Manvel council advances comprehensive and thoroughfare plans to second readings after public push to preserve rural areas

Manvel’s City Council moved the city’s draft comprehensive plan and updated major thoroughfare plan through first readings and directed staff to make specific edits following public comment and council deliberations.

At a public hearing nearly a dozen residents urged limits on road alignments and commercial encroachment in the city’s rural eastern neighborhoods. Angie Alley of Quail Valley (ETJ) told the council she feared a proposed Markham Road alignment “will cut our neighborhood in half, bring thousands of people into our backyards, and forever change the peaceful nature of our homes.” Similar speakers asked that the city preserve large-lot and rural character along several east-side corridors and reduce proposed roadway classifications where possible.

Gary, the city’s planning consultant, described the plan process, the future land use map and a revised thoroughfare map that reduces speculative alignments and concentrates higher-intensity uses along major corridors (288 and Highway 6). Council and PD&Z had debated the Markham Road alignment extensively; PD&Z recommended downgrading the Markham alignment north of Oilfield to a collector. After debate the council accepted changes that (a) remove the Markham segment between Highway 6 and County Road 95C from the city’s plan map and relabel the southern segment to local street names, and (b) keep Del Bello Boulevard’s alignment along property lines (council rejected an alternative curve that would have cut through private pastures).

Council also directed staff to rework the development-regulations section of the comprehensive plan before final adoption, noting concerns about introducing an intermediate residential district and the implications of a unified development code. Councilmembers emphasized the draft should clearly preserve “rural preservation” areas and avoid language that could be interpreted as reducing protections.

Votes and next steps: the council approved the first readings of Ordinance 2026-O-10 (Comprehensive Plan) and Ordinance 2026-O-11 (Major Thoroughfare Plan) unanimously 7–0, while instructing staff to prepare revised development regulation language and to return the plans for a final second reading and adoption at a future meeting.