Environmental Heritage

We are judged by what we leave behind. In a forest that once yielded timber, and the Grogan-Cochran Lumber Company once flourished, The Woodlands now provides a place where people live in harmony with nature. As the wildflowers grow in the spring, and the many trees distributed over the years on Arbor Day thrive, now as many as four generations of the same family call The Woodlands home.

Although the land use plan for The Woodlands was created in the late 1960s and early 1970's, it continues to guide development, thanks to its fundamental correctness and flexibility to accommodate market trends. The original plan utilized the expertise of notables like Ian McHarg, author of “Design with Nature,” William Pereira, Richard P. Browne, Robert Hartsfield, Gladstone Associates and others. This is the team that George Mitchell assembled to piece together the thousands of acres of land that became The Woodlands. They laid the groundwork for a master plan that provided a notable alternative to the urban sprawl that was rampant at the time, and created one of only two HUD Title VII communities to survive and become successful.

Among the many accolades The Woodlands has garnered for environmental preservation and master planning are the Award of Excellence from the Urban Land Institute and the international Nations in Bloom Gold Award.

When The Woodlands' ninth village, Creekside Park, opened in 2007, a 1,700-acre preserve was dedicated and named in honor of George Mitchell. The George Mitchell Nature Preserve is part of the Spring Creek Greenway Project, an initiative by Harris and Montgomery Counties to amass 33 acres of Spring Creek frontage for a regional nature trail. The Woodlands Development Company has been given the Corporate Conservation Leadership Award by the Nature Conservancy of Texas for development of the George Mitchell Nature Preserve.