A Novel Solution…
August 14, 2006
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Posted by Aubrey Turner
I think I may have an idea for how the people who are up in arms about the proposed QuickTrip in front of Hidden Lakes can resolve the issue.
Hidden Lakes HOA should just go ahead and buy the land. That way, instead of depriving the rightful owner of the land’s value, they can exercise the control over that parcel that they so desperately seem to want.
I bet they could get it for a good bargain, too, since I hear that the neighbors make a big fuss if you try to build anything there…
Categories: Keller Politics, Politics
Hidden Lakes HOA is not a business. They are funded by the dues payed by the residence to provide specific services to maintain the community (such as grounds keeping, maining the pools, etc.)
Therefore, they have no funds to do anything like by the land.
Also, HOA boardmembers are totally voluntary drawing no income from the work they do as a member. Consider that all of the very in depth work they did to try and represent the vote of the Hidden Lakes community on the QT issue was done on their own time with no funds.
HOA may want to consider working with the city to attract a commercial developer who would bring a business that would want to buy the land and operate it.
I’m fully aware that they aren’t a business.
But I wasn’t being completely facetious with my comment, either. If the people of Hidden Lakes hated the idea of QT so much, they could have pooled their money and bought the land. Instead they wanted to use the power of government to impose their will on how someone else used their own property. If they had been successful, the land would most likely have been worth less, since any potential buyer would know that he’d have to deal with Keller’s code as well as the neighbors. To me, that represents a real financial loss to the owner of the land, and it should be compensated in some fashion.
The real market-driven solution would be to buy the land and do what you want with it.
While a common sense suggestion I don’t disagree with on principle, there are some significant challenges to people pooling their money and buying the land. The residents are not that coordinated as an entity and realistically how common is it to get a bunch of neighbors together to do anything more than socialize (and that is not that easy either)? The HOA doesn’t have that kind of expertise in real estate to help get that done, it is also not part of their charter.
Even if some residents somehow did get that organized, time is also another factor. QT already had an option on the land, the clock was running very quickly making what you suggest difficult at best.
As far as the land owner losing money, I don’t see the evidence to support that. That land is/will be worth far more than what the owner originally paid for it, and whomever buys it would have to pay fair market value. Are you suggesting that QT was willing to pay a premium?
For some residents, their hope was that the city would hear the vote of the community and decide on their behalf. When the council didn’t seem to react favorably to the survey presented last year, additional red herring type arguments got mixed in – sort of a shot gun approach to be heard took place. Residents and maybe the HOA did not seem to understand the process that the city of Keller uses to approve land use when this situation began, but they do now.
Frankly, I don’t give a damn whether they’re organized or not. Although I do see they managed to get several hundred people in one place to try to get the government to do their dirty work. If they’re really that incensed about QT, they could put their money where their mouths are. And there *are* cases where people have gotten together to buy nearby land when development was proposed because they wanted to keep it “open.”
Further, the time factor seems to be an odd thing to bring up. QT has been at this for over a year, from what I’ve heard.
I think the owner would have lost some of the current value of his land if QT would have been denied. Because the last proposal from QT complied with *all* of Keller’s extremely picky rules, a denial would be seen as clear signal that Keller is not open for business and that every zoning request would be hostage to whatever interest group decides to protest or the whims of the council (not that this hasn’t already happened, viz the decision to deny a used car lot because the city wouldn’t get sales tax revenues). Sending this kind of message ultimately depresses the value of commercial property.
Frankly, I’m glad the decision has been made and I hope this is the last we’ll hear of it. Provided people don’t go bat-s**t nuts and do something stupid, I predict that we’ll see lots of Hidden Lakes residents getting gas there in a couple of years.