For a little story on the animosity that real estate developers are engendering in our neck of the woods due to the way they manage to transform bucolic hill country vistas into moonscapes of destruction, see this recent article in the San Antonio Current by Greg Harmon of harmon on earth (emphasis added):
[In early 2007] Reports that the San Antonio Water System was seeking to expand its authority across the city’s entire 5-mile extraterritorial jurisdiction, and that a new high-density development straddling Medina and Bandera counties was seeking SAWS sewer and water service, had rattled a broader geography of turf warriors. Many of them were already members of the non-profit Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance, whose mission is specifically focused on protecting the Edwards Aquifer.
In a galleon of a ranch house outside Helotes modeled on Yellowstone National Park’s guest quarters, they debated just what they could do to stop the quickening pace of sprawling development. While SAWS officials argued that extending their pipes would better protect area water supplies by limiting the creation of smaller, less-professional water-company operations or, worse, the explosion of septic-tank communities, the consensus in the meeting was that the lines would only ensure the continued rush of concrete, sheet rock, and tarpaper.
The mix of political persuasions was bridged by a collective, dawning environmental consciousness, perhaps best illustrated by the retired neurosurgeon from Quihi, busy battling plans for a quarry in his hamlet.
“I never considered myself an environmentalist. I really didn’t,” said Robert Fitzgerald. “But once you start looking at what people are doing down there, if you have any feeling at all, you become an environmentalist.”
A member of the Edwards Aquifer Authority publicly confessed the agency hadn’t been willing to act on many issues out of fear. “It’s fear of what the legislature will do. Really, it’s fear of what the developers will get the lege to do to us,” he said. “Some think it’s time we called their bluff.”
Then Bebe [Fenstermaker] shot off from the front of the room. “We’re losing Texas. I don’t know if you know that,” she said. “I can’t stand to drive anywhere anymore … We look like New Jersey.”
A woman at the opposite end of the stone and timber expanse shook her jaw. “New Jersey looks better.”
Some attendees compared the motivation behind the night’s meeting to the survival ethic of the early Texians. “We’re kind of like the pioneers 200 years ago,” said one. “When there was a fight, they all left their homes and came together.”
No surprise that in such a charged environment when prospective names for the group were floated the combativeness of the moment seeped out. “How about militia?” offered one. “Hill Country Militia?”
It took time, but eventually the more mundane Hill County Planning Association was adopted.
Early versions of the group’s Master Plan struck one prominent participant as a rewrite of the Communist Manifesto, though it read more like an early American Revolutionary screed. A trace of those rhetorical flourishes remains, particularly the opening “We the People.”
After lengthy defining of place and purpose, the group’s Master Plan comes to a solitary demand: “An immediate moratorium is called on all development in The Hill Country to assure compliance with all local, State, and Federal laws and until a comprehensive cumulative environmental impact study is completed.”
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For much more, read the entire article.Group members were still working out the final language of the Master Plan when developers at Sonoma Verde were blasting and excavating their way to the perfect limestone tabula rasa, a blank slate devoid of any living thing, atop that cherished Edwards recharge zone.
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Today the [Fenstermaker] sisters watch as Post Oak Development blasts a hill flat on the backside of Crownridge Canyon Natural Area off Kyle Seal Parkway. It’s like nothing they’ve ever seen before.“This is like West Virginia coal mining,” Mary Fenstermaker says.
“We’ve seen land raped, but we’ve never seen that,” Bebe says. “I’ve never seen Texas treated like that.”
Good luck to the group. I've been fighting the developers in the area west of Sea World for over ten years. The developers raped the land so badly that our home became a flood zone. We finally allowed the county to buy us out because they refused to make the developers behave in a responsible way and it was just cheaper to buy out the thirty or so families who were living there when the invasion happened. We were threatened with Eminent Domain if we refused the offer.
We moved to Lakehills and once again, the developers are causing havoc. The LCRA stole some of our new homestead for a high power line that they say is needed for all the new development headed that way. The aquifer in that area is NOT Edwards and it cannot sustain a development rush but nobody seems concerned about that either.
My beloved Texas is NOT the Texas of my youth. Hard work and individualism are no longer prized in this state. The developers rule and what they want...they get, whether it damages the environment or the citizens of this state.
My advice to the new group is to track the money. Find out who has donated to which politician and make it as public as you can. Particularly county commissioners. Get the media involved as much as you can, although with the amount of advertising developers and real estate spend, it is difficult to get anyone to pay attention or report.
And then, be prepared...they will come at you in ways you can't fathom right now. You have to be prepared for a long and hard fought battle.
I'm out of energy. I wish you luck but I'm leaving Texas. I have to find somewhere that still values the natural world...somewhere that trees aren't the enemy...somewhere that wildlife is allowed to co-habitate with humans...somewhere the developers haven't infested and spread their plague like a virus on the land.
Menopausal Mick
Posted by: Menopausal Mick | May 22, 2008 at 08:23 AM
We call this "pay to play" on Illinois. Pay lots of money to the campaign and then get to do what you want or get special government contracts from those you paid to get elected. Good luck to Menopausal Mick finding a place where this doesn't happen, though Texas seems to have it really bad. One good thing about our current economic collapse is that it will probably slow it down for a time.
Posted by: Arch Bryant | October 26, 2008 at 12:18 AM