Neighborhood fights Grand Parkway Expansion
More than 60 new homes stand in the way of the Grand Parkway Expansion Project. Some homeowners in the Lakes of Avalon Villages say they are being victimized since the new highway will go right through the middle of their community. They say the home builder never informed them of the plan. The Grand Parkway Association says the developer of the property has known about the proposed route since 2004. The executive director even fought for the developer to inform its future buyers.

Spring residents learn subdivision is in tollway's path — and wonder why they weren't told
Nobody told her that their brand-new neighborhood was in the footprint of the Grand Parkway, a planned highway encircling Houston. Or that most of the nearby houses would likely be bulldozed when construction began on the four-lane tollway that would be her future next-door neighbor."Lennar or the developer should have disclosed this to us, and we would have went to another neighborhood and tried to start our new life," Martin said. "I planned on leaving this house to my grandchildren. But who wants to raise children next to a freeway?" Robert A. Hudson, a Spring developer who partnered with Lennar on the project, said builders knew the highway might come through the subdivision.

Shaky ground: Problems continue for homeowners on expansive soil
The dark farmland, which was used to grow corn and cotton for generations, expands and contracts in the presence or absence of water; that much everyone knows. Special care and precautions, like laying a deep, reinforced foundation, must be taken when building a home on expansive soil. If builders don’t adhere to the demands of expansive soil, problems arise. Due to the foundation’s movement, the house’s back door would not close properly, allowing water to enter the house during storms before it was repaired. Chris Barnhill said the issue of expansive soil, while a serious one, has not been the most unsettling part of their transaction with Lennar. He said every aspect of his home’s construction gave him the impression of a job done on the cheap.“If they’d done everything else they were supposed to do, we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” he said. Dozens of homeowners in the Huttoparke neighborhood have similar stories to tell. Nails backing out of ceilings, cracks along foundations and doors out of square, or not cut at a precise right angle, are the most common issues.

Homebuilders Get Demolished
If you think that homebuilding stocks are bottoming out, you may be overly optimistic: Florida-based homebuilder Lennar's second-quarter results are a good indicator that the industry still has a ways to go before turning around. In this quarter, which ended on May 31st, Lennar lost $120.9 million, or 76 cents per share. While this represents an “improvement” over the $244.2 million or $1.55 a share it lost during the comparable period last year, it’s still substantially more than the 59-cent per-share loss analysts had been expecting.

Shaky ground
Some say homeownership is at the heart of the American Dream — a symbol of family, success and security. For most people, buying a home is the biggest investment they’ll ever make. Getting what they pay for is a value probably as important to Americans as homeownership. Unfortunately for dozens of homeowners in Hutto, expansive soil and questionable building practices have combined to create a perfect storm of discontented residents asking construction companies to right shaky foundations...Janet Ahmad, president of Homeowners for Better Building, a San Antonio-based organization devoted to defending homeowners’ rights, said homebuilders Lennar and Centex did not sufficiently inform homebuyers of the possible problems.

N. Texas shingle problems turn to blame game
Shingle manufacturer CertainTeed has been working with Lennar Homes to replace or reseal shingles at no cost to homeowners. Also, CertainTeed extended their five-year wind warranty to ten years. But when April's powerful storms wreaked havoc on North Texas, that warranty suddenly ended. Homeowners in The Colony are caught in the middle of a storm between their builder, a shingle manufacturer and their insurance companies. They said no one wants to take responsibility for the damage to their roofs.

Homeowners' concerns heard by state
It's not a block party or a home tour, at least not the kind you're used to. It was a tour of Hutto's defective homes. Neighbors said a majority of houses in three different neighborhoods built by Lennar Homes have been plagued with cracks, nail pops and mold, among numerous other problems. Tuesday night, representatives from the state heard homeowners' concerns.

Residents to sue homebuilders
A group of homeowners in Bakersfield is suing one of the country's largest homebuilders over problems in their north-west homes.They released a statement saying: These homeowners have numerous problems with their homes including but not limited to cracking of stucco, cracking of concrete, window defects, roof defects, moisture intrusion into their homes and general poor construction qualify... Milstein, Adelman & Kreger is investigating these problems as well as problems of other homes constructed by Lennar Homes within the Westlake development. See Video Report: Write or video record your comments on this article

Erin Brockovich Sets Sights on Lennar
High-profile environmental advocate Erin Brockovich has been investigating possible health-damaging chemicals at a Lennar housing community in South Carolina. Next week, she will be unveiling test results that, she says, confirm the existence of methane and hazardous chemical contaminations at the site that are "of concern," TheStreet.com has learned...Last year, the EPA tested the air quality of 19 homes in the community and found methane levels, but the agency concluded that all of the homes were "significantly below the lower explosive limit for methane."