Find out what’s happening in eminent domain news around Texas.
High-speed rail company wants the best of both worlds: private records and public land-grab power
Source: The Texas Monitor
Texas Central is asking to use government powers to build its railroad, but also asserting a private company’s privilege of denying public requests for records about its project – a privilege that may become problematic for taxpayers if Texas Central wins the right to take land in an 11-county stretch through the center of Texas.
So far, Texas courts have denied the company the right to take land. But other courts have backed the Texas Department of Transportation and the state attorney general’s office in allowing the company to withhold documents requested by journalists and by Texans Against High Speed Rail.
Texas Central enters new agreement for high-speed rail project
Source: Dallas Business Journal
Texas Central announced Thursday that it has signed an early works agreement with train system installation firm Mass. Electric Construction Co. Through the end of the year, both companies plan to outline the scope of the future agreement, including a construction schedule and cost of work.
As government prepares to seize more land for a border wall, some Texas landowners prepare to fight
Source: Texas Tribune
When David Acevedo attended a meeting with officials from the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers in Webb County last month, he thought he would come away with more information about the Trump administration’s border security plans.
But Acevedo, whose family owns 180 acres of land near the Rio Grande in south Laredo, said the meeting only produced more questions about how the administration was going to move forward with plans it had for the swath of land that’s been in his family for generations.
Hill Country Landowners Say Kinder Morgan Is Lowballing Them. Special Courts Are Agreeing.
Source: KUT
Kay Pence owns a ranch in the Hill Country town of Fredericksburg. About a year ago, she got a call from the pipeline company Kinder Morgan. The caller told her the company planned to run a section of its 430-mile Permian Highway natural gas pipeline through her property. Pence didn’t like that.
“This is going to sound overreactive, but you felt violated,” Pence says. “They have access to your property, and there was nothing you could do.”
TFB president says eminent domain battle not over
Source: Texas Farm Bureau
The president of the state’s largest farm and ranch organization told Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) members meeting in San Antonio that the battle to reform eminent domain in Texas is not over—not by a long shot.
Russell Boening said the organization was disappointed in the outcome of eminent domain reform efforts in the 86th Texas Legislature. He said TFB will focus on information and communication until the next opportunity to change the law in 2021.
