Even a light drizzle can fill the Halls Bayou tributary stream that snakes through Sharon Brown’s backyard, causing water and discarded trash to pool outside her two-story brick home. The channel, though small, is a constant flooding threat to her and her neighbors in North Forest’s Scenic Woods subdivision, where water has risen high enough to swallow mailboxes and strand residents in their homes. 

To help alleviate flooding in Brown’s neighborhood, the Harris County Flood Control District has tried for two years to construct a large flood control project on Houston Community College’s nearby North Forest campus, with local bond money and a federal grant covering the $4.8 million cost.

But on Tuesday, Harris County officials abandoned the plans after college leaders and local residents — including Brown and some of her flood-prone neighbors — resisted the proposal for several months.

The decision means HCC will keep 14 ½ acres of land that has gone undeveloped for years, giving North Forest community members hope that college leaders will finally deliver on unkept promises to expand the campus. At the same time, the county’s reversal leaves about 150 Scenic Woods homeowners without any immediate solution to persistent flooding that has plagued the neighborhood.

“Obviously, the community has been very vocal about this,” HCFCD spokesperson Emily Woodell said. “Unfortunately, I think just with some of the needed conversations on the HCC side, the timing of the grant funds, and having to really determine whether we can move this forward or not, it just wasn’t going to work out. There were too many question marks, I think, for it to really be something viable.”

County leaders have warned in recent months that the project — a basin for storing stormwater on a plot of land roughly the size of 11 football fields — is the only feasible option for sparing Scenic Woods homeowners. Two other alternatives cost at least $33 million more and required buying and demolishing 120 to 150 more homes, while a third option wouldn’t collect enough stormwater to prevent widespread flooding, they said.

Many North Forest residents, however, opposed the plan, arguing it would leave just 12 acres for long-promised additions beyond the current modest facility. Original plans for the campus drawn up about a decade ago included a child care center, fitness spaces and a small business incubator, though none of the projects have materialized.

In recent weeks, North Forest residents have called on HCFCD to go back to the drawing board and identify a location for the basin that doesn’t pit their homes against higher education in their neighborhood, which has suffered from underinvestment and academic issues for decades. 

“I would hate for this campus to turn into a detention pond and limit us on what we can do for future higher education in this area,” Brown said in mid-February. “We don't have all these colleges all over this side of town as it is. We only have this building, and fought hard to get this building here, and it still didn't live up to our expectations when we got it.”

HCC trustees and administrators were for years reluctant to sell the land or allow the basin. The proposal created a dilemma for the college: disregard the community’s resistance, or block the sole flood relief measure county officials were willing to pursue. An HCC spokesperson did not respond Tuesday to calls from the Landing seeking comment about the county’s decision.

HCC Trustee Renee Jefferson Patterson, who the board appointed in February to represent the North Forest area, told the Landing earlier this month that she supports further development for students and residents.

“I personally feel like, if we're going to place something on the campus of HCC, that it needs to be for the benefit of the college,” Jefferson Patterson said. “Right now, we have a lot of students that are having to go to other campuses because we just do not have enough space, enough programs there.”

But Woodell said Tuesday that the cancellation of the project means the district is “left with no other options” and will not pursue other locations for the basin, closing the door on widespread flood relief in the area. 

“We just really had our hands tied on what we could do and where we could look,” Woodell said.

‘The one bright spot’

North Forest, a majority Black and Latino and lower-income community in northeast Houston, has had a strained relationship with educational institutions over the past few decades, and HCC is no exception. 

Local residents voted in 2009 to become part of HCC’s service area, accepting a property tax increase in exchange for lower tuition, free high school dual credit courses, and the promise of more programs and classes from the college. Three years later, voters in the area supported a $425 million HCC bond package that included $40 million to construct a North Forest location.

College officials said the location would include the child care center, small business incubator and fitness facilities, on top of classroom space and an automotive training garage. Residents saw the plans as a long overdue investment in higher education in North Forest, where the closest community college campuses were several miles away.

The campus finally opened in 2019 after years of shifting plans and construction delays, but only with classroom, automotive training and administrative spaces. Flashier features once promised by HCC were absent, drawing community pushback at the campus’ ribbon-cutting.

“They threw this little college up here,” Scenic Woods Plaza Civic Club President Otis Myles said in mid-February.

College administrators assured residents they had enough land to double the campus size if needed. The late congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee was adamant the campus wasn’t good enough and would expand. 

While it fell short of expectations, the campus has become a pillar of the community. Local civic clubs host their meetings in classrooms at the college. Adults take continuing education courses in the evenings. Residents say it’s a safe, well-lit place to gather or carpool. 

In the fall 2024 semester, roughly 800 people took classes at the campus, up from 40 five years earlier, according to HCC records. North Forest’s enrollment mirrors several other HCC satellite campuses, including those in Acres Homes, Alief and southeast Houston.
Meanwhile, community members have held on to hope that HCC would continue to invest in the campus. At an early February Northwood Manor Civic Club meeting, members listed additional features they hope the campus will someday have, including a track for safe exercise and a cafeteria to address a lack of nearby access to food in the community.

Some residents, however, saw HCFCD’s now-ditched plans as a nail in the coffin of these possibilities. They feared the detention pond would become an unsightly magnet for illegal dumping, like many other ditches in the neighborhood.

“It costs to be in an area that continues to be neglected with very little to no progress,” northeast Houston community organizer Fred Woods said. “The one bright spot we have is this college.”

No relief in sight

After Hurricane Harvey ravaged Houston in 2017, Harris County voters approved a $2.5 billion bond package the following year to pay for projects designed to reduce flooding. The package included funding for more than dozen projects around the 20-mile Halls Bayou, which causes North Forest’s flooding troubles.

With the help of Jackson Lee, the county also secured a $3.4 million grant from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for the North Forest to help build the basin and upgrade the channel running through Brown’s backyard.

The HCFCD settled on pursuing HCC’s land because other plans would “cause community disruption and dramatically increase costs,” according to a slide deck presented at a December community meeting. Three alternatives they previously considered included:

• Building a $1.6 million basin on undeveloped land across the street from HCC’s campus.
• Buying about 120 homes in Scenic Woods and knocking them down, to the tune of $38 million.
• Buying and demolishing about 150 homes in Scenic Woods, at a cost of $64 million.

Residents pleaded with county officials to explore further options, including ones that could help more residents and spare the college’s land. 

Jerome Hewitt, who lives about two miles north of Scenic Woods, was frustrated the HCC plan wouldn’t resolve the flooding problems that have plagued his North Forest house for about 30 years. Hewitt has replaced drywall, cleared mold and killed insects that filled his home after floods — often paying for repairs out of his own pocket out of fear that his insurance premium will increase if he made a claim. Hewitt said he now pays $4,000 per year for home insurance, including about $600 for flooding.

As a clap of thunder rattled the walls of his home on a rainy mid-February evening, Hewitt dropped his head and ran his hands over his face. 

“I don’t know if we’re gonna make it or not,” Hewitt said. “It’s bad to stay somewhere, and you’re unsure — when I wake up in the morning, do I have a place to stay? We need some help. I’m maxed out on my flood insurance and increased my homeowners insurance because I’m scared.”

Now, none of the Flood Control District’s other options will move forward, leaving many weary residents vulnerable. Instead, HCFCD will continue maintenance and work on tributary concrete repairs in the area, Woodell said. 

“The issue is that when we look at maintenance projects, that's obviously just maintaining the capacity of the existing channel and making sure that it's functioning as it was originally designed to do,” Woodell said. “So it's not necessarily expanding benefits for that area, but it is certainly going to ensure that the existing network continues to work as it's supposed to.”

Woods, the community organizer, despised the HCFCD’s “take it or leave it” approach to the project. He said he would like to see a “continued dialogue with the community about the overwhelming issue that we have with flooding, and how we’re gonna fix it.”

“The community was strongly opposed to it,” Woods said. “I’m happy that HCC was on the community’s side for this one.”

Miranda Dunlap covers Houston’s community colleges in partnership with Open Campus. Despite roughly half of Houston’s higher-education students attending community colleges, there hasn’t been much news covering these systems or students — until now. Her reporting holds institutions accountable, highlights barriers faced by students and helps them navigate their opportunities. Reach Miranda at miranda@houstonlanding.org or on Twitter and Instagram.

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