FULSHEAR, Texas — Fulshear leaders met Tuesday night to discuss the future of their city after residents voiced concerns about ongoing water issues.
The residents said they think that more homes being built will just make the problems worse. They packed City Hall to make sure they were heard.
Randy Connor is a new homeowner with a new problem.
"Initially, we noticed the water pressure was not what we had in our previous home," Connor said.
The Fort Bend County suburb is growing quickly and residents said they don't know what to do. They want the city to put a halt to new construction until the water issues are resolved.
"It was bad enough our hot water heater quit working," Connor said.
So Connor took matters into his own hands and created an online petition.
"All my petition asked was to quit granting, or quit approving, new building permits," Connor said.
Residents are worried more development will just exacerbate their problems.
"The more connections they are putting to the few wells we have ... it's just another person taking a little off of it," Lexi Giannetto said.
The petition got more than 700 signatures.
City Council listened.
On Tuesday, it appeared as if they were going to put a halt to property development, but after going into executive session, city leaders decided against it.
"In our current state the city does not meet the standards for the moratorium chapter," Mayor Aaron Groff said.
While it's not the outcome many expected, Groff said city leaders were listening to the concerns of the residents and will continue working on the water problems.
"We understand, completely, how urgent this issue is. We are working around the clock to solve how urgent this is (to make sure) next summer we are not having those conversations," Groff said.
City Council also voted to expedite water infrastructure projects, but it will only speed up projects by 45 to 60 days. City leaders said some of the projects should be completed by next summer.
In the meantime, residents said they'll continue showing up to meetings and put pressure on leaders to resolve the water issues.