Community Meeting Recap - September 2024

As is most community meetings in Cottage Grove, last night's Civic Association meeting was jam packed with updates. We've got options for you - feel free to check out the meeting notes, the presentation slides, or the Zoom meeting recording to get all the tea!

A few key highlights:

The playground has been ordered and we're awaiting delivery, likely in a couple months. The design and colors were voted on by Cottage Grove Civic Association members - thank you for your input. You have good taste!

We're also really excited that the community voted at the last meeting to plant trees around the new playground. This will happen in March after the new playground is installed so we don't mess up the trees when installing the playground!

We are all SO OVER Hempstead Highway construction, and it's finally almost drawing to a close. They finished connecting the road drainage system to the newly installed pump station, so that means now they work on the road and we see real progress. Work is expected to be completed in Feb 2025.

We love sidewalks in Cottage Grove, but we just don't have enough of them. This pic was the one that got installed compliments of District C a couple years back at Cottage Grove park. We show you this to show you how functional and awesome sidewalks are, because a few City Council members want to have less of them :(

Another interesting turn of events after the community meeting is that we learned the sidewalk ordinance that was supposed to be voted on this week was tagged yet again. This means there is a delay in voting on it. Apparently the 3 City Council members that brought up the ordinance (it removes the sidewalk fund and the requirement for developers to build sidewalks - super bad for our neighborhood) are willing to negotiate. The pressure from our community was real, and so was the advocacy from Rep Kamin (ours - District C) and three of the At-Large Members that responded to our letter of concern. Rep Sallie Alcorn gets the serious At Large gold star for the quick response and support of Cottage Grove's need for better walkability! We'll keep you updated as this thing evolves.

One more final piece of TxDOT good news is that the long-awaited rumble strips are now installed permanently on the I-10 feeder to alert the many speeding drunk drivers that there is a park ahead and they need to stop. This was a direct result of community engagement with TxDOT - thank you for your support!