Homeowners on hook for roads
Ventura Heights' streets are among 77 miles of roadways located outside city limits that never have been accepted for maintenance by Bexar County.Developer Obra Homes neither built the streets in Ventura Heights to the county's specifications nor completed the needed fixes — steps required before Bexar County will take over maintenance.

Homeowners on hook for roads
By Jennifer Hiller - Express-News  View Reader Comments

         

Residents entering the Ventura Heights neighborhood weave between three massive, gaping potholes.

To spare car bumpers, they've placed sand, bricks and gravel at the base of their driveways, where the street has pulled away and left a foot-wide gap that's a breeding ground for weeds and wildflowers.

Despite the fact that their modest neighborhood of one- and two-story brick homes near Converse is just a few years old, the street repairs are expected to cost $1.3 million.

And thanks to their defunct developer, the homeowners have to pay for it themselves.

Ventura Heights' streets are among 77 miles of roadways located outside city limits that never have been accepted for maintenance by Bexar County.

Developer Obra Homes neither built the streets in Ventura Heights to the county's specifications nor completed the needed fixes — steps required before Bexar County will take over maintenance.

With Obra Homes out of business, homeowners are stuck with cracked and failing streets that appear decades older and technically are not public.

“We all have to drive around like it's a maze,” resident Victor Cruz said. “People are using sandbags to get into their driveways.”

Bexar County estimates it will cost $1.3 million to bring Ventura Heights' streets into compliance — $7,731.84 for each of the 170 homes.

It wants to use something called the road assessment program, a fix outlined in the state's transportation code for just this kind of situation. Under the program, the county would pay up front for the repairs, place a lien on each home and be paid back the lien amount when the home sells in the future.

It would be the first time in at least 15 years that the program's been used in Bexar County. But at least half of the homeowners would have to vote in favor of program, and so far it's not clear they will.

“It's not fair to make the rest of the taxpayers of Bexar County pay to repair those roads,” County Engineer Renee Green said.

Ventura Heights homeowners are, to say the least, not happy.

“They're putting it on us to fix the streets,” Cruz said. “We learned a lesson the hard way.”

Ventura Heights is the most dramatic example, but Green has a list of more than 60 developments in a similar situation. The developments all are outside city limits, not eligible for Bexar maintenance and most have road problems that have gone unfixed for more than two years as the county waits for developers to bring the streets into Bexar compliance.

Green sent a round of certified letters to all the listed developers April 26 requesting they do the needed work and has heard back from several so far. The developers range from smaller companies such as 281 Canyon Partners LTD and LGI Homes to such major players as KB Home and Pulte Homes of Texas.

The neighborhoods mostly were built during the housing boom earlier this decade.

“Developers that are going to have a presence in the community for a long time will work with us,” she said. “It's the ones who came and went in the early 2000s that are a problem.”

Developer Michael Moore said road fixes usually are routine. One year after road construction, the county gives developers a punch list of road or drainage work to do. It's the developer's responsibility to make sure the road construction contractors return to the neighborhood and bring the streets into compliance.

“The person responsible is the person who did the work, who owned the subdivision and got the approvals (to build the subdivision),” Moore said. “Essentially, if they never got their punch list done, the roads in theory don't belong to the county.”

Bexar County used to require developers to post bonds to ensure money would be available to cover road fixes, but stopped the practice in the early 1990s.

To prevent another Ventura Heights situation, county commissioners recently voted to require, starting this month, an 18-month warranty bond for 10 percent of the road construction price.

Ventura Heights resident Evette Cole moved in five years ago.

“This is my first time buying a home,” she said. “Who knows to ask, ‘Are the streets owned by the city or Bexar County?'”

The idea of having to pay more than $7,700, even if it would come out of the sale of her home later, is unimaginable.

“Don't nobody have $7,000,” Cole said. “We don't have that kind of money.”

With homes for sale in the neighborhood ranging in price from $89,000 to $119,000, a $7,700 lien would represent a significant chunk of a home's value.

She plans to vote against the road assessment because she doesn't trust it will cost only $7,700 per home to make the repairs.

“It's a bad deal all over,” she said.

But Cruz plans to vote in favor of the assessment because he sees no other alternative.

“I'm thinking in two to five years we won't be able to drive on the streets,” Cruz said. “Nobody wants to do anything. Before the streets become little pebbles of rocks like in the country, we need to get it fixed.”

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