COLLEGE STATION, Texas — In a 5-1 vote, the College Station City Council approved its second restricted occupancy overlay (ROO) district in an area located off of Southwood Drive and the Bee Creek area.
"It's a tool for neighborhoods who want to add additional restrictions to come in and do that," Long Rang Planning Administrator, Alyssa Halle-Schramm said. "We have kind of user-friendly guides to explain to neighborhoods how to do that, but they also can always call staff and we help walk them through the process as well."
The city will now only allow two unrelated persons to live in single-family homes in those 39 lots of the Southwood neighborhood, which homeowners are hoping will stop rental housing in the area.
"We did hear some concern throughout the process from property owners who didn't want the route to apply to their property specifically," Halle-Schramm said. "We addressed those concerns throughout the process but also heard from the petition committee and many others who did want the ROO in their area."
Also on the agenda were discussions on the fourth phase of the northeast sewer line. For the past several months, the city has been discussing where to place a sewer line, and after Thursday's meeting, there is a clearer picture of the project.
"We recommended that based on our preliminary investigation, we hired our consultants to go out and investigate that option," College Station Senior Project Manager, Susan Monnat said. "From the beginning, we realized that if we had creek crossings that would cause a significant impact, then it wouldn't be a viable option."
After the council's decision, only two options exist for the sewer line route. The first option is a gravity line through Beverly Estates down Rosemary Drive, while the second option is updating the existing lift station with improvements and some new construction down Chimney Hill.
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