I attended the FM 150 Character Plan meeting on Oct. 22 at the Salt Lick and was dismayed to realize how far along these plans to open up Driftwood and surrounding areas to development has progressed, and how detrimental these projects would be to current residents and their lives and lands, if allowed to come to fruition.  

These new road proposals essentially carve up our open spaces and open up our private properties to new and unsustainable growth patterns. Additionally, these new roadways appear to mimic the very same routes as the water pipeline projects being proposed. Coincidence?  I don’t think so.

Although this meeting was publicized as a “presentation followed by and Q&A,” the reality was that the meeting was carefully designed to limit public participation and not allow any open questions by the attendees nor any real feedback, except as written comments. The room was filled to the brim with concerned and angry citizens, many who just recently became aware of these development plans and how they will impact their own lives and lands.

The people know little or nothing about these new proposed roads, and there has been no public interest in building more roads. Instead this is a top-down process of handing over public money to private entities in the form of road contracts and eventually housing and commercial development. It is also a way to offer up the open lands of Hays County for urban expansion out of Austin, expansion those of us who actually live in Hays County have no interest in seeing come to pass.

We have not agreed to this, so stop acting like this is some kind of necessity, or somehow inevitable. Our lands and our lifestyles are not for sale, and not open to developers’ decisions about where cars and pollution and noise and new houses should be directed.

Not everywhere has to be an urban environment, and Hays County’s remaining rural areas and open lands should be left alone so that there is still somewhere people can go to be in nature, among trees and wildlife, hearing no cars, no construction noise, nothing but the wind in the trees and the smell of fresh air.

Susan Cook

Driftwood, Texas