WHERE SHOULD PFLUGERVILLE'S FUTURE ANIMAL SHELTER BE LOCATED?

[u/PflugerMel]

On Tuesday, October 13, City Council will consider selecting the Biehle property on the west side of Lake Pflugerville as the preferred location for a future PAWS Animal Shelter.

Council previously directed staff to evaluate two locations, but several sites have been considered over the years.

Here's a look at the options:

• Biehle Property (Lake Pflugerville) – Approximately 6 developable acres, with room for future expansion. Utility extensions would be needed. This property has also been included in previous park plans for a nature center, gardens and recreational activities.

• Pfennig Road (near the Justice Center) – Approximately 2 acres. Staff determined the site was too small for the shelter, parking, outdoor animal areas and future expansion. Adjacent property is not available for purchase.

• Existing PAWS Site (Waterbrook Drive) – 10.07 acres total, with existing facilities occupying approximately 3 acres. Floodplain restrictions limit expansion, and underground infrastructure presents challenges. The City invested approximately $2.2m in a new dog intake building that opened in 2019. Two redevelopment options were presented in 2025, estimated at $16.7m and $19.7m.

• Lake Pflugerville (Weiss Lane) – A location proposed in the City's 2015 shelter plans, but subsequent expansion of lake parking reduced the available space.

The City has invested in shelter planning over the years, and funding for additional design work is included in the FY2027 budget. The goal is to develop a proposal that could eventually be presented to voters for a future bond.

Before selecting a location, I think it's important to consider the costs, existing investments, site limitations, and long-term plans for each property.

What do you think? Should Pflugerville build at the Biehle property, redevelop the existing shelter site, or consider another location?

[u/cactustho]

I'm really confused what Pflugerville's plan for the lake is. At one point I heard rumors of an amphitheater and outdoor community & event space, but now we're considering the animal shelter and a detention facility?

The city needs to take a field trip down to Mueller Lake Park and see what type of community development you can build around a lake.

Personally I think the animal shelter is better off centrally located and not on the border with all the ETJ/MUDs

[u/moyaboya → u/cactustho]

Yea, what? Why on earth would we put a detention facility on the lakeshore?

[u/PflugerMel → u/cactustho]

There were discussions of those expansions for phase 3 of Lake Pflugerville. I have been pushing to finish phase 2 since it was originally planned over a decade ago and funded twice in our bonds, but the first time the money was real allocated to the 1849 Park.

What do you mean by detention facility?

[u/cactustho → u/PflugerMel]

4th item on the slide "probable detention facility"

[u/Havelrag → u/PflugerMel]

The delay in all the projects makes me think the city should hire another project manager or two so projects don't get started years late.

[u/Neralian]

Absolutely not option 2, the land around the lake is limited and could be used to build a genuinely great outdoor community space with the right investments. An animal shelter adds very little to enhance the appeal of going to the lake for the vast majority of the public and would be a massive misuse of the limited area around the lake.

Option 1 is mildly better but still a waste of what could be prime recreation land and as stated it "has also been included in previous park plans". All of those listed plans general concepts would be a much better fit for developing the land around the lake, for example a garden or nature center off the parking lot in the option 2 location or the original proposed option 1 area would most likely be appreciated and enjoyed by a significantly larger percentage of the population than an animal shelter.

Tldr; Option 2 is genuinely insane and would be a ridiculous mistake to make in regards to making the lake more enjoyable IMO. Option 1 is also bad for similar, albeit less egregious reasons.

[u/UncomfortablyHere → u/Neralian]

Option 1 is plenty egregious too, it’s directly along the trails as well as a two lane road that is a major entry for the adjacent neighborhoods. The lake has people using the trail surrounding it pretty much 24/7, why would they want that area for anything other than expanding the lake park?

Both lake locations feel like lazy choices, just because the city already owns it doesn’t make it a remotely reasonable choice.

[u/Neralian → u/UncomfortablyHere]

You're right they're both quite terrible and I'm also very surprised anyone with a brain would consider proposing either location for more than 5 seconds.

[u/UncomfortablyHere → u/Neralian]

Right? Particularly when we add in the detail that the surrounding neighborhoods are not part of city limits and would not be serviced by said shelter. Also one of our city council members felt the need to highlight that murders that happened in a neighborhood across Weiss (from option 2) “wasn’t part of the city”.

[u/Irimae → u/UncomfortablyHere]

Yeah, I live in the Sorento neighborhood and honestly it’d be a slap in the face if we wanted to get support from the shelter right there but couldn’t because of the city limits issue

[u/PflugerMel → u/UncomfortablyHere]

Councilmember Rogers did suggest considering other locations that were more suitable, depending on the cost of land. I’m open to that idea, exploring land we already owned would be a better financial decision.  that’s provided that the land options are appropriate choices.

That’s why I would like to hear more about what the public thinks.  I don’t want to spend time and money designing a property that wouldn’t get public support with a bond vote.

[u/Havelrag → u/PflugerMel]

One of the lessons I've learned as a self-employed person, and in my personal life, is that cheapening out tends to cost more later in the long-run.

Better to spend once for better quality and meeting needs than end up with an inferior result which needs to be replaced sooner rather than later.

Also, this is a good time to buy commercial property/land due to the nature of the real estate market right now.

[u/PflugerMel → u/Havelrag]

Yes, that can be true.   It's important to first determine the actual need and to evaluate the various options to meet that need that provides the best value.

[u/SnooPandas1146]

Aren’t the Biehle site and the Weiss Lane site barely within city limits? I feel the animal shelter would make more sense more centrally located. Wouldn’t PAWS employees be unable to pick up a stray pet directly across the street from the shelter?

[u/PflugerMel → u/SnooPandas1146]

There are many areas surrounding the lake that are not in the city limits, but the sites are part of the Lake property so those are in city limits.

Based on current policies, I believe that is correct that the neighboring areas would not be serviced.

[u/UncomfortablyHere → u/PflugerMel]

Sounds like a complete non-starter then, unless the city is planning on annexing those areas and even then it’s a poor choice of location.

[u/SnooPandas1146 → u/PflugerMel]

It sounds like option 1 is the one going to a vote. Please consider all of these replies and explore option 3 or 4. The residents don’t want an animal shelter on the lake. We want a community recreational space combining trails, green space, playgrounds, gathering areas, and possibly a walk up cafe. We don’t want more buildings occupying the space around the lake. Keep the animal shelter centrally located!!!

[u/UncomfortablyHere]

Next to the lake is an absolutely terrible idea. I’m genuinely shocked that this was even considered.

If that area to the west is going to be developed, it would make much more sense to expand the park around the lake with more amenities or trails. Even the east side of the lake isn’t great. Why waste these spaces when there’s ample area elsewhere?

Walking trails for dogs can be created, make a new small park adjacent to the future shelter location instead. There is so much available land in the area, why are we trying to shoehorn it somewhere that makes no sense and disrupts an existing community amenity.

[u/PflugerMel → u/UncomfortablyHere]

Thank you for the feedback.  Those concerns were raised at the last discussion so I was preferring the Pfennig location but now we've heard that vacant land expansion may not be possible. It was also discussed about finding another more appropriate location, but then that would involve additional costs.

[u/LeighToss]

Is there any consideration to the city’s shelter being on a heavily trafficked, narrow 2-lane road? Becker Farm Road is the main entrance/exit for the neighborhood. The slide doesn’t mention road widening.

[u/PflugerMel → u/LeighToss]

I personally am not aware of any plans to widen that road.

[u/ShesTheSm0ke]

Not on the lake cause I'll be too tempted to adopt more cats 💔😔

[u/HooliRio]

wherever the most central location with the largest tract is. most people will not go too far out of their way to help an animal.

[u/BigManWAGun]

If you build this next to Lake Pflugerville you need to take animals found in immediately surrounding ETJ neighborhoods.

- Guy that had to hauled a dog into Austin bc Pflugervile refused to take it.

[u/Havelrag]

Option 4 sounds like the best option medium and long term, with a demo of current building. Otherwise, Option 5 also looks good.

[u/knotn3one]

Just wondering. Does Reddit have a way to create a poll? Also, Council member, are you using up votes as a proxy for opinion?

As, for me, I would prefer the old (current) rec center site. Love PAWS. We adopted a cat from PAWS

[u/PflugerMel → u/knotn3one]

I don't know about creating a poll in Reddit, but that's an interesting idea.

I have not been using up votes as a proxy since I usually ask questions about people's opinion as I find it helpful to see what people have to say.

[u/Virtual_Junket9305]

While I think calling it lake Pflugerville is itself ridiculous, It is an opportunity to start to build a communal social space and I wonder why so many of these options include lake Pflugerville. Maybe a small satellite office to get some foot traffic? The entire large complex? No.

[u/PflugerMel → u/Virtual_Junket9305]

The evaluation was for city owned property.  TBH, I don't think I have a full list of all city owned land that is undeveloped so I don't know what other properties were evaluated and didn't make it to the list to be considered.

[u/Virtual_Junket9305 → u/PflugerMel]

I don't know where in the process this stands and if the list is finalized, but even if land had to be purchased somewhere that wasn't around what is attempting to be framed as a central social focal point of the city. I could see a small little satellite operation, similar to what you might see outside of a PetSmart, where a select number of pets were put for a day just to get high visibility, but the idea of keeping acreages of kennels around jogging tracks and fishing holes doesn't make any sense to me

[u/KatWaltzdottir]

Too bad the city doesn’t own the big hayfield behind Walmart. I think that would be an ideal place for it.

[u/well_caffeinated_mom]

Keep it where it is currently and get creative. 

[u/ACL3DAY1STWK2PASSES]

What about moving the library to one of the closed schools and put the shelter in the library?

[u/limoria]

I remember the first time we were fighting to move the shelter out to the lake by the dam. It needs to be moved. Where it’s at tends to flood and they can’t do much for expansion due to things in the ground. I’m sure the neighbors would love not to have it in the middle of the neighborhood

[u/Acrobatic-Ice-2870]

The Laps of the city council

[u/Electronic-Ad-2738]

Put it on the city-owned land out near Manda.

[u/bigj8705]

You know I might be biased but do we need a new shelter? That 20 million seems like it could do a lot

[u/miltorio → u/bigj8705]

Yes. A new shelter was needed many years ago. The bandaid approach that's been being used for the last decade or so is ridiculous. The building the shelter is in is a converted fleet service building. It has mold that needed to be remediated. The a/c constantly fails. It is a miserable location to work. It is a miserable location for the animals. It literally floods with inches of water everytime there's a heavy rain. There's a single purpose built facility for dog intake. It should have been a much larger project when that was put in. The only reason it is even coming close to servicing the city's need is the length the staff there go to make it happen and the assistance of the friends of the shelter. Give them a call and see if they can make time to show you around and you can form your own opinion; I have little doubt what your opinion will be.

[u/bigj8705 → u/miltorio]

I’m not doubting that. I rather see it by city hall or the existing areas.. for example shelter by a library or something else.. maybe I’m off base but increase the cost and build both..

Like I would rather see a community shelter along with a park or library or something community center wise.

Also I vote right by Amazon for the location if not.

Also on the cost it’s more than I’m seeing 20 million when elementary schools are being closed that affect a lot of the community.

[u/miltorio → u/bigj8705]

No arguments from me on a combo animal shelter library. It would make kitty cafe be every day.

[u/PflugerMel → u/bigj8705]

Other options last year had the cost at $16m for a 15k Sq ft facility at the existing location.

[u/kalash_cake]

What’s the cost of option 2

[u/PflugerMel → u/kalash_cake]

They didn't provide it to us but I believe it's in the same range of $18-19m.

[u/Master_Heron_7011]

Option 1

[u/Depottime512]

Option 1 sounds best among these proposals