Enrollment for Liberty County Schools has topped 11,000 and if projections are accurate, those numbers could get bigger in the next several years.
Jeff Ricketson, executive director of the Liberty Consolidated Planning Commission, detailed the potential and coming housing developments for the community, which could bring in thousands more residents — and with it, more kids for the school system.
Several land use proposals before the LCPC will have a big impact on the schools, Ricketson told school board members recently.
The county’s population stands at an estimated 69,210. The 2020 Census put it at 65,317 and the projection for the end of the year calls for Liberty County’s population to hit 70,585.
By 2030, the population in the county is estimated to be 79,000.
“Liberty County is definitely in a growth mode and we need to plan for our communities and our schools to plan to accommodate that additional growth,” Ricketson said.
The LCPC expects close to 3,000 new homes to be built in the next 1520 years.
“That will have an impact on the schools,” Ricketson said.
Board member Carol Guyett also worried about the traffic the developments will have on the nearby roads.
“There is already a traffic problem with Griffin Park. And we’re talking about doubling the number of homes,” she said. “If there is not some careful studying, there is going to be a lot of wrecks out there. I’m really concerned about the traffic. Better to handle it right up front rather than try to correct it.”
Board Chair Verdell Jones worried about the cost to build a new school. The last school the system built is the Liberty College and Career Academy and a new elementary school could cost in the range of $30-$40 million.
“Our facilities are great. They are great,” she said. “I am a little concerned at this point about cost, only because to build a school is going to take multi millions and from the sound of things, it’s going to be sooner rather than later.”
On the way, Ricketson said, is proposed development for what has long been called Hacks Pasture. The tract is a couple of thousand acres, with much of it in wetlands, but Ricketson pointed out there are significant areas of uplands on which to build. The plans, he said, call for a couple of thousand homes to be built in that area over the years.
RTS Homes is planning for 800 new homes on the Davis tract off Live Oak Church Road and the project, called Grand Reserve, will be done in phases over the next 10 years. The nearby Griffin Park development, about 800 homes, has been built out and was done over about 15 years.
The first phase for Grand Reserve will be 250 homes, and the tract is 1,000 acres total.
The Heritage Pointe development is growing, Ricketson added, with between 800 and 900 homes and a mix of single-family homes and townhomes.
“They’re well underway,” Ricketson said. “At the rate we’ve been going, that first phase will be built out in about three years.”
Tranquil South in Flemington, first approved in 2017, is well underway with its second phase and will have about 500 homes once it’s finished, Ricketson said.
Ricketson pointed to an 80-unit townhome complex coming to Crystal Lake Road and a 150home development for Bill Carter Road at Lewis Frasier Road.
Ricketson said the coming developments will have curb and gutter and greenspaces. Other subdivisions developed that don’t have those, he said, were approved in the 1990s when those standards did not exist.
He also said as more homes are built, more commercial opportunities are likely to come. He anticipates the Publix site clearing to start soon, and the area around the traffic signal to be installed at the Publix to “definitely take off.”
“The commercial follows the rooftops,” Ricketson said. “As the homes come, we become more desirable for commercial development.”