Council OKs 70-foot width for FM 1863 expansion through Veramendi
“New Braunfels City Council on Monday approved the width of the planned extension of Farm-to-Market Road 1863 through the proposed Veramendi development — but not without first fielding questions from concerned neighbors living near the roadway destined to become a major entrance to the $1.5 billion master-planned community.
“Are you going to eminent domain my property?” asked one resident of Windsor Lane, whose home in the Northwoods subdivision would back up to the planned three-mile-long, four-lane-wide extension through Veramendi from Highway 46 to River Road.
Mayor Barron Casteel assured the man that council’s approval of the width of the extension was “simply a planning tool” and carried no direction to city staff “to do any eminent domain.”
Under eminent domain, a government can seize and claim private property for infrastructure needs.
City Engineer Garry Ford said “there are currently no plans or funding to construct the extension — and there is currently no timeline. It all depends on traffic volume triggers associated with the Veramendi development.”
Community meetings would be held for public input once the city is ready to construct the roadway, Ford said.
The extension — when it’s built — would pass from Highway 46 between the Northwoods and Oak Run housing subdivisions, skirting just north of the football field at Oak Run Middle School (ORMS), and into Veramendi, a 2,400-acre development to be built on ranchland owned by the city’s Word-Borchers family.”
Bowen, Greg. Herald Zeitung 14 July 2014.