Wonder whatever happened to the City of Rockdale’s plan to buy out a half-dozen sometimes flooded homes in East Central Rockdale along the East Ham Branch drainage?
So was the City of Rockdale.
Patience was reward Tuesday when Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush announced the Texas General Land Office has approved $1,384,055 in Hurricane Harvey funds for a buyout in Milam County.
“We had been expecting that pretty much since last summer,” City Manager Chris Whittaker said.
Plan was to offer property owners a buyout lucrative enough for them to move and sell the flood plain property to the city.
Residents would be relocated and the property would be demolished and replaced with “water soaking” green space to aid in combating the occasional flood waters.
To fund the program the city, and Milam County, applied for the grant in 2017.
The program stipulates the city should purchase properties at fair market value.
Buyout, which is voluntary for the residents, would also provide enough money for moving experiences.
“We thought we were on target to get the money and over the past couple of years we would contact the state to find out what was going on,” Whittaker said.
The city found out Tuesday.
According to the General Land Office, the funds are targeted for “approximately 11 homes” located in a floodplain.
“The way we are reading it, that’s for six or seven homes in Rockdale and then there are other locations in the county which were hit hard by Harvey,” Whittaker said. “I know there was a bridge washed out on a county road.”
The Hurricane Harvey housing recovery efforts in Texas are funded by $5.676-billion in Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Funds from the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, $275 million of that earmarked for local buyouts.
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