Peripheral development update

There's a troubling situation brewing down the road near our neighbors Victory Lakes, because League City allegedly approved a nearby construction project the nature of which it refuses to reveal to the public. 

Microsoft clip art, cat and mouse concept modified by yours truly. 

The rate at which League City is p*ssing people off appears to be accelerating.  GCDN reports that it has already filed a FOIA/TORA/TPIA request to obtain further information about this project. 

This is absurd.  At the very least, it reflects an abysmal public relations failure on the part of League City.  Even if there is a valid reason why they agreed to withhold the nature of that development, they need to declare their justification in the type of generalized terms which acknowledge that they are answerable to the public.  I don't know what might be considered "a valid reason", but there are a number of business contingency, strategy, and permitting scenarios that come to mind as possibly being in play here. 

But what's even more interesting about this situation is a comment logged in that GCDN article by a user who self-identifies as Texas2539, a resident of Victory Lakes, who stated that the League City Planning Department removed its zoning variance request list from the internet.

 Initially, I replied in the GCDN forum that I also could no longer find that link, but when I subsequently went back to this blog post of mine from two years ago, I actually did find a variance request list link.  I'm not sure if it's the same site that Texas2539 had been accessing, but here's what's curious about it:

There haven't been any entries in almost one year.  Given the velocity at which previous variance requests had been logged through 2011 and early 2012, is it likely that they came to a screeching halt?  Or has this list simply not been updated in the past year or so?

Screengrab from http://www.leaguecity.com/index.aspx?NID=1201 as accessed 20130315 10:55 a.m.

Texas2539's GCDN comments elude to the possibility that the extra-VL mystery development might have incorporated a zoning variance request.  No proof of that, but as homeowners in close proximity, we need to be able to confirm or deny these types of things.  Victory Lakes and Centerpointe are neighboring subdivisions which share a similar predicament: we are both surrounded by prime sale tracts in a north county area where the pace of development is now accelerating. 

Google grab from a previous post, Centerpointe in red polygon, Victory Lakes at lower right, arrows roughly pointing to tracts as yet undeveloped (that was actually a post about wildlife, so the arrows also point to stormwater retention features). 

It's in our own interests to know exactly what's going to happen to those areas, and to know in advance what kind of a "say" we might be able to have in that process, as potentially-impacted landowners.

Anyway, at this point, I guess we'll await further comment from League City, further sleuthing from GCDN, and yes, I will be passing this info on to both our POA and VL's POA.