DISANNEXATION

CITY OF TAYLOR

WINDY RIDGE REDUX – ONE FAMILY’S WOES

Property owner says his story just one example of the struggle to break free from Taylor

TAYLOR — When Kris and Jamie Kibodeaux bought their place south of the city on Windy Ridge Road, there was nothing there but pastureland. They hoped to fill it with their dreams of a quiet “forever home.” They never thought that seven years later, Kris Kibodeaux would be posing for pictures standing on his property with a sign declaring he wanted to get out of Taylor.

The placard is a larger version of a petition signed by several Windy Ridge residents published in the Taylor Press Public Notices section Feb. 25. Kibodeaux posted the same sign in three places along Windy Ridge Road, as required by law.

It signals another salvo in a legal struggle Kibodeaux and some of his neighbors have been fighting for years.

Their properties were annexed by Taylor, and they want out. Their once-pastoral surroundings now include a horizon filled by the cranes, glass and metal of Samsung Austin Semiconductor’s massive, multibilliondollar fabrication facility as it rises from the landscape.

Back in 2017, the Kibodeauxes were living in a subdivision in Hutto, but they desired the open vista of the Blackland Prairie.

“We wanted a little more land, with a little more space between neighbors … a place we could have chickens,” Kibodeaux said. “Jamie found it. We loved it right away. It was just what we wanted.”

The property was a five-acre tract owned by Windy Ridge Acres LLC on a stretch of CR 404 known as Windy Ridge Road. It was outside Taylor’s city limits, but inside the city’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.

When a city starts annexing land, development agreements are not unusual. Owners may agree to leave their property undeveloped for a certain number of years to avoid annexation. The agreements are required to include service plans to ensure that if and when annexation does occur, the landowners will be guaranteed city services.

The development agreement didn’t worry Kibodeaux.

“Honestly, we were OK with being annexed,” Kibodeaux said. “We saw the development agreement; we thought we knew 100% what we were getting into — that we would get the same city services as everybody else if it happened. We thought we would sit down at the table with the city and work it out.”

“I was the first person to build on Windy Ridge,” he added. “First we built a little guesthouse with a workshop for me. We were going to put a bigger house in front of it. But that came to a screeching halt when we got annexed. “

In 2018, Kibodeaux and a few neighbors received letters from City Attorney Ted Hejl informing them their properties were about to become a part of the city.

By that time, several other folks had bought Windy Ridge Acres lots and started building. Rob Marek, Kibodeaux’s closest neighbor and owner of Windy Ridge Acres, hadn’t expected it, he said. He explained that in 2009, he went to the Municipal Offices before he bought the property to ask whether selling a few five-acre lots for singlefamily homes would trigger annexation.

“They said it was no problem,” Marek said in an interview last year.

“But when I sold six lots and people started to build, the city came unglued. They said we hadn’t talked to them. But hardly any of them are the same people that were in charge when the city approved us to do it. They threw a big fit and annexed them.”

Changes at City Hall do play a role, a member of City Council indicated.

“Past agreements were a bunch of handshakes in old Taylor,” Councilman Dwayne Ariola said.

Kibodeaux said he was frustrated by the city’s approach to the annexation.

“They pulled all us neighbors into a room at City Hall with maybe a week’s notice. They never really introduced themselves or said what they intended to do. They just said, ‘Here’s some paperwork; we want you to sign this agreement for a voluntary annexation.’ Most of us requested we have time to speak to an attorney. They said ‘Nope. You sign it right now or we vote to annex you.’” Six years after annexation, there have been a few changes. Like, property taxes. In 2018, before annexation, Kibodeaux's property taxes were $1,900. In 2019, they jumped to $4,100. In 2020, before Samsung, his land was appraised at $175,000. In 2022, it was appraised at about $600,000. And it's still zoned rural, so it's not attractive for developers or businesses.

In addition, Windy Ridge is still not getting the city services promised in the annexation plan.

“My taxes have tripled and I’m not receiving any benefits,” Kibodeaux said.

Construction around the Samsung fab plants, just southeast of Windy Ridge, have disrupted the Kibodeauxes’ dreams of a peaceful country home. Trucks rumble up and down Windy Ridge Road, adding more potholes.

When there’s an accident on the loop, traffic is often diverted down Windy Ridge Road.

“My wife couldn’t get out of our driveway for 20 minutes one day.” Kibodeaux said.

A large pipeline is being built through the back of his property. The noisy, dusty work has been going on for over a year.

“You wake up every morning hearing excavators,” Kibodeaux said.

He added, “Eminent domain was used to obtain an easement across my property. When I was approached about signing the paperwork for the pipeline, I asked if we would be able to tap into the waterline for our house since it was running right past us. I was told it was to be used exclusively by Samsung and I could not connect to the pipe.”

According to Kibodeaux, he recently learned that “because they used eminent domain, they are going to allow a new development to use the water from the pipeline, so it satisfies the ‘benefit the public’ criteria of eminent domain.”

Despite the huge developments and growth around Samsung, there are still no signs of city services for Windy Ridge Road residents promised in the Annexation Services Plan. They have all had to provide their own septic tanks, and water services or wells and electric services from area providers.

Kibodeaux took the lead on the Windy Ridge deannexation petition, and many of his neighbors signed it. It focuses on several complaints.

These include failure to offer fire protection – there are no fire hydrants for more than half a mile of Windy Ridge. There’s virtually no street maintenance – the road is full of potholes and brush is piled high on the roadsides — and there is a dearth of city water and sanitary sewer services.

Kibodeaux got a rare answer from the city last summer, when a technician in the Planning Department actually replied to one of his emails seeking a timeline for city water and sewer.

“Hello Mr. Kibodeaux…I did some pretty thorough research on your property …Unfortunately, there are no city lines that run to that point and there is no plan to run water outwards in that direction this year. It does project they plan to run utilities out that way in the city’s Comprehensive 10-year Plan…,” according to the technician’s email.

Williamson County Precinct 4 Commissioner Ross Boles said he has seen quite a few similar cases as cities in the area are experiencing enormous growth with the advent of high-tech industries.

“It’s not a new issue. People say, ‘I’m in the city and I’m not getting city services.’ But the standard in the agreements is you have to provide like services to areas of the city with similar density and other things … meaning not everybody’s got wastewater and water,” the commissioner said. “Cities typically don’t build out their own water and wastewater. Taylor is saying they don’t have that capacity right now. It can be legal or not, but if the water and wastewater ain’t there, it ain’t there.”

“It was irresponsible and reckless of the city to annex them if they weren’t willing to provide city services,” Kibodeaux’s attorney Chris Johns said.

“In Chapter 43 of Texas’ Local Government Code, when you annex for limited purpose, you have three years to provide full services. It’s dishonest. And it’s illegal to promise services and then go ahead and annex them and then they put somebody on a 10- or 20-year plan. This is an egregious case.”

According to the conservative Texas Public Policy Foundation’s position paper, “Let My People Go! Empowering Texans Through Disannexation Reform.”

“The Texas Legislature currently allows disannexation only for select reasons, the most prominent of which has to do with an annexed area receiving inadequate city services. (Section 43.141) … Although such remedies provide a pathway to self determination, they are oftentimes tedious and difficult to accomplish. Worse still, residents are only ever able to extricate themselves when circumstances become severe.”

Now that the Windy Ridge petition has been filed, if the city fails to comply within 60 days, the petitioners may take the city to court for a decision.

“The city has deep pockets. I think they’re assuming that if we go to trial we’re just going to run out of money to fight this,” Kibodeaux said.

Editor’s note: A member of Granite Media Partners Inc., which owns East Wilco Insider, also lives on Windy Ridge Road, but is not a part of the lawsuit and is not a member of the news staff.