HOUSTON — Residents of Houston’s Cottage Grove neighborhood continue to seek infrastructure improvements after years of delays, even as the City Council approved a new Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) that includes nearly $18 billion in projects.
The city’s five-year CIP, approved this week, allocates funding for major infrastructure projects, including water, wastewater, street and stormwater improvements. However, residents on the west side of Cottage Grove said their streets remain in poor condition and have yet to receive funding for long-requested upgrades.
Katie Niemann, a Cottage Grove resident, said garbage collection days highlight the neighborhood’s infrastructure problems, with narrow streets, potholes and trash bins making it difficult for vehicles to pass.
On the east side of the neighborhood, Darling Street has already undergone improvements as part of the city’s more than $29 million street and drainage project. The work widened streets and sidewalks to improve traffic flow.
The Darling Street project marks the first completed segment of an east Cottage Grove infrastructure project that has remained on the city’s capital improvement list for nearly a decade.
Residents have spent years urging the city to include west Cottage Grove in the improvement plan. In January 2025, Niemann and other residents appealed to Mayor John Whitmire and the City Council to address deteriorating streets and drainage.
At the meeting, Whitmire acknowledged the neighborhood’s longstanding infrastructure concerns and said his administration was focused on addressing them.
The mayor’s office did not respond to a request for an update on the status of the west Cottage Grove project.
City records show the proposed west Cottage Grove improvements are now listed in the capital improvement inventory, indicating the project remains in the planning stage but has not received funding.
District C Council Member Joe Panzarella said delays are common because the Capital Improvement Plan is updated annually as funding priorities change.
Panzarella said major construction on the eastern portion of Cottage Grove is expected to begin by the end of the year after remaining in the planning process for about 10 years.
