Thursday, August 20, 2007
Additional Floodway Property Owners Sue the City of Houston
Two additional floodway property owner lawsuits were filed against the City of Houston in Harris County Civil Court on Thursday, August 16.
Only one week after Bruce Norcini filed suit against the City of Houston for taking his building lot, by changing the rules and preventing him from building anything on the lot, and not offering any form of compensation, two more families joined in the fight. Richard and David McKee, brothers whose affected property has been in the family since the 1940's, operated ABC Auto Parts. The business was closed down by the McKee brothers because of unreasonably high taxes. Then, after Houston City Ordinance Chapter 19 was amended in October 2006, they lost a sale of a substantial portion of the Shepherd Drive frontage because of the inability to get building permits on that portion of their property.
John O'Fiel and wife, Mary Jane O'Fiel also filed suit. The property involved in this suit consists of over an acre of land and a small house. The O'Fiels listed the property for sale with a local real estate broker but the listing was later cancelled. The broker stated the inability to secure building permits on any portion of the property as the reason for the listing cancellation. John O'Fiel is a former employee of the City of Houston.
The Floodway Coalition of Houston, a group of affected property owners who joined forces early in 2007, researched and found information showing over 10,000 property owners in the City have been negatively impacted by two events.
The first event was the revision of a city ordinance made effective October 1, 2006 (Houston City Ordinance Chapter 19.43). This revision to city building code now prohibits any new private construction on land within the floodway zone and greatly restricts a current home owner's ability to make substantial changes or repairs to existing structures for any reason. The second event was the remapping of the floodway zone by the Harris County Flood District whereby the number of properties now included in the floodway zone was greatly increased.
For more information on this topic, visit the Floodway Coalition of Houston's web site at www.houstonfloodway.org