Northwest master plan and Transmountain Road expansion

The battle lines have been drawn: El Paso’s Public Service Board (PSB), which controls thousands of acres of open space around El Paso (ostensibly to protect the watershed), supported by the City Plan Commission, Mayor Cook and the El Paso Times, versus the city’s Open Space Advisory Board, the Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition, the El Paso Group Sierra Club Executive Committee, City Councilor Susie Byrd and El Paso’s environmental community. At issue is rezoning of about 800 acres of foothills north of Transmountain Road below Franklin Mountains State Park.

The issue, dormant since 2003, resurfaced with TxDot’s announcement of plans to spend $80 million on Transmountain Road with several elevated interchanges leading nowhere. Then City Council discovered that land adjoining the proposed expansion was already zoned for commercial use. Suddenly the picture came into focus: El Paso’s developers, working with TxDot and like-minded PSB, have big plans to turn our open space into hundreds of homes with big-box shopping along Transmountain Road as it sweeps up toward Franklin Mountains State Park.

Some members of City Council, led by Byrd, looked for ways to salvage the situation and hit on the idea of zoning those foothills Natural Open Space(NOS).

The proposal went to the City’s Open Space Advisory Board, where it was supported. But the City Planning Commission, or more accurately the
development commission, ramrodded through a recommendation against
NOS zoning.

We pointed out that the city should not sell this natural asset for any amount of money. $80 million now would be a temporary boost, but 10
years down the road it would only mean the green way would be gone.

So we now see two possible paths to victory: First, mobilize the environmental community. The Franklin Mountains Wilderness Coalition has several online petitions for citizens to sign. And we must fill City Council Chambers for the deciding votes.

The second path is the regulatory process. TxDot has produced an Environment Assessment but has not divulged its contents. Sierran Bill
Addington filed a Freedom of Information Act Request weeks ago and has received no information. We are looking for funding to force TxDot to
go through the more rigorous Environmental Impact Statement process. For information on how to help, e-mail lgibson@utep.edu