The Bryan City Council approved a request to rezone roughly 29.71 acres in the Gourd Creek area from Agriculture-Open (AO) to Planned Development Housing (PDH), adopting conditions intended to address neighbors’ drainage and buffering concerns.

The item, RZ 24-06, covers land at the northeast corner of Chick Lane and Autumn Lake Drive. Martin Zimmerman, director of Development Services, summarized the proposal: the PDH would allow predominantly residential uses similar to an RD-5 district but would add standards the council does not get with straight RD-5 zoning. The proposed PD included a minimum 6,000-square-foot lot size on detached single-family lots, 50-foot minimum lot widths (with 20% at 55 feet), front-facing exterior masonry minimums of 35%, prohibition of metal siding, minimum setbacks, a required two-car garage, front-yard canopy tree, and a 20-foot-wide HOA-maintained natural-vegetation buffer adjacent to the existing Dominion Oaks subdivision.

Several nearby homeowners attended the hearing and described an existing drainage channel along the shared property line that, they said, reaches depths of 20 feet and holds water during dry periods. Neighbors asked for a variable-width buffer and emphasized concerns about erosion, runoff velocity and long-term impacts on existing homes. The applicant’s engineer, Jeff Robertson of McClure & Brown Engineering, said the intent is to leave the channel untouched, set the buffer on the high side of the channel and to perform drainage studies and storm detention design at the preliminary-plat and construction-plan stages.

Council members noted the PD contains more standards than a straight RD-5 zone and that the city’s subdivision and construction-review process would require hydraulic and drainage studies before any lots are developed. After discussion, a council member moved to approve the PDH rezoning; the motion carried on a voice vote with no roll-call recorded.

Why it matters: The approval converts agriculturally zoned land to a planned residential district while adding observable design standards intended to raise home quality and set stormwater-buffer expectations for adjacent neighborhoods. Neighbors asked for additional buffer width in places where the drainage channel is deepest.

What’s next: The developer must complete detailed engineering, including a hydraulic/stormwater detention study, as part of future plat and construction submittals. The buffer and stormwater measures will be finalized during the preliminary-plat and construction-plan review processes.

The item’s speakers and evidence are included in the article’s speaker list and clarifying details.