Cottage Grove  was originally an independent city located at Houston and Texas Central's Eureka Junction rail stop.  Vintage cottages, new homes, townhomes, small apartment complexes and small businesses are present along the narrow streets where yellow-crowned night herons fish crawdads from storm water swales after rainfalls. The banks of White Oak Bayou and a tree-shaded neighborhood park are popular recreation spots in the neighborhood. Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School located at the historic center of Cottage Grove, earns an academically-recognized status in the Houston Independent School District. Memorial and 11^th Street parks, shops, and family style and fine dining restaurants are close by.  METRO's route 48 traverses part of the neighborhood, and other bus routes have stops along Shepherd and Washington Avenue. Cottage Grove Civic Club has plans to celebrate the centennial anniversary of the neighborhood the first day of April in 2010, one hundred years after the day Cottage Grove Section One was first recorded as a new subdivision in Harris County Texas. 

 

Keep Robert Louis Stevenson Elementary School in Cottage Grove! 

 

The academically-recognized elementary school in Cottage Grove, originally founded as the result of a bond election held in 1914, has a questionable future. The Stevenson community and friends have another opportunity to discuss the situation with HISD representatives at the meeting the district has scheduled to be held Sept 9 at 5:30 pm in the school’s cafeteria.  Enter the campus at 2116 Radcliff to attend the meeting and help remove the question mark about the school’s future.  

 

The community of Stevenson’s friends include neighborhood residents, PTO and civic club members, students, generations of alumni, pastors, and The Greater Houston Preservation Association.  We invite you to contact StevensonsFriends@yahoo.com to let us know of your interest.   Friends may help remove the question mark about the school’s future by sending an email to the board of education trustees at sharri12@houstonisd.org.  Ask the board of education to maintain Robert Louis Stevenson as a public school asset. To reach Stevenson’s’ Trustee, Ms. Diana Davila, include her name in the subject line.   Friends may also help secure Stevenson's continued use as an elementary school by participating in the Painting and Planting community activity day between 8:30 am and 3 pm, Sept 20. Friends of Stevenson also plan to continue attending HISD board meetings until a positive outcome is realized. The remaining meetings this year are scheduled for Sept 11, Oct 8, Nov 12 and Dec 11.  Board meetings start at 5:30 pm and are held at 4400 West 18th Street. Speaking up at a board meeting requires advance registration.

 

The question about the future use of Stevenson’s campus first became known to the public in August 2007, when community members found the schools name listed the HISD Facility Capital Plan. The plan listed Stevenson, and three other urban elementary schools, as consolidation candidates and noted them as potentially surplus properties starting sometime in 2009.  These four schools were not discussed or included in the November 2007 school bond election proposals.    

 

After considerable public outcry from capital-plan and bond-proposal school communities occurred, the Board of Education delayed all consolidation and closure decisions to allow time for further consideration and community involvement in the decision making process. During the months before and after the bond election, many district trustees, Mayor White and several City Council members articulated very significant reasons to maintain quality neighborhood schools in the neighborhoods that they primarily serve.   During July and August of 2008,  the trustees have only voted to close schools located in communities favoring the changes the bond funds bring. The trustees have also voted to keep open three of the four urban schools named in the facility capital plan. Stevenson remains alone, still threatened by the plan recommendations.

 

The Stevenson community has requested that HISD and elected officials work with the community to keep the public elementary school open for the sake of current and future students. Friends of Stevenson have been politely pro-active, providing volumes of data and input since the consolidation question was first raised.  At the suggestion of trustees and district administrators, the Stevenson community has worked with the inspiring school faculty to build enrollment. While a questionable future erodes the school’s net enrollment gains made each semester, startup enrollment has inclined over last year’s numbers.  Neighborhood residents and parents living in other attendance zones and school districts choose to enroll 77 new students this semester at the charming, successful school in Cottage Grove.  The schools use and facility assessment rates compare favorably with other schools.

 

New and tenured families who call Cottage Grove home believe keeping Stevenson open for current and future students, is the most appropriate use of public assets. While residents choose to live in Cottage Grove for various reasons, many families make that choice because there is a quality elementary school located at the neighborhood’s core. The school's campus is also conveniently close to thousands of employment destinations. Stevenson offers a fully-integrated gifted and talented program, a 4-year old program, a fine-arts after school curriculum, and students and teachers who earn the school a recognized academic status. The school also has a much-admired special needs program for kinder and first-grade students. The campus operates in a well-equipped and small footprint, where the community-friendly faculty and staff help children of increasingly diverse incomes and cultural backgrounds learn to succeed.

 

Cottage Grove Civic Club meetings are held on the dates, time, and location details are provided in the sidebar.  The club also hosts special activities, including a National Night event in Cottage Grove Park, now scheduled for October 7. General meetings are typically held in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Elementary School cafeteria, and occasionally, at the Iglesia Hosanna.  Off-street parking is available at both locations. Green and white signs posted in yards and on the lawn at  Fire Station 11 the week of each meeting, announce the time, date and location. Meeting agendas include guest speakers, community input, and may include votes taken on resolutions discussed at a previous meeting.  Guests are welcome at all the civic club meetings and special events.  Civic club dues are $30 per member each year, with an optional 50% discount for seniors, students and Stevenson Elementary PTO members.  The civic club’s 2008 membership enrollment period ends  November 5, 2008.   Contact CottageGroveCivicClub@yahoo.com for more information. 

 

Eureka Bike Trail Developments

 

The Cottage Grove Civic Club continues to pursue the development of the off-road hike and bike trail at the northern boundary the neighborhood.   The 1.5 mile long route between White Oak Bayou and Kansas street encompasses 17 linear acres in a corridor at least 100 ‘ wide. The trail connects with the TC Jester bike route under the rail yard bridge and has industrial and natural habitants along its east west path.  Red-shouldered and red-tailed hawks soar above the rail yard and path in the hunt for food between 11^th Street and Memorial Park forests.  Osprey spend some winter seasons at the east end of the trail near White Oak Bayou. The rail yard activity might include train cars carrying rolled metal, aggregate, or circus performers depending upon when you visit.  In the western half of the acreage the trail has a southern boundary defined by a tree-covered and understoried ravine edged with wildflowers and native vines. A pedestrian gate provides access to the neighborhood streets in the 2800 block of Sherwin.  Elderberry, deciduous holly, pecan, oak and dogwood trees, passion flower and mustang grape vines create a lush entrance to the trail. The natural assets provide food and shelter to nesting and migrating birds, filter and use rain water to recharge the earth, and provide a perpetual pollution break between the nearby industrial and residential habitants.  Even in the very dry seasons of 2008, the habitat is healthy and green.

 

TxDOT started planning in 2007 to convert most of the 17 acres into a connected series of open channels that will convey storm water from nearby highway expansion projects into the new drainage channel.   The roadway storm water facility was not planned to handle neighborhood redevelopment detention or neighborhood street runoff.  The City Houston, as the landowner of the acreage and the entity that will maintain the facility, has some say in how TxDOT uses the City owned land. The civic club and other organizations, including Super Neighborhood 22, White Oak Bayou Association, and Greater Houston Off-road Bike Association, Citizens Transportation Coalition, and the Park People presented resolutions to City Council to call for modifications to the plan.  As a result, Mayor White has committed to begin planning trail development in the acreage, the open segments have been revised into wet-bottom vegetated segments, and some trees have been been added to the plans.  However, preserving the existing green assets remains an open item in the community plan.  SN 22 and the civic club are working with City to try to change that outcome so that the exsiting habitat, ravine and some recreational areas will survive as public assets after the roadway expansion projects are completed.   Please contact the civic club if you would like to work on the Eureka Trail project or attend the labor day late afternoon picnic on the M-K-T. 

 

Good Green News

 

Each year, Super Neighborhoods have the right to submit requests for area projects to the City.  The project scopes have specific limits and are paid for out of operating rather than capital improvement budgets. In 2008, SN 22 at the request of Cottage Grove Civic Club, submitted a request to the City  regarding adding trees to the M-K-T corridor.  The current status of the project shown at the City’s tracking system site is that the Parks Department has accepted the project to coordinate planning, planting, invasive removal and maintenance activities with the neighborhood.  Please contact the civic club if you would like to be involved with this native plant project.

 

Quiet Zones at Train Crossings

 

The City of Houston public works department plans to make information regarding costs and priorities for potential quiet zones available soon.   

 

Guest Parking

 

Parking on the narrow street surfaces in Cottage Grove is legal when you leave 10’ clearance for vehicles to pass in the other lane, except when otherwise noted by City installed signs, or when parking would block a driveway, or within 15' of intersections, bus stops or fire hydrants. Parking off the street surface in the city right-of-way, on swales, in ditches and on sidewalks is also illegal. 

 

Curbside Recycling

 

Cottage Grove sections north and south of Interstate 10 that are not already served by recycling, are on the City of Houston’s waiting list.   

 

IH 10 Frontage Lane Plans

 

The revised ramp plans show TxDOT no longer plans to construct continuous frontage lanes between TC Jester and Washington Avenue.

 

Living in a Coastal Watershed 

 

The flood plain maps available at the Tropical Storm Allison Recovery Project (www.TSARP.org) went into effect during 2007. The maps show that many homes in Cottage Grove located north of Interstate 10 are located in White Oak Bayou’s 1% flood plain.  A few properties on Roy Circle, Larkin and Darling near Durham are mapped into the bayou’s flood way. City of Houston’s Chapter 19 Flood Prone Construction imposes certain rules and regulations on flood plain and flood way remodeling and new construction.  The City has also implemented changes to the Infrastructure Design Manual in Chapter 13 that show how to use rain barrels and vegetated swales to help meet storm water quality requirements.