Concerns still around about possible ‘loop’

Concern among local residents continues to pile up as speculation remains that local officials or the countywide transportation committee are reinventing the loop.

As the Kendall County, Boerne and Fair Oaks Transportation Committee continues to wrap up its years-long effort to prioritize projects and policies to ease transportation woes in the county and cities housed within, some eyebrows were raised and concerns peaked when a road connection between Esperanza and The Lookout Group’s recently acquired Duennenberg tract crossed several private properties.

The tract purchased by the Esperanza subdivision developers sits east of the already started development around the curve on Highway 46 past Ammann Road. While some of the transportation committee members initially seemed in support of the project, favor was ultimately nixed by the committee after other committee members and public attendees pushed back.

Milan Michalec, speaking as a private resident in the county, noted the connection between the two properties would cross part of his land.

Another resident who often speaks at the committee meetings, expressed concern about some of the phrasing tied to the greenfield road, saying, “I don’t like comments about, ‘Maybe five people or just a few people there.’ Those are people, and they’ve been here a long time.”

Committee member Ben Eldredge urged the Kendall County commissioners to heed the community concerns, calling on the oft-mentioned transparency the transpiration committee has practiced as opposed to what many involved with the committee’s process have called a less public city process.

“We’re at a really interesting inflection point, so let’s take a step back,” Eldredge said. “If what we’re doing is we’re saying we recommend a throughfare plan, but we’re not going to draw the lines [and] somebody else does it – and these are our sort of parameters, sort of not – typically what would happen would be that a group of people would get together behind closed doors and come up with a plan. Then they’d roll it out to the public and say, ‘Give this a look and give us your feedback.’ But it’s not an iterative process really.

“As we all know, we’ve all done these open houses. It’s kind of like, ‘Yeah, we’ve got your feedback. Yeah sure. Whatever. Moving on. Check the box’ versus this more transparent opportunity we have here. …

“It does pose the question as to whether it feels good to us because we don’t have to draw a line because we’re saying someone else gets do it, which chances are could happen behind closed doors unless we specify that it shouldn’t.”

There seems to be two camps that have developed in the community surrounding the controversial “loop” project tied to the Texas Department of Transportation’s Kendall Gateway Study, which the county commissioners formally denounced several years ago. One group seems to favor a loop-like relief route that is created as development occurs while others seem to oppose a loop outright, regardless of how the land is acquired.

While the transportation committee repeatedly has said the Kendall Gateway loop is dead in the water – or roadway – the committee’s support of many of Boerne’s major throughfare projects left many residents opposing the long-term development of a citywide bypass around Main Street.

At a previous meeting, residents arrived en masse to voice opposition to any loop, through development or eminent domain alike, whether it be the raised highway proposed by TxDOT or a smaller street expansion and improvements around the city and county.