A little over a hundred people attended a Sept. 25 town hall meeting to discuss subdivision and industrial high-load development in rural Polk County and throughout East Texas.
State legislators, legislative candidates, real estate professionals, property owners’ association leaders, volunteer fire chiefs, first responders and other community stakeholders were invited to the town hall meeting because each group sees a different part of the issue.
The purpose of the meeting was to bring those perspectives together, explain plainly what current Texas law allows and does not allow counties to do, discuss how those limitations affect rural communities, and identify practical changes that will support responsible growth while protecting property owners and taxpayers.
“Many roads across the county were built before state law granted counties the authority to enforce minimum engineering standards. When Tropical Storm Edouard brought heavy flooding, these older roads, never constructed to withstand such conditions, were severely damaged or destroyed outright. Because they are privately owned and not part of the county-maintained road system, the county cannot lawfully use taxpayer funds to repair them,” County Judge Sydney Murphy said.
“The result is that residents can be left without dependable access to their homes, and school buses, emergency medical services, fire departments, and other first responders may have difficulty reaching them. Recent legislative changes have further eroded the authority counties rely on to oversee new subdivisions. Stripping away local enforcement will only invite more substandard development, repeating the very mistakes that created this problem in the first place,” Murphy said.
“We cannot use taxpayer funds on private roads. It creates an access problem because when the roads aren’t built to specs, the access gets worse. In Polk County, the problem that is created is people cannot get in and out during emergency management situations,” she said, as she recounted a situation in which first responders had to haul a patient on a stretcher between to four-wheelers because the ambulance could not get down the road.
“Polk County’s subdivision regulations exist to prevent that outcome. They require roads in new developments to be built to established standards, and after two years of demonstrated performance, those roads may be accepted into the county maintenance system. When the process works, the county gains infrastructure built to last, and property owners gain the certainty that someone is responsible for it.
“We’re trying to avoid being another Plum Grove. We have spent the last two legislative sessions trying to drive that point across. What has kept us out of the grease was our local realtors, developers and property owners,” Murphy said.
“Some of the legislation they are proposing is requiring a third party engineer to review plans. We have a third party engineer but we think the developers should pay for that review, not the taxpayers,” she said, citing drainage issues and property rights issues.
“So we did come up with some subdivision regulations – not the court by itself. It was absolutely a joint process.”
Murphy said the worst case scenario is when there is an out of town developer, out of town surveyor, out of town realtor and out of town buyer.
She told of people purchasing 10-acre tracts, only to discover that the tract was not actually 10 acres, but only seven. “That was found by one of our local surveyors,” she said, adding that every 10-acre tract sold must have direct access to a TxDOT or county-maintained road.
“Counties also lack statutory authority to regulate large-load industrial facilities such as data centers, crypto-mining operations, and solar farms. Unlike cities, counties cannot use zoning or site-impact regulations to oversee these developments. As a result, massive industrial facilities can be built without local oversight, placing heavy demands on local roads, volunteer fire departments, drainage systems, power, and water resources, and leaving county taxpayers to manage the fallout,” Murphy said.
The Court adopted an industrial high-load facility site impact permit policy in April of this year.
“All we ask for is transparency. How much energy? How much water? How much damage to the roads and infrastructure? We would like to prepare ourselves for this next legislative session. We want to protect rural East Texas.”
Murphy introduced the county’s third party engineer, Jed Morris, with GLS, an engineering firm out of Lufkin.
“Polk County has selected us to review subdivision applications. Once the clock starts ticking, we have to notify the developer within 10 days. From that day, the Court has 30 calendar days to approve, approve with conditions, or reject,” he said.
Morris said it costs just under $9,400 per year to maintain one mile of county road; it costs $950,000 per mile to build a public or private road to Polk County standards; and it costs $1.3 million per mile to rebuild a sub-standard road.
He added that the county’s subdivision regulations may be found online at https://www.polktx.gov/366/County-Regulations, but that if someone does not have access to the Internet, they may go to the county judge’s office and request a copy.
Local Developer/Realtor Kyle Parrish, a partner in JPR Investments, said he has been building roads in Polk County for about 10 years and emphasized the importance of staying engaged with this issue.
“We need to keep our thumb on this. Initially, I thought it (the subdivision regulations) was a little over the top, but not now,” Parrish said, gesturing to the array of photos of substandard roads throughout the county. “All of these pictures are before the subdivision regulations we developed.”
Murphy agreed. “The public has no idea we fight this.”
Rick Thompson, program director for the County Judges & Commissioners Association of Texas, attended the town hall and thanked Murphy and the Court for having the discussion.
Thompson’s primary tasks are continuing education and legislative efforts. He said that of approximately 8,000 bills filed, he’ll only work on about 2,500 of them and the County Judges & Commissioners Association of Texas will adopt its legislative platform at its conference Oct. 5-8 in Waco.
“There are so many entities trying to limit county authority. I would encourage you to stay involved and pay attention. It doesn’t work unless y’all are engaged. That’s why I’m here today. It’s happening all over the State of Texas. We want development but we want to be good neighbors,” Thompson said.
“We need to make our legislators aware of the impact that their decisions have on rural Texas, particularly East Texas. Please join us and share this information as you see fit. Write some letters now. Send letters and photos. We have engaged our utility companies and our phone companies. We’re trying to get help ahead of time, rather than a mad dash,” Murphy said.
“We’re not opposed to development, but it’s about protecting Polk County residents today and in the future.”
