City and Port negotiations may be close to compromise in Freeport

FREEPORT — Officials remain close-mouthed about negotiations between the city and the port regarding the annexation of city property by the port in and around the East End.

Following another executive session at a special meeting on Monday, the City Council had Councilman Jeff Peña read an official statement indicating that the city feels they will be able to make information from the talks public as early as next week.

Port Freeport Commissioner Rob Giesecke said that while he could not discuss any specifics of the negotiation process, he was hopeful that something beneficial could be agreed to for both sides and that he personally thought great strides had been made in recent weeks. He also said he had a large amount of respect for the effort made by the area’s State Representative, Cody Vasut.

“Cody Vasut has been absolutely phenomenal through this whole process,” Giesecke said.

Vasut had helped try to move the process along by getting the two parties to agree to the mediation and he had insights into what legislation has been under discussion.

“I was contacted about a dispute between Port Freeport and the City of Freeport concerning the East End as well as future development in southern Brazoria County. I got both parties to agree to mediate their dispute with a judge and facilitated that process,” Vasut said. “I have not been involved in any of the legal negotiations. That’s a separate thing that the judge has been helping them mediate and resolve.”

Perhaps more importantly, he says that legislation could help put an end to the issue in the future, leaving the Port’s expansion in the hands of residents, should they look to the city for more real estate. He said he’s looking for two key points moving forward.

“The first is to protect the citizens of Freeport from any future expansion into the developed residential portions of the city like what happened in the East End before my time,” Vasut said. “At the same time, provide Port Freeport with the tools it needs to be able to develop in southern Brazoria County to create jobs for citizens of Freeport and beyond and to continue to be an economic powerhouse.”

The bill that’s been filed does those two things, he says, first by providing provisions that prevent the port’s expansion without receiving an approval through a general election of residents in the area that is being targeted.

“A referendum of the citizens — not of council — but of the entire city,” Vasut said, specifying it would be the residents in those areas or neighborhoods doing the voting. “It will be known as a protected zone.”

Any residents who do live next to port land would also be assured of certain restrictions on what they can put on that property through zoning that will ensure some industries can not be placed there, including petrochemical.

“The bill designates an area in the East End and near that area as a port zone that allows it to be developed for light industrial uses,” Vasut said. “So that ensure that any future development in that East End will not be heavy industrial.”

Some members of the Port Commission have expressed a desire to aggressively expand in the past, far beyond the current, controversial movements they’ve made in the past decade. Vasut saying there is non-residential space available for them.

“There are other areas to the south and west of the existing port facilities that will be open for development, but in which no residents currently live, so it would basically shepherd the port away from the city of Freeport.”

The City Council is scheduled to discuss the matter once again in executive session Monday with the consideration of an interlocal agreement on the agenda.