LEAGUE CITY — Apparently in League City, La Quinta is Spanish for “not in my backyard.”
Sixteen residents of the Victory Lakes subdivision Monday protested the hotel proposed for a site along Gulf Freeway, arguing the 64-room hotel would attract undesirable characters, including sex offenders and hard partying blue-collar workers and amplify the neighborhood’s growing traffic problems.
They called the proposed hotel the latest in a long line of disappointments wrought by Victory Lakes developer Roy Mease.
Mease turned what was supposed to be an upscale suburb and high-end offices into a hub for big box retailers, fast food restaurants and hotels, Victory Lakes residents claimed.
“I’m opposed to these hotels,” resident John Calebrese said. “It’s just another step in the wrong direction of the promises made to the original homeowners of Victory Lakes ... (The subdivision) is nothing like what was promised.”
But Mease said the subdivision, with its 14 big box retailers, brings in an “ungodly amount” of sales tax revenue for League City. There is no reason to oppose a hotel plotted for land far away from any Victory Lakes homes, he said.
Planning and zoning commission members deadlocked on the La Quinta, planned for the 2400 block of Gulf Freeway south. Four commissioners voted in favor of the hotel and four voted against. City council members will have the ultimate decision about on the hotel, the third proposed for Victory Lakes. Two other hotels, including a Hampton Inn and a Candlewood Suites, are under construction.
The city has long contended it has lost businesses and tourists to other cities because it doesn’t have enough hotel rooms.
League City is losing $750,000 a year in tourist revenue because people who come for tournaments at Big League Dreams room in Webster, said Doug Frazior, League City’s economic development coordinator. Sports complex Big League Dreams, west of I-45 and east of Calder Road, is supposed to boost the city’s economy by filling hotels and restaurants.
The new University of Texas Medical Branch Hospital, under construction along Gulf Freeway, will only increase the demand for hotel rooms in League City, Frazior said.
But La Quinta is not the preferred choice of middle-to-upper income professionals away on business, residents countered.
“People who generally stay there are hardworking construction workers, welders and truck drivers,” Kim Tecca said. “At night, they relax like they like to relax — they stay up all night drinking.”
Several residents argued sexual predators could live in the hotel, which they said is less than 2,000 feet from a school.
A city ordinance prohibits registered sex offenders from living within 2,000 feet of a place where children congregate.
One resident said the hotel would become an after-hours rendezvous spot for men who frequent Heartbreaker’s Gentlemen’s Club.
Jack Owens, a planning and zoning commissioner, pointed to the hundreds of displaced Galveston Hurricane Ike victims who lived in island hotels for six months or longer, and said, “You deduce what that means.” He promptly voted against the hotel.
Despite residents’ arguments otherwise, La Quinta is planning an upscale version of its hotel for League City, complete with an indoor corridor, a pool and a small meeting space, said Craig Brantl of the La Quinta Corp.
The $8 million hotel, which would have an urban design, would attract “upper business clientele,” such as medical professionals and aerospace engineers.
“This is not built for the local trucker,” he said.
Those fighting the hotel are the same unhappy residents who fought the Wal-Mart in 2005, Mease said. Residents in 2005 became enraged when they learned high-end offices and upscale eateries planned nearby would instead become a Wal-Mart Super Center. The homeowners’ lawsuit settled out of court.
Victory Lakes, with its booming retail developments, is a boon to the city’s tax base, Mease said.
“When I came here, that corner of the city brought in less than $1 million,” he said. “In 2007, it brought in $142 million.”
But some Victory Lakes residents threatened to move if commercial developments like La Quinta continue to push into the subdivision. This is not the type of growth residents want or need, said resident Kory Cox.
“I feel like this is not what we signed up for,” he said.
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How They Voted
FOR THE HOTEL: Christopher Hullman, Douglas Tuner, William Koonce, Wade Williams
AGAINST THE HOTEL: Marc Edelman, Jack Owens, Melvin Bogus, Wayne Lake
