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Housing
Monday, September 21, 2015 continued from Page #1
Page #3
Hundreds come home for AllSchool Reunion
Scntt Norris presents the plan to the city council presentation the city council on Tuesday night. The master plan is to be developed on 469 acres and include many single-family homes as well as room for a new elementary school, public parks and sports fields. The plan is subject to change depending on the market at the time of construction. "What we're trying to do is bring this under your regulations, your documents and under your criteria, with a little bit of flexibility tht fits within the framework of you, your attorney and your engineers." Norris told the council. "We've agreed to meet your current construction standards. The lot sizes proposed are 50, 60 and 70 feet." The property is currently in Howe's Extraterritorial Jurisdiction (ETJ) but is planned to be annexed and a district created. The district would be inside the city limits. "What the district does is give us the bonding capacity. It lets us spend money and bond against our property, against our indebtedness to us without detrimentally affecting your bond rating." Norris told the council. "I couldn't come up here and put up one acre lots and multi-million dollar homes. The market is just not there. It will grow to that at some point. You've got a very large ETJ area and you'll have a lot of market dynamics."
easy-off exits and ramps might help with competing cities for residents. With a treed creek area in the middle of the property, Norris says that he can see hike and bike trails. Their properties will have a community center with a pool for the neighborhood and exclusive activities for just the residents. Adjacent to the community center would be a public park with ballfields included. He envisions shared paved parking with the elementary school and the public parks. "We have a lot of frontage on US 75. What we want to do is try and jump-start a tax base." said Norris.
Sue Knight and Walt Schnieder Bulldog Stadium had quite possibly its largest crowd ever on Friday night as the Howe Ex-Students Association hosted the all-school reunion. This event takes place every five years on years ending on zero and five.
Class of 1987 graduate, Rod Hawkins was the emcee of the luncheon and called on Donna Jarma to give a short speech. Monte Walker of the Class of 1992 read a poem entitled, If it Weren't for Howe.
The oldest alumni in attendance was Billy Davis from the Class of 1935. The two youngest alumni were Baily Tyler and Tiffany Lallier from the Class of 2015. There were several that traveled from as far as California and Florida.
The alumni sold 154 lunch tickets which covered the cost of the lunch and made a small profit that went towards the scholarship fund. The first all-school reunion took place in 1972 as part of the Howe Centennial celebration.
Norris said that they will be going to TCEQ to obtain a sewer treatment permit at their cost. The sewer plant would benefit the new community. The type of permit they will be seeking is one that has the potential to expand beyond the boundaries of the tax base owned by the municipal utility district. Who operates the sewer plant is still in negotiations whether it be the city or the district. The plan is for multi-family units to be placed as a divider between the commercial frontage and the singlefamily units. Norris says that the order of growth, in his experience, happens with housing first, followed by one or two commercial tax-base users, followed by the service industry (conveniences of life), and then finally multi-family needs.
Norris told the council that what he sees for this market currently are starter homes and starter home The typical lot size in today's move-ups. He says that the continued on Page #9 development with its easy-on-
Suzanne Echols Schupp and Daphne Williams Shadic
Photos by Vicki Langdon
Girls from the Class of 1971
