Texas: Major win for possible $30 billion dollar bullet train

Springfield Monorail

 

This is another abuse of govt theft..this is a private company building this not a govt entity…not what eminent domiain was intended for either

 

Here we go again. Just like the trans tex corridor/I-69/toll130. They stole some of that land and then decided not to use it after all only to resell it. Cough cough Tesla plant.

 

I would like to see a list of what sizes of land they're looking at, we talking bulldozing through thousands of peoples small homesteads? Or bisecting 5 of bill gates big ranches?

You KNOW that the issued challenge wasnt filed by just one guy with a small family farm where he ekes out a modest living. If thats what it takes to build more rail, maybe i could be fine with it, but i dont know that simply "fair market rate" actually is right in this day and age for someone that actally lives on a property thats going to be "bought" in this. A 100k house that someone paid off last year (from the early 90s 100k) should be significantly more now, but even being offered 500k now will maybe only barely cover the cost of an equivalent property today. And tax assessments on land never keep pace with either real market value nor real value.

A house isnt an investment vehicle, its stability and peace of mind for the inhabitants and a stable place to raise kids. Tearing that away from people is highly disruptive and destroys individual lives

 

What does that shmuck Gov Abbott have to say? Or maybe he hasn’t consulted with George Bush yet.

 

its gonna take alot more than bullet trains to fix that mess -

 

Of course not. But there's a LOT of money behind this boondoggle-to-be, and it's not from rural folks in red counties.

 

Enlighten me as to why a train aleviating traffic on a ridiculously busy highway is a bad idea?

Im fine with plenty of counterarguements of the proposed current way its being done, but i see absolutely no reason train infrastructure in the us is so darn bad (well, aside from the fact that almost every single company that built and ran trains here inevitably falls into the ridiculous model of cutting maintenance to boost shareholder/ceo profit, but thats its own can of worms)

 

If they do anything about “far market value” like they did with us during the TTC debacle the land owners will be ripped off.
In 2003 after my uncle passed we were subdividing the 30 acres that my grandparents had their house built on in 1960 out of 140 total left. We were doing it in five 6 acre tracts. The original house on 6 in the center staying with family and we were going to build on the far end next to the 110 acres we still farmed at the time. The others would be sold and money would be put in funds for the grand kids of my uncle per his request.
Well we get the ball going. Get the surveys done for the boundaries and get the plots and addresses registered by numbers. Get the “subdivision” name registered and of course by some dumb code you
have to have bs neighborhood association by laws on legal paper.
Anyways, during all this in 2005 when we finally break ground on our house we get an official seal of Texas certified letter informing us that our property is in the proposed TTC right of way and we should put future development on hold. Two lots are already built on but only one is sold and now the county has appraised the 6 acres to be worth only 50k and the house to be worth 150k. Before it was 250k on 75k land. Was a loss to sell. We didn’t sell the final tract until late 2011 because of the loss we would take.
Our parcel was 52k and the house build cost in ‘05 was 325k. (Remember this is when gas went above $2 for the first time down here. ) contractors cost went up. Property tax was around 1k a month. For 6 years nothing changed so they could keep the “far market value” as low as possible to be in their favor. .

As soon as the house bill 1201 passed in 2011 killing the TTC our appraisal shot up to worth almost 600k. Fast forward to 2022. Appraisal came in at 800k and Property taxes are a crack under $3k a month.

When the state may have taken it from us it wasn’t worth a lick but as soon as they had no interest it was worth a lot.