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Commissioner Consider Fix Ventura Streets
Wednesday, 26 May 2010

No map yet to road-fix solution
The distraught homeowners of Ventura Heights, a middle-class subdivision in Northeast Bexar County, found a sympathetic ear Tuesday at Commissioners Court... Commissioners Paul Elizondo... said they were concerned about setting a precedent because so many other neighborhoods have similar problems.  If Bexar County started paying to fix roads in Ventura Heights, it would open a “Pandora's box” throughout the county, where there's 77 miles of streets in similar, though perhaps less drastic, condition, Elizondo said.

 No map yet to road-fix solution

By Josh Baugh - Express-News
    Read and Post Comments
The distraught homeowners of Ventura Heights, a middle-class subdivision in Northeast Bexar County, found a sympathetic ear Tuesday at Commissioners Court — but not a commissioner-supported plan to deal with their neighborhood's terrible roads.

They'd gone to plead for help from the commissioners because their streets are riddled with potholes large enough to swallow children, and the roads no longer are connected to the curbs.
 

Here's the rub: The streets aren't public because the developer never made the repairs needed to bring them in compliance with county standards, so they're not the county's responsibility. And later the developer, Obra Homes, went belly up.

“We need to go after somebody on this,” County Judge Nelson Wolff said.

Now, the onus has fallen on homeowners, who were told by county staff that they'd face liens of $7,700 per house to fix the roads.

But that wasn't an acceptable response for Wolff, who became visibly angry when that issue was raised during Tuesday's meeting.

“We set the policies, not a staff person,” he said.

One at a time, homeowners described the unbearable condition of their streets.

A mother feared her daughter would be seriously injured by falling in a pothole and slamming against its ragged side. Another woman said the potholes are so large that she's taken to calling them “sinkholes.”

They're so prevalent that vehicles can't pass each other in some spots. And the drop-off between driveways and the street can be as much as two feet, some residents said.

“I have to drive down the sidewalk,” said Thomasina Nichols, who can't access her own driveway from the street. Instead, she drives into a neighbor's driveway, across her yard and into her own.

County staffers estimate reconstructing the roads would cost $1.3 million — money that doesn't exist in the budget.

Commissioners Paul Elizondo and Tommy Adkisson, whose precinct contains the subdivision, said they were concerned about setting a precedent because so many other neighborhoods have similar problems.

If Bexar County started paying to fix roads in Ventura Heights, it would open a “Pandora's box” throughout the county, where there's 77 miles of streets in similar, though perhaps less drastic, condition, Elizondo said.

The commissioner suggested directing the district attorney's office to team up with the attorney general to file a class-action lawsuit for deceptive trade practices.

Wolff said he wanted to do something in the near-term.

“We need to figure out how to help you,” Wolff said. “When you bought your homes, I'd assume that you thought those were public streets.”

Wolff said the county doesn't have the money to reconstruct the roads in Ventura Heights, much less the remainder of the unaccepted roads throughout the county. The 77 miles that would cost $231 million to rebuild.

But county staff is looking into emergency status for the subdivision's roads so they at least could be repaired and drivable again.
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/commissioners_incensed_over_developer_street_blunder_94869119.html
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