Land Adjacent To Police Station To Be Evaluated As Possibility For Municipal Court Building

After a lengthy discussion at Monday night’s meeting, Bellaire City Council will ask architectural firm PGAL to evaluate a piece of land as a possible location for a new Municipal Courts Building, and return to council with a recap of all possibilities explored for the project.

Councilman Pat McLaughlan added the request to the agenda, after he said he realized it was underutilized and had not been explored as an option. The property is located immediately to the east and adjacent to the existing police and Municipal Courts Building.

“If a building would be suitable for that location, we would not loose any parking space,” said McLaughlan, who said a bridge could be built over the existing driveway that leads to a police sally port. “If the building had to be elevated to move over the police driveway, we could maybe generate more parking.”

According to several council members, the Bellaire Municipal Court Judge sent a letter requesting the Municipal Court remain near the police station. Council questioned Police Chief Randall Mack on the necessity of that location. Mack said he had not studied the matter, but thought it would be acceptable either way.

Councilman Will Hickman said he was going to vote against hiring an architectural firm to evaluate the land, because he said he was not convinced the city needed new construction for courts.

“I think we should use other building facilities,” said Hickman.

John Jeffrey indicated that he was in favor of presenting all the information gathered through committees on the space needs for police and courts.

“I’m kind of frustrated after the many hours citizens spent (evaluating the buildings),” said Jeffrey. “That’s a lot of hours, a lot of information there to overlook what we did…Will is going to vote against something Pat brought to the floor, but he is lacking vital information.”

Eventually council voted unanimously, with Phil Nauert absent, on an amended proposal to contact PGAL to evaluate the land and present to council an entire package encompassing all information gathered by committees and the firm regarding expansion of the police station and municipal buildings, a project approved by voters in a 2005 bond election.