t Being Overrun by Apartments” (Sept. 15)

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.

Tesla’s Project Crystal Sun: What Fulshear Should Ask About Traffic and Taxes

Bob Gordon — Sat, 17 Oct 2026 11:01:55 GMT

A proposed $10.1 billion solar manufacturing plant could reshape Fort Bend County. Local residents should pay close attention to the details about roads and public costs.

Nearly 10,000 permanent jobs. Billions of dollars in investment. A potential new source of revenue for school debt service.

Tesla’s proposed Project Crystal Sun is a big story for Fort Bend County—and one Fulshear residents should follow. The practical questions start with our daily lives: How would people and freight get to the plant? What road improvements would be needed? And how would the public costs compare with the benefits of the tax agreement?

The proposal involves a $10.1 billion solar cell and module manufacturing facility on part of a roughly 3,057-acre site near FM 762 and FM 1994. Lamar CISD trustees voted Sept. 15 to advance Tesla’s application for a state economic incentive, according to Community Impact’s Sept. 16 reporting, republished by ABC13.

Tesla has not finalized its site selection. An alternative outside Texas remained under consideration, according to Axios Houston’s Sept. 16 report.

Tesla’s application projects commercial operations beginning in early 2029 and employment reaching approximately 9,712 permanent, full-time positions by 2033. Those are proposed milestones, with hiring building over time. Lamar CISD’s project information describes that schedule.

For Fulshear, the possible consequences extend beyond the factory site. Workers could live across the region, suppliers could establish nearby operations, and new households could add demand for housing and school capacity. The scale and location of those effects remain uncertain.

Traffic planning should begin with evidence—and end with funding commitments.

A manufacturing operation of this size raises several different transportation questions. Construction would bring deliveries and work crews. Once production begins, employee commutes and freight movements would create a different demand pattern.

Fulshear’s exposure would depend on where employees live, which routes they choose and how truck traffic reaches the site. The projected job count alone cannot tell us how many additional vehicles would travel through any particular Fulshear intersection.

That makes a detailed traffic study essential to evaluating the proposal. Residents should be able to see assumptions about employee shifts, truck volumes, construction routes and the interaction with school traffic. Any proposed improvements should come with a schedule and an identified funding source.

The timing matters. If road capacity arrives well after factory operations begin, residents and existing businesses could bear the disruption while waiting for improvements.

The question for decision-makers is straightforward: What transportation work must be completed before the plant opens, and who pays for it?

The tax agreement requires an equally clear accounting.

Tesla is seeking an incentive under the Texas Jobs, Energy, Technology and Innovation Act, commonly called JETI. The program limits the taxable value of eligible property for school maintenance and operations taxes for 10 years. It does not cap the district’s tax rate. Texas Comptroller’s JETI overview.

Maintenance and operations, or M&O, supports day-to-day school expenses. Interest and sinking, or I&S, pays school bond debt. Under JETI, eligible property remains fully taxable for I&S purposes. Lamar CISD’s explanation.

Superintendent Roosevelt Nivens said state funding would make up the operating revenue affected by the limitation. District CFO Greg Buchanan estimated $335.5 million in I&S revenue through 2063, according to Community Impact.

That is a long-term projection for school debt repayment. Residents should not read it as an immediate classroom funding increase or a promised reduction in their own tax bills. Lamar CISD says financial outcomes depend on project values and agreement terms, while tax rates follow a separate annual process. District project information.

State backfill also does not eliminate the public cost of an incentive. It changes how the state supplies school funding. The school tax arrangement alone does not explain who would fund road construction, intersection upgrades, or other project-related infrastructure.

Residents therefore need a complete picture: the school incentive, any separate county incentives, Tesla’s infrastructure contributions, and the costs assigned to public agencies. School district revenue should also be distinguished from revenue available to Fulshear’s city government.

Five questions deserve answers as the proposal advances:

Which roads would carry the added traffic? Publish the expected construction, employee, and freight routes, along with the assumptions behind those estimates.
What improvements would be ready before operations begin? Identify the work, responsible agencies, funding sources, and completion dates.
What would Tesla pay, and what would taxpayers fund? Present incentives and infrastructure obligations together so residents can assess the overall arrangement.
How sensitive is the revenue forecast? Explain what happens if construction is delayed, investment changes, or taxable equipment values decline faster than expected.
What happens if commitments are missed? Make investment and employment requirements, monitoring responsibilities, and available remedies understandable to the public.

Housing and schools belong in this discussion, too. Additional households could support local businesses while increasing demand for classrooms and services. Planning should examine where those households might locate rather than assume that every projected job represents a new family moving to Fulshear.

Fort Bend County approved a reinvestment zone on Aug. 24. As of the September reporting, further state action and the agreement process remained, along with a required public hearing and Tesla’s final site decision. Community Impact’s account outlines those steps; Lamar CISD explains the roles of the comptroller, governor, and district.

Project Crystal Sun could bring meaningful employment and investment to Fort Bend County. For Fulshear residents, confidence in the proposal should rest on specific, public commitments: roads that are ready, costs that are accounted for, and benefits that can be measured over time.

What road or intersection would you want included in a traffic study—and what financial commitment would you want explained at the public hearing?

Reporting note: This post discusses the proposal and approval stage reported Sept. 16, 2026. Investment, employment, and revenue figures are projections. Potential effects on Fulshear traffic, housing, and enrollment are analyses, not findings from a project-specific local impact study.

About Fulshear, Texas, is the area’s authoritative hyper-local media ecosystem. Our Substack newsletter achieves a 60%+ open rate, our Facebook presence (@About Fulshear Texas) generates over 35,000 monthly views, and we have launched a community podcast. We reach more than 8,000 unique individuals monthly, with 53.5% residing directly in Fulshear. The core demographic is affluent homeowners aged 35 to 54—representing peak household earning years, established homeownership, and the population most likely to refinance, purchase investment properties, or refer neighbors and colleagues to a trusted lender.

How this post was made: drafted with AI assistance, then researched, edited, sourced, and fact-checked by me. Errors are mine — reply, and I’ll correct them. For more details, click here.