The new location will be 25,000 square feet with cardio and strength equipment.
If you’ve been paying even a little bit of attention to what’s going on around you, you know that Bentwater’s growth is non-stop and, since we don’t have the ability to expand beyond our current footprint, the building inside our gates has us bursting at the seams. As you read this, there are already just shy of 2,400 completed homes “on the compound” and another 42 homes currently under construction. And, when you look outside our gates, the expansion across our area of Montgomery County is even more astounding. There’s a new housing development on pretty much every parcel of unimproved land, no exaggeration. There’s even one close by that hasn’t yet broken ground, but has created a lot of chatter in Bentwater because it’ll be just on the other side of FM 1097. So, in an effort to curb some of the speculation and rumors that you may have heard about what’s going on, I’ll share a bit of what I’ve learned.
To help you imagine what this new neighborhood might look like, this is the project of J. Alan Kent Development, a Houston-based developer, who has developed some other communities you might recognize, including Augusta Pines in The Woodlands and Shadow Creek which is nestled between FM 830 and League Line Road. Given that, the expectation is that their marketing activity is likely to attract a clientele who might also find the amenities and lifestyle of Bentwater to their liking as they explore and discover the area. Of course, such demand won’t materialize overnight because they reportedly won’t be breaking ground on the first section until early 2026. It isn’t yet known what levels and types of amenities might be planned, but it’s clear that their acreage isn’t sufficient to include a golf course.
But they do already have their Municipal Utility District (MUD) application filed and approved, so it appears to be the real deal. Once they get started, you can expect that it won’t be long before we have as many as 1,500 new neighbors, all living in high-end, single-family homes (no condos or apartments). And, by then, it’s reasonable to think that enough of the work on FM 1097 might actually be completed and capable of accommodating all those new residents. We can only hope.
Meanwhile, a quick reminder to all you aspiring board members. You only have a few days left to polish you resumes and submit your application to get on the ballot. Gotta get it done by next Friday, the 23rd at noon. Tick. Tock.
Send Bentwater fun news and social tidbits to Bruce at Bruce@TheLakeConroeGroup.com
The first week of school is in the books for the 2024-25 school year! Time to relax and enjoy what Conroe has to offer while getting ready for fall!
I found a few things coming up this week and next week you may enjoy.
Texas Red Fest featuring the Lacs, Justin Champagne, REHAB, Cypress Spring and Austin Tolliver will be at Heritage Place Park Saturday, Aug. 24 with gates open at 2:00pm. The show begins on stage at 3:00pm. TexRedFest.com for information and tickets.
The High Caliber Gun Show is both Saturday, Aug. 25 and Sunday, Aug. 25 at the Lone Star Convention Center. Entry is $10 and kids under 12 are free.
Get ready for the first game of the Fall Football Season at Conroe High School Friday, Aug. 30 at Moorhead Stadium against Alief Elsik. Kickoff is 7:00pm. Get pumped up for the Conroe Tigers!
Family Promise of Montgomery County will hist their Annual “Rise Up” Luncheon Thursday, Aug. 29 at 11:00am at Lone Star College, Maverick Center to celebrate families that have graduated from their 90-Day program to independence and to raise funds to assist their mission of helping homeless families with children to become self-sufficient and stable. Get tickets and information at www.FamilyPromiseofMC.org.
Our community theatres start their new 2024-2025 season on Friday, Sept. 6. The Crighton Theatre will premiere “The Play That Goes Wrong” and over at the Owen Theatre “Rock of Ages” will take the stage. Both shows will be for three weeks through Sunday, Sept. 22.
Stay safe. Shop local.
Margie Taylor may be reached at margie@taylorizedpr.com.
Missed any of our articles from this week?
The first of 16 upcoming community open house events will begin Aug. 16 in Harris County as part of the utility company’s resiliency plan.
State lawmakers tasked the Texas Water Development Board with creating a comprehensive flood plan in 2019, in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey.
Following three days of budget workshops, county commissioners approved a tax rate of $0.3790 per $100 valuation.
Conservation is one of the best solutions to reduce your water bills and reduce problems with your landscape plants and turfgrass during our current dry spell. Watering, fertilizing and maintaining your landscape properly can reduce your water bill by as much as 30 percent. Rather than going to extreme measures and not watering, try another approach that will give desired results and save water. I am sure there are some of you that have looked at your water bill with eyes wide open and said “OUCH!”. Now let’s see if we can help you not make some of the mistakes and save water and money.
The first thing is learning to identify symptoms of drought stress. Look for discoloration and wilting. Leaves can also roll up or close in the heat of the day. This can be true for both turfgrass and landscape plants. With turfgrass, a step test help in predicting moisture need. Grass blades that have adequate water will spring back up. If there is a lack of water, the blades of grass stay compressed from the compaction of walking across the lawn.
Walk across the lawn for about ten paces. Turn around and see if your footprints are still visible. If your footprints are visible from the starting point, water within 24 hours. With landscape plants, temperatures above 98 degrees can cause wilting during the heat of the day. If the plants look fine in the morning and again later in the evening (not wilting), then the plants are getting enough water from the soil.
Watering too little too often or too much can increase susceptibility to insects, fungus and root problems. Watering small amounts with more frequency causes turfgrass to develop shallow roots. With landscape plants, shallow watering will only impact the roots for a short period of time and then evaporates with the heat. Thus, causing permanent damage to the plants systems and ultimately resulting in dieback or plant death. On the other hand, excessive watering will result in run-off (especially with clay soils) or excessive soil moisture that leads to lack of oxygen for roots. Regardless, both methods can increase susceptibility to insects, fungus and disease. So, watering deeply and infrequently is your best and most productive option. On another note, use irrigation devices that produce large drops or heavy streams of water. Fine mists and small drops of water have a greater chance of evaporating and not making their way down into the soil.
So, how much water do you apply and for how long do you set the timer? Research shows that turf requires 1 inch of water per week to sustain healthy vigorous growth. With that said, if it rains 2 inches on any given day, we technically should not have to water for 2 weeks. You will notice I said “technically”. Other factors include evaporation, wind, soil type and plant water-use requirements just to name a few. Now back to the initial question. An easy way to determine how long you will need to water is to perform an irrigation audit. This can be done with an irrigation system or with hose-end devices.
Randomly place a couple of coffee cans or rain gauges in the yard (or irrigation station) and measure how much water is accumulated in a predetermined amount of time. This will allow you to gauge how long to water each time you irrigate. Established grasses with good root systems should be able to survive at least three days between water events.
After performing an irrigation audit you should be able to increase your conservation effort without sacrificing your lawn.
Cutting back on fertilization can also reduce water consumption. Applying fertilizer in the spring and fall will generally keep things healthy and attractive. Fertilizing during the heat of the summer or during droughts, especially with high nitrogen fertilizer, will increase growth but increases water consumption. However, with the current stress level in plants, fertilizing will only increase stress and ultimately result in more susceptibility to problems.
Lastly, avoid cutting back landscape plants until temperatures cool down and normal rainfall relieves plant stress. Hopefully plants will start to see some reprieve soon and can start the recovery process.
How to preform an irrigation audit
An irrigation audit involves inspection of all irrigation heads to determine that all function properly. Check each nozzle to make sure they are not clogged or that grass or other obstructions do not impede the distribution of water. After inspecting the nozzles, set out a series of cups in a grid pattern over the field or a specific zone of the irrigation system. Next, turn on the sprinklers for a specified amount of time. After the irrigation is off, measure the amount or depth of water in each cup or can. When all cups are collected, find an average amount or depth of water in each cup and use that to determine the application rate per hour.Example: 5 measuring cups were used and the irrigation system was run for fifteen minutes. All cups were measured as follows:0.25″ + 0.3″ + 0.27″ + 0.22″ + 0.3″ = 1.34″ ÷ 5 cups = 0.268″ avg. in fifteen minutes.0.268″ per 15 minutes = x”/60 minutes, x = 1.072″ per hour.
Don’t forget to send your garden questions to Plant Answers at 9020 Airport Rd., Conroe TX 77303 or e-mail me at mpotter@ag.tamu.edu.
Montgomery voters soon will decide whether elected officials will serve four years, instead of the current two-year term, as the city continues to grapple with growth.
For nearly a year, officials have been debating extending the term for council members and mayor to three or four years from the current two-year term. During a workshop meeting in October, council members said they find it hard to get a lot of work done with the growth the city has experienced.
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Term lengths debated
As the city of more than 2,000 residents continues to grow, officials said not enough work is accomplished within the two-year term.
“Residents and officials alike were seeing that you can’t get a whole lot accomplished,” said Mayor Sara Countryman. “We needed congruency just in a two-year term.”
On Aug. 13, council members moved forward with including an ordinance that would allow voters on Nov. 6 to choose whether to extend terms for elected officials to four years from two years.
Other Houston-area cities such as Friendswood, Manvel and Dayton have a term length of three to four years, officials said.
“In four years, there’s not as much change on the council side, so (any) initiatives can be seen through,” Countryman said. “And when somebody new gets on the council, there’s still some legacy there that will help guide them.”
‘It’s really hard to get things done’
Previously, council members aired their frustration on serving a two-year term.
“We swap out half the council every year, basically,” said council member Casey Olsen during the October 2023 meeting. “It really throws a (wrench) in agendas. You get a plan going and then, all of a sudden…we got three new members that have a whole new idea. It’s really hard to get things done.”
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Countryman said she expects a record turnout at the polls due to the presidential election this year. And it is “definitely up to us to get the word out and educate voters on what the city has on this ballot.”
“There’s a lot of education that needs to take place before they get to that ballot,” she said.
Montgomery residents will also be voting on whether to reallocate sales tax revenue toward a district to help support law enforcement by funding a new state-of-the-art facility, salaries and equipment.
Despite increases in home sales in five of the eight ZIP codes in Conroe and Montgomery, total home sales increased by only 0.82% year over year in July.