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• • i RON aad RHONDA BURRAGE 1409 Bayou Glen Drive La Poste, Texas ?7571 (281 867-1151 W: Rhonda (281( 333-4177, Roa (?13( 616-6244 July 9, 2000 Dear City of La Porte City Council Members: On Apri128, 2000, we purchased (from the City) a little over 3 acres of land off D street in Lomax. The property has a pipeline running right through the middle of it. It had three dilapidated barns, a horse corral, a "Morgan" building that had the roof blown off of it and was standing in the air almost twenty feet, weeds and trees so thick and tall that you could not even see these other structures. Immediately upon closing, we were told (by the Fire Marshall) that we had to remove the barns as they were a safety hazard. We found out that kids had been loitering on the property and several fires had been started. We immediately hired a demolition company to remove the structures and we began clearing the land of the monster weeds and trees. We worked nonstop to make the property civilized. After being told we only needed to put the tree limbs, etc at the curb on certain days and the city would pick them up (from an employee in the waste department), we found out that the City did not pick up trash from vacant lots. Once we finalized our plans, we were given permission to start excavating on a building and then told after the fact that the plans were not acceptable. These are just a few of the contradictory encounters we have had with the City while trying to get our "plan" underway. We now own three properties in La Porte -all of which we pay utilities and taxes on. Our plan was to build a home on this acreage that would accommodate our needs so we could sell the other properties. Our plan will greatly improve the property on D street as it will eventually have meandering gardens, a stocked catfish pond, a home, garage and an "accessory" building. The accessory building will house a couple of "classic" cars, a tractor, boat, four wheeler, lawn mowing equipment, etc -just like any other garage. Our first plan was to build an accessory building that would house the equipment and materials needed to build the house and garage (for security purposes). However, we were told we would have to build the house first or at least obtain a permit for it all at once. We began the permitting process the end of May. After MANY revisions to our plan to conform to City standards, Ron met with James Lanor in the City of La Porte Inspections Department (at 2:00 p.m.). He submitted our final survey and building drawings of the proposed site locations for the home, garage and accessory building. Mr. Lanor reviewed the drawings and gave permission to start excavation. He told Ron that the permit would be ready on Monday, July 3rd. Construction was started; beams dug, forms erected, sand leveled, plastic liner laid out and rebar steel installed -ready to pour the concrete.