Plan has Freeport going coastal

By Michael Baker
The Facts

Published August 06, 2003

Quintana and Surfside Beach are no longer Brazoria County’s only coastal municipalities.

Freeport City Council approved the second phase of its annexation of Bryan Beach on Monday, putting about a mile of the coast within the city limits. It’s part of a council plan to annex three miles of the beach, from FM 1495 to the Brazos River’s mouth.

The second phase marks the first time the city acquired actual beach property, as the first phase was merely a strip of land leading toward the beach.

“This is a historic moment for the city of Freeport,” City Manager Ron Bottoms said after council unanimously voted for the move. “I thought about telling the staff to wear their Hawaiian shirts tonight.”

Immediately after approving the annexation, council members agreed to start the process of bringing the next mile of the beach into the city. The city will conduct two public hearings on the third phase of the annexation in September before acquiring the land in October.

After that, the city has only one more phase to complete the annexation.

The impetus for the border expansion was that city leaders wanted to handle Bryan Beach’s cleanup. Beach tourists were likely to tag Freeport with the appearance of the beach whether or not the city

controlled it, Bottoms has said. City crews planned to begin beach cleanup Tuesday morning, he said.

Councilman John Smith III said his only regret was that the city did not annex the beach sooner.

“I just had some relatives in town, and the only reason they came was to go to the beach,” Smith said. “They were not pleased with what they saw.”

Now that the city is a part of Texas’ approximately 600 miles of coast, it must present a beach policy and sand dune protection ordinance to the General Land Office. The city plans to use policies similar to the ones the Brazoria County and Surfside Beach have in place, said Public Works Director Larry Fansher.

Fansher outlined a proposed set of rules for the beach. Provisions included creating a three-member beach/dune committee, using community service workers for regular manual beach cleanup and banning fireworks on the beach.

Council members will have to approve the rules at an upcoming meeting, though they will likely offer some tweaks. For example, Police Chief Henrietta Gonzalez said the speed limit on the beach should be lowered from 20 to 15 mph.

City leaders also expect a few regulatory surprises to pop up as they sift through the paperwork.

“I suspect we’re going to learn something new about the beach every day,” Mayor Jim Barnett said.

Bottoms suggested some larger changes the city should consider, such as creating parking along CR 723 and making part of the beach a pedestrian beach. Bottoms also said council might want to re-christen its portion of the coast “Freeport Beach,” though Councilman Jim Phillips immediately shook his head “no” to the suggestion.

Though the city’s portion of Bryan Beach is uninhabited, Bottoms said population growth is not out of the question.

“They wanted to develop that at one time,” Bottoms said. “Maybe we can get something on the drawing board.”



Michael Baker covers the city of Freeport for The Facts. Contact him Sunday-Thursday at (979) 265-7411, Ext. 225.