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Voting residents in The Woodlands suburb of Houston rejected two proposals on Nov. 2 that were designed to incorporate the neighborhood as its own city.
The two proposals were rejected by a 2-to-1 margin, which had they passed would have seen The Woodlands, a township 30 miles north of downtown Houston, be readdressed as a city, according to KHOU.
"It's risky because we don't know all the facts. And if we vote yes, we can't go back," said resident Maris Blair, who has lived in The Woodlands for 30 years. "It's rushed. They put this on the ballot at the last minute and they don't give us all the facts."
Under Proposition A, the township would have seen the authorization of Type-A City Incorporation of The Woodlands Township District, including the addition of an initial property tax rate of not more than $0.2231 per one hundred dollars valuation of taxable property, according to KHOU. Proposition B would have brought renaming the township to The City of The Woodlands and would introduce the transfer of the rights, powers, privileges, duties, purposes, functions, responsibilities, the authority to issue bonds and the authority to impose taxes into the township.
In total for Montgomery County and Harris County, about 68% of voters in The Woodlands opposed incorporation, while 32% voted in favor of it, with 7,470 voters voting for Proposition A and 15,736 were opposed, and a total of 7,547 voters voting for Proposition B and 15,611 voting against, according to Community Impact Newspaper.
"Incorporation actually transfers the authority to our own residents who get to write their own Woodlands constitution, get their own home rule charter," said Woodlands resident Gordy Bunch, according to KHOU.
For over a decade, The Woodlands has remained the sole township within the state of Texas that does not have the full authority or structure of a city, according to KHOU.