{"id":241471,"date":"2026-04-09T04:38:15","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T04:38:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/241471\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T04:38:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T04:38:15","slug":"350-acre-texas-development-continues-to-draw-controversy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/241471\/","title":{"rendered":"350-acre Texas development continues to draw controversy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Galveston’s Planning Commission<\/a> gave its qualified approval Tuesday to a controversial mixed-use development<\/a> on the island’s West End<\/a>, despite many residents claiming the 350-acre project would completely change the area’s idyllic character.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The seven-person commission voted 5-1 (one commissioner was absent) to create a planned unit development overlay district for the Discovery Sands project neighboring Jamaica Beach, a rustic Galveston County community of about 1,000 people. The PUD overlay would allow the developer, Dallas-based Blackard Companies, to deviate from zoning requirements regarding features such as density, height requirements and lot size. Galveston City Council will now consider the proposal at its April 23 meeting.<\/p>\n

However, the commission’s approval came with a handful of recommendations for Blackard: sequestering part of the property as a ‘conservation area’; stipulating 15 units be reserved for workforce housing; building a sewer plant with “adequate size” for expansion, suggested as five acres; and establishing a uniform minimum lot size.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Discovery Sands developer responds<\/p>\n

Blackard president and CEO Jeffory Blackard told Chron Wednesday his company had “in theory” already agreed to the commission’s recommendations. It made him sad to see so much opposition during the meeting, he added, because he believes it’s unfounded.<\/p>\n

“Jamaica Beach in [the] late ’50s was 350 acres, and they went in and destroyed about 170 acres of wetlands and filled it to create 2,000 units, which is now called Jamaica Beach,” Blackard said. “Our site’s approximately the same size, and we aren’t doing anything to touch the wetlands that exist today. We’re not filling. We’re not doing anything. In fact, we are going to focus on the restoration of the wetlands.”<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The proposed 171-acre Discovery Sands project includes nearly 800 housing units arranged around a central lagoon and a lazy river almost 1,200 feet long.<\/p>\n

Blackard Companies<\/p>\n

Discovery Sands includes nearly 800 housing units, divided among single-family, condominiums, and the aforementioned workforce housing. Other proposed amenities include a marina with 44 slips and dry storage, a 3.5-acre lagoon, and a nearly 1,200-foot lazy river. Of the development’s 350 total acres, 171 would be developed; the undeveloped land would be all wetlands, Blackard said.<\/p>\n

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“I care as much about wetlands as anybody in this room, especially if it’s going to be on the back side of the development,” Blackard told the commission. “This isn’t a vacation spot in my mind. This is a small village that has beautiful wetlands.”<\/p>\n

Galveston backlash to Discovery Sands<\/p>\n

Still, dozens of West End and Jamaica Beach residents crowded into Galveston’s City Council chamber to share their opinions before the Planning Commission’s vote, and did so for nearly an hour. Some were kinder than others, but many worried that the size and scale of Discovery Sands would be wholly out of step with their neighborhood’s unhurried, small-town feel\u2014never mind their concerns about the project’s potential impact on one of the island’s most environmentally sensitive areas.<\/p>\n

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Melissa Joseph, a Jamaica Beach City Council member, told the commission the project could threaten the small community near Galveston Island State Park’s status as a “safe coastal paradise.”<\/p>\n

“This is not just another development proposal,” she said. “This is a request to dismantle the very zoning protections that are meant to safeguard coastal communities, ours included, and once you open that door, you will not be able to close it.”<\/p>\n

\"Developer<\/p>\n

Developer Jeffory Blackard insists he’ll leave 171 acres of wetlands on the Discovery Sands property as is.<\/p>\n

Chris Gray\/Chron<\/p>\n

Jamaica Beach homeowner Heather Owens, who described herself as ‘also a proud Galvestonian,’ said the proposal demonstrated a ‘blatant disregard’ for the city’s land development regulations.<\/p>\n

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“Despite its marketing language, this proposal dismantles established developmental standards in favor of broad, unconstrained entitlements,” Owens said. “It replaces clear zoning protections with vague flexibility that benefits the developer while shifting risk onto the community.”<\/p>\n

One resident did offer Blackard something of an olive branch, though.<\/p>\n

“I’d like to invite Mr. Blackard to meet any of us about a half-hour before sunset on Bob Smith Road with a cocktail and a golf-cart ride to see the sunset and the beauty of that piece of land there,” Deborah Heywood, who moved to Jamaica Beach from Ohio 10 years ago, said, “and to see one of the things he is asking us to develop.”<\/p>\n

A little later, Blackard responded.<\/p>\n

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“That’s exactly what I’m trying to preserve,” he insisted.<\/p>\n

Wednesday, Blackard elaborated further, stating he had paid around $60 million to preserve the wetlands habitat while developing previous projects on the island, such as Delehide Cove and the 31-acre wildlife sanctuary on Bob Moore Island. He suggested the residents’ opposition to Discovery Sands was based on their history with previous developers, which had “not been a pleasant experience.”<\/p>\n

For most developers, Blackard said, “all we’re trying to do is get the apartment up and leased and flip it, right? Or get as many lots as you can in a subdivision. We don’t care about the trees that are in there; it’s all about how much can you get?<\/p>\n

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“I have a different philosophy,” Blackard continued. “If I make it nicer, people will even pay more money for it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Galveston’s Planning Commission gave its qualified approval Tuesday to a controversial mixed-use development on the island’s West End,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2084,1704,27,29,28],"class_list":{"0":"post-241471","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-chrongulf","9":"tag-chronstaff","10":"tag-texas","11":"tag-texas-headlines","12":"tag-texas-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241471\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}