Hebert admits Hilton was correct on road diversion and airport expansion plan that will impact Sienna & Colony Lakes+ area!!!

Thank you Tom Hilton for getting the word out on this in November!

Hebert Seeks To Minimize Land Acquisition For McKeever Road Diversion
by Bob Dunn, 07:51 am

Fort Bend County Judge Bob Hebert said Thursday he wants to proceed with Arcola’s McKeever Road diversion project, but in a way that minimizes the amount of private property needed for right-of-way.

Bob Hebert

The project, also known as the South Post Oak extension, is controversial, in part because plans have called for diverting McKeever Road north of a drainage canal running parallel to Houston Southwest Airport property. To accomplish that, the county or city would have to acquire or condemn about 100 feet of land from four private parcels in the Newpoint Estates residential community.

Newpoint Estates and other nearby residents and landowners have assailed county commissioners and Arcola City Council over those plans. Some have accused public officials of pushing for condemnation of private property to accommodate owner Jamie Griffith’s plans to expand the airport.

In an interview Thursday, Hebert said the road project isn’t being pushed to help Griffith expand his airport, but to relieve traffic congestion and allow development to proceed southwest of the airport in Sienna Plantation.

Hebert said he’s trying to find a way to divert McKeever but take as little land as possible from Newpoint Estates property owners. And he said he intends to complete plans for the project by March, so that residents can be sure how the road diversion will proceed.

That might mean changing the planned new roadway so that right-of-way stops just north of the canal, instead of extending 100 feet further, Hebert said. Property owners’ parcels currently include the canal and extend a short distance south of it.

“I’m going to do something to try to take as little out of Newpoint Estates as possible,” he said.

However, he added, county officials need to be careful not to unreasonably raise property owners’ expectations, because the Federal Aviation Administration may object to a modified plan, leaving the county with legal liability.

While Hebert flatly states the county isn’t promoting a project to help private business, the diverted roadway clearly would benefit Griffith’s airport. And, in fact, Griffith has agreed to allow Arcola to annex some of his property, provide $500,000 for road construction costs and deed over land for right-of-way.

But Hebert said airport expansion plans wouldn’t include an expanded runway or a new runway, as some project opponents have asserted, because aircraft clearance requirements and geographical restrictions prevent it.

The diversion of McKeever would make 700 additional feet of airport property usable, Hebert said, but it can only be used as a buffer to insure FAA-required clearance.

While Griffith could not be reached for comment on this story, it appears plans to expand airport operations would involve acquiring room to move existing hangars away from the runway to better accommodate corporate aircraft.

With more fuel capacity, more stringent maintenance requirements and an expectation for more regular flights, corporate aircraft can reasonably be expected to prove more profitable to an airport than smaller private planes.

Houston Southwest Airport could expect to see increasing corporate business eventually, because the FAA has designated Houston Hobby Airport as commercial-only. Hebert said Hobby can’t accept new corporate aircraft, and in the future existing corporate flights will have to be diverted elsewhere.

Houston Southwest Airport is one of several area airports designated as a reliever airport by the FAA, and received the designation two years ago.

As part of receiving that designation and qualifying for FAA grant money, Hebert said, an airport owner has to agree to keep the facility in operation for at least 30 years.

Once an airport receives FAA reliever designation, “the FAA is charged with protecting these airport,” Hebert said. Such “protection” can take the form of assuming authority over nearby construction projects such as the South Post Oak extension.

An Aug. 30, 2004 letter from FAA Texas Airport Manager Mike Nicely to Hebert says the federal agency and the Texas Department of Transportation “have encouraged Mr. Griffith…to bring the airport up to FAA design standards and rehabilitate airfield infrastructure to ensure reliability to the flying public.”

However, Nicely states in the letter, an impediment to meeting those standards “is the present location of McKeever Road near the west end of the runway. Vehicles traveling on McKeever Road violate the runway threshold-siting surface. We have encouraged Mr. Griffith to work with local officials to close or replace McKeever Road…”

In the past few days, Hebert has asked the Fort Bend County Attorney’s Office to seek clarification from the FAA and the state of Texas in order to learn exactly what liability, if any, the county might incur if the McKeever Road alignment did not cut as deeply into Newpoint Estates property as originally planned.

“You indicated that although the FAA could not prevent the county from building the road, if the county were to violate those flight safety requirements and ignore FAA objections, the airport might have a cause of action for damages resulting from the county’s non-compliance,” Assistant County Attorney Glen Dunbar said in a Dec. 20 letter to FAA Senior Program Manager Ben Guttery.

“Further, if there were to be a future accident involving air operations and traffic along the road, the county might be subject to civil and/or criminal penalties for unlawfully obstructing/interfering with airspace regulated by the FAA,” the letter states. “We respectfully request that you confirm to us in writing whether our understanding as described above is correct…”

Hebert also said he asked the county attorney to research the law – and seek an attorney general’s opinion if necessary – to see whether the airport could seek damages if, in the road diversion project, “we stay as far or farther away than the current McKeever Road.”

He said he believes there’s a possibility that by doing so the county would not have liability since Griffith’s runway was built too near McKeever Road to begin with.

“We’re making the effort” to minimize the need to acquire right-of-way, Hebert said. “But we’re going to have to do what the law requires. We can’t put the taxpayers of Fort Bend County at risk.”