Search This Blog

Friday, June 15, 2012

Arlington, TX: A Damaged Land

 June 2009

Plans proposed to the City of Arlington, TX in June 2009
Corner of South Hwy. 360 and Sublett Road

Fast forward three years to the present, June 2012...

Nine acres of undeveloped commercial property surround the Fulson Drill Site.
In a recent conversation with an Arlington land developer, he told us that Chesapeake misrepresented what they were going to do.  When all the wells got drilled, they were going to be able to develop that piece of property.  Chesapeake's five acres would be reduced down to 1.3, and the Temporary Frac Pond would be gone.  It is three years later and Chesapeake still has not reduced the pad site to 1.3 acres and the surrounding land still lies barren.   Chesapeake was a Big Gorilla.  The City was dreaming about the $$gas revenues$$. 


Unfortunately, they created an Achilles' heel for potential land development for this Arlington location.  Even if someone wanted to develop this once, prime piece of commercial real estate, it is now covered in gas gathering pipelines, and you can't put a structure on top of gas pipelines. 

Gas Gathering Line Marker
We could have had this.


Finally, here is a letter that Chesapeake sent out to the Fish Creek neighbors in July of 2009:


"Chesapeake has recently learned of opposition to the Fulson drillsite from a development company whose property is adjacent to the property owned by Chesapeake.  The development company feels that our drillsite hinders future development potential for their property."

During our conversation with this same Arlington land developer, he agreed with us 2000% [his words] that they [Chesapeake] damaged any future land development for this cornerstone of Arlington, Texas which at one point in time held such potential as an important gateway to our vibrant city.


9 comments:

  1. The majority of Texas has been designated as a zone of extraction and "Our Land" has been occupied. If the land can EVER be reclaimed, it won't happen for generations. We have fracked our children's futures.

    This video is from 2009 and shows only a small portion of the Barnett Shale. Can you imagine how it looks today? http://youtu.be/W3rXRgbLM68

    ReplyDelete
  2. look at TAD record #03741044 4.3 acres lost 1.2 million in taxable value from 2009-2011

    2453 E Sublett Rd, Arlington
    Owner Information: Chesapeake Land Dev Co LLC
    6100 N Western Ave
    Oklahoma City Ok 73118-1044
    8 Prior Owners
    Legal Description: Balch, John Survey
    A 83 Tr 2B06
    Taxing Jurisdictions:

    Show
    Tax Rates
    024 City of Arlington
    220 Tarrant County
    224 Tarrant County Hospital Dist
    225 Tarrant County College Dist
    908 Mansfield ISD
    This information is intended for reference only and is subject to change. It may not accurately reflect the complete status of the account as actually carried in TAD's database.
    Proposed Values for Tax Year 2012
    Land Impr 2012 Total ††
    Market Value $13,097 $0 $13,097
    Appraised Value † $13,097 $0 $13,097
    Approximate Size ††† 0
    Land Acres 4.2952
    Land SqFt 187,103
    † Appraised value may be less than market value due to state-mandated limitations on value increases
    †† A zero value indicates that the property record has not yet been completed for the indicated tax year
    ††† Rounded
    5-Year Value History
    Tax Year XMPT Appraised Land Appraised Impr Appraised Total Market Land Market Impr Market Total
    2011 000 $13,097 $0 $13,097 $13,097 $0 $13,097
    2010 000 $561,309 $0 $561,309 $561,309 $0 $561,309
    2009 000 $1,174,096 $0 $1,174,096 $1,174,096 $0 $1,174,096
    2008 000 $1,174,096 $0 $1,174,096 $1,174,096 $0 $1,174,096
    2007 000 $1,174,096 $0 $1,174,096 $1,174,096 $0 $1,174,096

    ReplyDelete
  3. So, to sum it up, the land value has plummeted from $1,174,096 to $13,096. Ant that doesn't include this year (2012). It must be down to $5,000 by now. Wow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. In addition to that property at 2453 E. Sublett, Arlington, TX, Chesapeake also owns 1.34 acres of adjacent land at 5720 S. Hwy. 360, Arlington, TX. That land value has plummeted from $205,058 to $4,101. We wonder what this is doing to residential home values near these heavy industrial mining sites. Has the American Dream officially come to an end?

      http://www.tad.org/Datasearch/re.cfm?Account=%28.!0KK]%24%3EJPP%20%0A

      Delete
  4. So, what does this mean for the tax base in Arlington? If we think of all the property being taken for shale gas drilling that will also be devalued on the tax roles...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Chesapeake should plug all the wells and go away so we may live our lives in peace. They plugged the well at the Corn Valley Drill Site in Grand Prairie. Heavy industrial mining operations inside residential neighborhoods has proven to be the biggest failure on so many levels and has destroyed the land for future generations to come.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Wow. Just looking at the map at the beginning of this blog post...is that actually some kind of storefront development wrapping around the Fulson Drilling Site and the FRAC Pond? What a plan if that's what it is.

    Seems there's a joke here...not sure if the joke's on the developers, the city, or the home owners who were told that their lives would be so much better after this drilling site went in next to their home sweet homes.

    Maybe this is a "Statue of Liberty" Play in progress by the once-naive homeowners and developers. That must be it. Touchdown..

    ReplyDelete