Answer Day for High-Rise Developer
A reminder. Today, Romerica Investments, LLC. owes the Army Corps of Engineers answers to all of the questions, comments and concerns raised during the public comment period for its proposed high-rise development and marina resort.
More than 700 Protest Letters Filed
The Corps is ruling on a permit application for a 3.2 million square foot development near the floodway of the San Jacinto West Fork. The proposed development would surround the Barrington, and be adjacent to Kingwood Lakes, Trailwood, King’s Cove Deer Ridge Estates, Deer Ridge Park and River Grove Park.
According to the Corps, Kingwood residents raised a record number of concerns. More than 700 people and groups submitted letters of protest. Let’s look at just a few of the concerns; read some of the letters that include impacts on:
- Water quality
- Wetlands
- Streams
- Erosion
- Flooding
- Traffic congestion of local thoroughfares
- River navigation/congestion
- Air traffic interference
- Education
- Environment
- Wildlife
- Noise levels
- School overcrowding
- Neighborhood aesthetics
- Conservation easements
- Water supply
- Subsidence
- Safety
- Surrounding communities
Additional Concerns
People and groups also raised concerns about:
- Incomplete surveys and surveys not supplied
- Inadequate elevations to avoid flooding
- Building high rises in an area soon to be reclassified as floodway
- Location of high rises inside an old meander of the San Jacinto
- Stability of high-rise buildings built on hundreds of feet of sand
- River migration
- Emergency access
- Flooded evacuation routes
- Developer’s inexperience (as in NONE that they have divulged)
- Developer’s financial wherewithal
- Investor lawsuits for fraud
- Potential EB-5 visa scams
- Deed-restriction violations
- Commercial-development-guideline violations
- https://reduceflooding.com/2019/02/09/rehak-letter-about-proposed-high-rise-development-spells-out-new-concerns/
- Mitigation elsewhere
- Validity of market surveys/need
- Multilayered land sales to corporate shells in different countries and states
- Approximately 40 different companies or partnerships controlled by two men, most with no apparent assets or income
- Underground parking in a flood zone
- Contradictions between promises made to different permitting authorities
- Viability of location four miles from nearest freeway at end of a dead-end street
- Extensive flood damage to thousands of structures on much high ground
- Violation of Texas Parks & Wildlife Guidelines for habitat protection of bald eagles
- Flooding in adjacent development that cost 12 lives
- Broken promises to members of a race track that developers own in Angleton
- Violations of guidelines for real estate investment advertising
- Multiple developer-sponsored web sites with non-working phone numbers, links, and emails
- Non-responsiveness to request for public meeting during comment period
- Hiring of ad agency that disavows need for accurate claims and data
- Listing of companies with Texas Secretary of State under names of people that do not exist and at addresses that do not exist.
- A real-estate company listed as “inactive” by the Texas Real Estate Commission.
- Listing a wrong contact phone number on their permit application
And That Was Just for Starters
It will be interesting to see how Romerica responds to all these concerns. They can change their plans for the future. But they can’t change their past.
At a public meeting held AFTER the public comment period, Gabriel M. Haddad, co-owner, of a maze of related companies, partnerships, LLPs and LLCs in different countries and states, said it could take up to two years for the Corps to rule on his permit application.
I have a call in to the Corps to discuss next steps and how long they will take. Stay tuned.
Note: Ideas expressed in the post represent my opinions on matters of public interest. They are protected by the first amendment of the U.S. Constitution and the Anti-SLAPP Statute of the Great State of Texas.
Posted by Bob Rehak on 4/27/2019
606 Days since Hurricane Harvey