A sidewalk intended to allow children from a Fair Oaks Ranch apartment complex to walk to their elementary school has been scrubbed, saving the city over a quarter-million dollars.
A 1,300-foot sidewalk linking the Vantage at Fair Oaks Apartments with Van Raub Elementary was deemed no longer necessary by the Fair Oaks City Council at its March 6 meeting when approval for the project died for lack of a motion.
The Boerne Independent School District last summer adjusted its school attendance zones in order to funnel children into Viola Wilson Elementary, its newest school that opened in August.
In so doing, the school district rezoned students living in the Vantage Apartments to Kendall Elementary School. They now are being bused the 5.2 miles to Kendall instead of walking the half mile to Van Raub, negating the need for the Vantage-to-Van Raub walkway.
“It seems that circumstances have changed since we looked at this initially,” Place 2 City Councilman Keith Rhoden said. “I’m not sure I see the benefit of having that sidewalk done when we have nothing else along Dietz Elkhorn (Road).” Mayor Greg Maxton said he tracked the project back to 2020-2021 when the city was approached by the developer for The Vantage Apartments, asking for the connector to the school for its youngest residents.
“It states it’s for the walking kids from the Vantage Apartments to the school, which makes sense,” Maxton said.
But when the Boerne ISD shifted the students to a different school, the need — and support — for the sidewalk evaporated.
“It doesn’t make sense to spend this amount of money to build a sidewalk that, for the original purpose, we’re not getting to,” Maxton said.
“In my opinion,” Rhoden said, “that’s a lot of money to spend if we have very little traffic or activity. I’m not in favor of utilizing the money even though we budgeted for it.”
The city originally budgeted $388,232 for the project, which drew 16 bidders. The low bid of $264,298 was submitted by Bueno Pro Services LLC, with a 5% contingency bringing the total to $277,513.
“I don’t know that this is the right time to be building this sidewalk,” the mayor added.
The city will be returning a $42,000 donation received from a combination of developers to aid the city in its funding of the sidewalk. Two other donations were verbally offered, at $10,000 each, but had not been collected prior to the start of construction on the sidewalk.
The amount, already part of the city’s 2024-25 budget, will remain available for other projects through the city’s capital improvement projects (CIP) budget.
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