Greens In Regulation disputes
city’s position on street
Editor’s Note: This letter was provided by Travis Wisdom for publication in the Snyder Daily News.
RE: Compliance with the City of Snyder’s Subdivision Ordinance No.1066
Dear Mr. Taylor:
I received your letter dated 10/3/18, out of the blue, and immediately phoned your office to discuss the inaccuracies and misunderstandings contained therein. To date, I have never received a return phone call from you or anyone else from the City of Snyder regarding our development along Houston Parkway. I assumed, therefore, that you had realized the mistakes and other corrigenda contained in your letter and, that the matter was moot. In fact, other than the letter, from the time that we finished the 10-lot development in early 2013 until now, we have never heard from you or anyone with the City of Snyder regarding any development issues. To my surprise, our wonderful real estate agent, Melissa Petty, shared with me an article from the local newspaper in which it states that you and the City Council plan to meet to discuss suing my company, Greens in Regulation LLC, over the false contention that we agreed to build a road through our private property for the city’s benefit.
Before I respond directly to that particular falsehood, allow me to digress and remind you that we have always complied with the wishes of the City of Snyder and worked in concert with the city to bring forth positive, quality developments in the local housing market. I have little idea why, at this point in time, you and your local newspaper have chosen to besmirch my name and the reputation of our company. Yet, after over five years of complete silence, your letter now threatens me with legal action. Why not just pick up the phone and call me? I sense that the explanation for this is that it would have been quite uncomfortable for you to engage in a live, person-to-person conversation with me about matters both of us unquestionably know to be false. Consequently, you sent me the letter and now are hiding behind the thinly veiled threat of involving your “city attorney’’ in wasteful litigation. It must be a true luxury to be able to spend money which is not yours on legal action in which you have no chance of prevailing simply because you have the power of the people’s purse. Of course, your knowing full well of the untruth of the matters asserted in your letter is the same reason you were unwilling to return my voice message concerning the issue.
But, alas, in direct response to your letter, wherein you quote generalized and inapplicable language from Article VIII of the City’s subdivision ordinance, I remind you once again that we completed this development more than 5 years ago and have heard nothing from you. The language in your letter states that two options are available to developers of subdivisions: 1) receive approval after necessary improvements are in place or; 2) place with the City secretary a certified check from a local bank securing all necessary improvements. Our development complied with the former. We paid thousands of dollars to have the area surveyed by CTS. We dropped the iron pins marking the boundaries of the ten lots. We cleared and graded the required alley for waste removal. We contracted with Black Plumbing and spent thousands more dollars running water (all according to the city’s guidelines) to each of the 10 lots. Finally, we gifted an easement to the City to use our alley for trash pickup to benefit the residents. The benefit to developing the lots along Houston Parkway was that curb, gutter and a paved city street already existed. And, each lot has street frontage and access for ingress/egress to Houston Parkway. I even attended a city council meeting wherein we explained that we made the lots longer/deeper than normal so that homes could be set farther off the street for more quiet enjoyment.
As for the latter option, the City of Snyder does not have a certified check from my company securing any future improvements for the 10-lot subdivision along Houston Parkway because there were no future improvements promised or obligated for this development. We already made each and every improvement necessary to the subdivision and required by the City of Snyder.
Yet now, after five years of complete silence, your letter (and several uninformed newspaper articles) imply that we are not fulfilling an obligation we owe to the city by not designing, constructing, paying for and donating to the City of Snyder a new city street connecting Towle Memorial Park to Houston Parkway. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing could be more deceiving to your taxpayers.
First, the costs associated with the construction of such a new city street would easily exceed ten-times the total sales value of the 10 platted lots. In fact, it would easily exceed the purchase price of the entire parcel of property. Quite literally, there isn’t a developer on God’s green earth that would have agreed, at its sole cost, to build a road of that length and that width for a ten-lot subdivision. And we certainly did not agree to do so. Perhaps you are attempting to intimidate our company into providing something to your city government that was never intended by threatening us with the specter of legal action? If so, it saddens me as threats and intimidation have no place in American government, or Texas government. The great majority of my family hails from the great State of Texas. In fact, the 33rd Governor of the State, Hon. James Burr V. Allred, is a direct relative.
He, like most of my family had a strong sense of limited government and, was a staunch opponent of government overreach. We will not be intimidated by you simply because you hold a position of power and wish to waste the taxpayer’s dollars attempting to cover up your own ineptitudes.
Secondly, suffice it to say, I am willing to bet that you can produce no writing to show to any of your constituents that would demonstrate we agreed to design, construct and pay for any new city street on our private property.
Similarly, you cannot produce a single writing or document wherein you requested our company deposit with the city secretary a certified check for funds securing such a future city street.
The truth is, no such street was ever imagined for our 10-lot development. The possibility of any other street being constructed on any other part of our property was purely speculation or conjecture and totally dependent on the market conditions in the future.
Third, the property for which you claim I am obligated to build a new city street is our private property. There is no obligation under Texas law that we construct a public road through our property and “donate” it to the City of Snyder.
What would be the purpose of this road? Simply to connect Towle Park and Houston Parkway at our sole cost and expense? Who would benefit from this? Do the residents of Towle Park want their neighborhood to have a second entrance? Do the residents of Towle Park want increased traffic? Have you or anyone else with the City discussed this idea with those residents? Have you or anyone else with the City researched the statistics provided by the Texas Department of Public Safety about how greater access to an area often leads to increased criminal activity for said area?
Fourth, we provided the City of Snyder with an easement to operate trash services on the alley we constructed for the 10 lots made the subject of your letter.
Under Texas law, an easement is “the right in favor of one person to use the land of another person.” Our company owns this property and gave this right to the City. It was our pleasure to provide this easement as we once enjoyed a strong working relationship with the city. We have no idea what changed this or why we received your threatening letter.
However, the giving of this easement in no way created any obligation to construct a new city street on our private property.
In summary, you and the city council are free to take any action you wish to take in this matter.
Clearly, you do not need me to explain that fact to you. However, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that any legal action against our company, especially one as baseless in fact and legal right as the one you have threatened me with, will result in a cross claim against you, personally, and a counterclaim against the City.
I am truly sorry that you have chosen the shameful tactics you have employed here. We were fortunate enough to make great friends in the City of Snyder over the years we have developed quality homesites for its residents. Nothing you or your council does will destroy those relationships. However, the record needs to be clear that you have misrepresented all of the facts relevant to this situation and, anyone with common sense can see that.
Please feel free to contact me with any questions you may have, but this is our official position on the matter. I wish you all due speed in arriving at your next decision on this issue. Furthermore, please consider this letter “open” and share it with your taxpayers so that they may be informed of your actions.
Travis Wisdom
Greens in Regulation, LLC
Snyder churches
Dear Editor,
We have such a wonderful place to live in Snyder. I moved here around 44 years ago. Next door to my family was a wonderful family, the Palmers. Jim Palmer worked at WTC and his wife was a school teacher in a Snyder school. Our daughter attended WTC for a while, one son attended Snyder Junior High School and another son had a sitter. All was well.
Our city has many wonderful churches. Now, many years later, my husband and I attend Calvary Baptist Church, but the great news is Colonial Hill Baptist Church has a new pastor, Reid Johnson, who was raised in Snyder.
Reid was the youth director some years back, but went elsewhere for a while. We are so happy to have his family back in town serving at Colonial Hill.
We must pray for all our churches for the hardworking families to find a place to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Snyder and our country are facing a crisis to find the right kind of leadership. Look around and see the need and help our neighbors and friends to find a place to worship so our young people will go out into life with a Christian foundation.
We are so lucky to have great talent in our churches and schools. Find a church and get involved. Watch our children grow in the Lord so our schools will be safe and turn out wonderful youth to go out into the world and make Snyder proud.
Susan Bills