Insurance hikes make affordable housing tougher
A growing number of Texas homeowners are forgoing buying homeowners insurance as premiums skyrocket, according to a recent report from the Texas comptroller.
Recent hurricanes, severe storms and wildfires have prompted some insurers to limit or even eliminate coverage in Texas. Daniel Oney, research director of the Texas Real Estate Research Center at Texas A&M University, says premium increases in Texas have outpaced the rest of the country.
“At the end of 2023, Texas had the biggest percentage point increase of any state in the last five years,” he said. “You file claims, the insurance companies pay that, then they have to get that covered by the reinsurers. So, some of the price increases we’re seeing now are from storms that happened a couple of years ago.”
Oney said a “surprisingly large number of people” are choosing not to have insurance once their home is paid for. Mortgage lenders require homeowner insurance, but there is no requirement to do so once a home is paid for.
The high cost of insurance is just one factor affecting the state’s housing shortage, which is driving up home prices and rental costs. The Texas Tribune reported that in 2022 the state needed about 320,000 more homes than existed, according to an estimate by Up For Growth, a housing policy organization.
“While Texas has been building a lot of housing overall, in many places, it just has not been enough to keep up with demand in the state and people moving in from out of state,” said David Garcia, Up For Growth’s policy director.
Northeast Texas officials attack reservoir study
A recent study by the Texas Water Development Board on the long-proposed Marvin Nichols Reservoir is under attack by northeast Texas officials, The Dallas Morning News reported.
The proposed 66,000-acre lake would be built in Franklin, Red River and Titus counties to pump water more than 100 miles to the Dallas-Fort Worth area at an estimated cost of $7 billion.
It has been on the state’s planning books since 1968, drawing staunch opposition from landowners and officials in the affected counties.
The Region D water planning group, which represents those counties, said the draft report is biased and misleading.
Opponents of the reservoir say it would destroy homes, farms, churches and cemeteries while not providing any benefit for people living in that area. Proponents say the reservoir is a solution to Dallas-Fort Worth’s growing water needs as its population continues to boom.
“It’s a flawed project. It should not go forward,” Jim Thompson, chair of the Region D planning group, said. “It should be removed from the state water plan.”
Kevin Ward, the chair of Region C, which represents the metroplex area, said the concerns of northeast Texas residents have been heard.
“We’ve heard it, so you’ve got to believe that if we thought there was another way to do what we’re trying to do right now … we’d certainly latch onto it as fast as we could,” he said.
Texas buys two ranches near the border
The state General Land Office (GLO) announced last week that it has bought a massive ranch in the Big Bend Region and a smaller ranch in Starr County, The Tribune reported. The 353,785-acre Brewster Ranch that borders Big Bend National Park is a collection of 28 ranches put together by its previous owner over two decades. Land Commissioner Dawn
Buckingham said the ranch could be used for hunting, agriculture and carbon sequestration.
“With such a beautiful and expansive property, the GLO has the opportunity to generate many forms of revenue for the schoolchildren of Texas,” she said in a statement.
Also purchased was a 1,400-acre ranch in Starr County, along the Texas-Mexico border. The state plans to build a border wall on the property to deter illegal migration.
Battleship Texas still looking for a new home
The U.S.S. Texas has been undergoing repairs at a dry dock near Galveston after the Legislature approved $25 million to keep the ship seaworthy, but wharves officials have rejected a proposal to dock it there permanently, according to the Texas Standard.
The battleship is the only one still in existence that served in both World Wars. For decades it was docked in the Houston Ship Channel near the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site and served as a museum.
Over the years it developed leaks and was in danger of sinking before it was towed to a dry dock in Galveston for renovation. The Texas is currently berthed next to the Elissa, the official tall ship of Texas.
However, there has been a backlash from business owners near the ship, who are concerned that if not moored correctly the ship could cause damage if a hurricane or tropical storm struck Galveston.
Repairs likely will take at least another year, during which the ship’s supporters hope to find a permanent location for the venerable vessel.
RRC digitizes more than 83 million oil and gas records
The ongoing effort by the Texas Railroad Commission to digitize its oil and gas records continues, with 83.4 million now searchable online from any place with an internet connection. The records date back to the 1930s and include oil and gas production records, such as well depths and location of producing fields.
“Putting millions and millions of oil and gas records online is a win-win for the public and the agency,” said Danny Sorrells of the commission. “Not only does it give the public easy access to historical information dating back almost 100 years, but our staff can now devote the time they would have spent tracking those records for the public for other tasks at the agency.”
The link to the digitized records can be found at https://tinyurl.com/msmtst86.
Gary Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published a number of community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Cedar Park. Email: [email protected]