WE WANT SH29 TO REMAIN A LOCAL HIGHWAY CONNECTING GEORGETOWN AND LIBERTY HILL.

 

When will we stop this effort? The answer is:

 

The urgency of contacting your elected officials and strongly stating your opinion can not be overemphasized.  The process to choose a route for Highway 29, a 10 lane (400 foot wide) highway system, is in the final stage.  A final route may be chosen within the next few weeks.  Although our elected officials have gone through the process in a proper fashion so that all their constituents were supposed to be informed, our door-to-door canvassing revealed that most residents north of 29 were not  informed of the specific locations of the roads or aware of the short time remaining to speak up.  All residents are encouraged to read the synopsis below and to contact our elected representatives NOW.

HWY 29 FACTS AND ACTION PLAN
TO PRESERVE OUR HOMES AND SCHOOLS

This document is divided into two section:
1 A.   Fact Synopsis
2 B.   Who to contact to make your voice heard

FACTS SYNOPSIS: 

Williamson County (County) is planning on increasing SH29 to a major freeway sometime in the future.  This road will be the major east-west highway for the north side of the Austin Region with its ultimate connection with I-10 in West Texas.  The most important thing for everyone to understand is the proposed road is the same magnitude of 183A (that is 400’ feet wide, total of 10 lanes with 6 lanes of freeway and 4 lanes of access roads with limited access, interchanges, etc).  Just look at the vehicle load and commercial development that has quickly evolved along 183A in Cedar Park and Leander to understand the potential impact this proposed road will make near the selected alignment.

The County is currently in the planning process for selecting the alignment of the road through the City of Liberty Hill (City) or the surrounding areas (a bypass).  Once the alignment has been selected, all property in the selected alignment will have a potential cloud on its title even though the County may not elect to purchase the property until some (unknown) future date.  All real estate transactions in the selected alignment will probably have to have some form of disclosure stating the potential future County action.

Additionally, a significant amount of land use, speculation and revaluations will occur in the vicinity of the future alignment.  In most cases, residential values will suffer due the potential noise pollution, increased traffic volumes and unplanned commercial and industrial development.  (Remember most of the land in the vicinity of either the North or South bypass will be out of any zoning restrictions and probably out of any ETJ considerations.)  Other areas of little current development may have significant appreciation owing to potential commercial, high density residential or industrial use.

The County commissioned a study to determine potential alignments in the Liberty Hill area.  The project engineers produced three potential alignments:

1. Northern Bypass with six options (See Map: Williamson North SR29 Bypass Options)
2. Central Alignment through the City with four options (See Map: Williamson Central SR29 Bypass Options)
3. Southern Bypass with four options (See Map: Williamson Southern SR29 Bypass Options)

These routes were later refined to one north and one south bypass on July 17, 2008 to the following:

Other information can be found at the Williamson County website. It is the opinion of many that these maps are virtually illegible providing little or no specific information.   

We believe that the traffic data collected is not accurate and the existing traffic levels do not and will not justify such a major project. There is not and will not be in the forseeable future, a need for a 10 lane super highway between Gorrgetown and Liberty Hill. At present there are no plans to have this 10 lane highway go beyond the Williamson/Burrnet border as it is a Williamson County project. Put simply, we appose the entire concept of a 10 lane super highway between Georgetown and Liberty Hill, hense "Keep 29 Local".

WHO TO CONTACT TO MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD (2 STEPS):

This process has proceeded with little notice to the affected areas.  In other words, most of us were completely unaware.  The County has already held their public meetings.  The City held their public meeting on June 12; however, the City is currently accepting input via a ‘HWY 29 Comment form’  which is printable at their (www.lhtexas.com) website under Documents - Forms & Applications – link in right margin.  The City will tally the opinions expressed on these ‘HWY 29 Comment form’  and make a recommendation to the County based on this input.  At present, the City has had no input from any of the residents affected by the northern routes and is leaning toward the northerly alignments.

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STEP ONE
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Please complete a separate ‘HWY 29 Comment form’  for each adult member of your household and return to the City via the box on the City Hall by June 27.  These forms can be obtained at City Hall or at www.lhtexas.com in the Documents section as described above.

 

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STEP TWO
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FLOOD THE COUNTY, YOUR STATE REP. STATE SENATOR, AND YOUR CONGRESSMAN WITH EMAILS AND CALLS.  The County needs to be made aware that the Northern Bypass will have a significant negative impact on residential valuations. A reduced tax base will mean reduced revenues for the Liberty Hill school district.

IF YOU WANT YOUR OPINION TO COUNT,
SPEAK UP NOW.  CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVES.