AUSTIN, Texas – A South Austin family will soon have construction literally in their yard with no compensation from the city.
This is because of a $1 easement that was bought nearly seven decades ago.
The backstory:
Ryan and Eden O’Malley have lived on Thornton Road for four years. Their home is a historic 1940s house, and they were originally excited to revamp it. However, construction is creeping up outside.
The work is for the Del Curto Storm Drain Improvement Project, and construction will soon go straight through their yard. The drain is supposed to extend to Bouldin Creek, which is behind their house.
“We are totally all for drainage projects and making sure that the neighborhood’s safe, but they said that they’re not going to compensate us anything,” Ryan said.
Dig deeper:
How can the city do this? There was a $1 easement purchased from the property owners in 1958.
The project won’t be done until 2027 or later. Now, the O’Malleys are trying to find a temporary place to stay.
Their fence will come down, and a chain-link fence will go right up to their house. Workers would be right outside their bedroom window.
“Typically they start at 7 a.m. I mean, can you imagine that there is someone digging outside your window every day at 7 a.m. for the next year?” Ryan said.
The exact date workers will enter their yard isn’t clear.
“That’s the hard part about it is, if they had their way they would have told us nothing,” Eden said.
They’re also worried about damage to their home.
“Hopefully they can recognize, too, that we will be displaced from our home for at least the total duration of the project and look into some sort of compensation for that since it’s completely uprooting our lives and displacing us,” Eden said.
Part of the easement says the property owner has to remove anything that interferes with construction, so the O’Malleys had to pay out of pocket to remove half of their deck.
They say they want more transparency, and some of their neighbors have gotten compensation.
“Our next-door neighbor has been getting rent for the last couple of years. We asked them about us. How can we get compensated? How can we get made whole again? It’s ‘hey, sorry, we have a 1958 agreement,'” Ryan said.
What’s next:
“Our hope is just to raise awareness and at least get some accountability,” Eden said.
The O’Malleys hope the city will look after those who’ve made Austin home.
“We love Austin, we understand the growth of Austin, but we just hope that the city in the end does the right thing, and they lead with transparency, they lead with empathy, and they lead with growing Austin, but doing it in a way that that’s still caring for the current residents,” Ryan said.
The O’Malleys have hired an attorney to try to escalate the case. They want to remind people to look carefully at their documents if they’re buying a house.
City of Austin responds
The City of Austin released the following statement:
“The property at 2*** Thorton Road includes an existing permanent drainage easement that was in place at the time the current owners purchased the property. We acknowledge that the easement at 2*** Thorton Road was provided several decades ago. However, the age of the easement does not determine whether compensation is due to the property owner. Instead, compensation is required if the construction activity would occur outside of the easement’s boundaries. For the Del Curto Storm Drain Improvement project, the easement at 22** Thorton Road allows the City to conduct the construction activity within the boundaries of the easement. For properties that did not have easements sufficient to conduct the construction activity, we obtained temporary workspace easements from those property owners and compensation was provided accordingly.
We remain committed to minimizing temporary disruptions throughout the project. Once complete, the project will reduce the risk of flooding in the area.”
The Source: Information from interviews conducted by FOX 7 Austin’s Angela Shen