More than 500 owners are likely to get offers for their Hurricane Ike-damaged houses from the county as commissioners near a decision on a massive buyout program that ultimately could include as many as 800 properties.
Another 300 homeowners who had asked to be part of the buyout program are about to get letters telling them their houses won’t be on the list, however.
Most of the 571 properties the county will seek to purchase are along the beach front on the Gulf of Mexico side of the Bolivar Peninsula just east and west of Rollover Pass in Gilchrist. The number also includes 11 beach-front homes in the village of Jamaica Beach on Galveston Island.
Federal officials told county leaders their $111 million request is the single largest application for federally funded hazard mitigation property buyouts.
Federal Emergency Management Agency officials said that after the 1993 floods in the Midwest, nearly 12,000 properties were bought out in nine states, but those were through separate applications by various governmental bodies.
County commissioners still need to approve the buyouts, but the majority of the commissioners voiced support for the plan proposed by county consultant Thad Leugemors. County Judge Jim Yarbrough pressed John Simsen, the county’s emergency management coordinator, to be prepared to inform 375 to 400 property owners who applied for a buyout that they won’t be a part of the program.
“We need to get folks letters so they can make a decision where they go from here,” Yarbrough said.
About 293 property owners still will be considered for a buyout but not until the initial buyout phase is done. Most of those Phase 2 properties are on the Gulf side of the peninsula between a drainage area called the slew and the beach.
County commissioners are expected to finalize a buyout plan within the next month.
For Crystal Beach residents King and Bobby Wong, the decision cannot come fast enough. The hurricane wiped out their house on Olive Street that’s been their primary residence since 1990.
For now, they are staying at a second home in Houston but are hoping commissioners will approve their Crystal Beach house for a buyout.
The Wongs’ house, though, appears to be located in the Phase 2 property area and likely won’t be a part of the county’s initial buyout. County records show that before the storm their house, which was not given a homestead exemption even though they consider it their primary residence, was valued at about $67,000.
Now it’s on the tax rolls for $2,970.
If eligible for the buyout, the Wongs said they would give serious consideration to purchasing another house on the peninsula but couldn’t say for sure until they know what county commissioners will decide.
“It’s been very frustrating,” Bobby Wong said. “We really don’t know what they are going to do, so we don’t know what we are going to do.”
Any properties purchased would become county owned and not available for private development. Under the federal hazard mitigation grant program, properties purchased become green space.
The land can be used to improve drainage or create open park space or even can be developed as a fishing spot.
Last month, the city of Galveston, which manages its own property buyout program, approved buyouts for 62 beach-front properties on the island’s West End.
