LOCAL BUYOUTS Montgomery County has bought out 73 homes across the county, 10 of which have come from the Conroe-area neighborhood of River Plantation. This map is not comprehensive. Location of purchased home
DEFINING THE TERMS
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The two types of home buyout require acquisition, but one also includes demolition.
Acquisition and demolition • Buy out and
Acquisition • Buy out and
demolish house • Site can be rebuilt as long as flood plain ordinance is followed
demolish house • Nothing can be rebuilt on the land
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SOURCE: MONTGOMERY COUNTY OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT/ COMMUNITY IMPACT
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programs create many stalemate sit- uations as the state and local govern- ments work to meet them. “Montgomery County is actually one of the most proficient grantees utilizing buyout funds,” Eck said. “It is a difficult undertaking, and many counties and cities simply do not wish to administer the program due to the federal process requirements.” Lumbley said sometimes partic- ipants can withdraw from the pro- gram, which is usually done when they receive the offer letter. Under the HUD grant, delays can also occur if a participant needs to relocate. “Maybe it’s not [the amount] they were expecting or they thought they could get more, so that can stop it,” Lumbley said. “We work with them, and we provide them time to try and get an alternate housing plan prior to us purchasing [the home]. So that might delay it a little bit.” Lumbley also said all the paper- work associated with a HUD buyout must go through the General Land Office for approval before the county can issue an offer letter. “The grantee and GLO work together to ensure offers and asso- ciated costs are allowable by HUD, determine relocation needs, and per- form the real estate transactions,” Eck said. “These requirements are all federal, and the GLO cannot waive them.” Lumbley said Montgomery County bought out its first property on March 27, 2020. “We purchased them all throughout 2020, 2021 and 2022,” Lumbley said. “[The COVID-19 pandemic] didn’t With 11 buyouts completed so far in 2023, Lumbley said her goal is to reach 50 buyouts by the end of this year. The county also is anticipating receiving the 2021 Flood Mitigation Assistance award in May, for which buyouts are expected to start taking slow me down.” Looking ahead
bought have ranged from $60,000- $750,000 in price, Lumbley said. “A lot of the low dollar ones came from the 2016 program because the majority of those that were named as part of the application were damaged in Harvey and not rebuilt,” she said. “So the value was current market value, so it was valued in a damaged state. That’s why they’re so low.” For HUD grants from the 2015-16 floods and Hurricane Harvey, the struc- ture cap is $175,000 and $200,000, respectively. But homeowners eligible for buyouts through the program can receive up to a $100,000 relocation incentive if it was their primary home and the homeowners are considered low-to-moderate income, Lumbley said. The new home must be located within Montgomery County and out- side a flood plain. “The majority of our focus thus far has been in Patton Village [between New Caney and Splendora],” Lumb- ley said. “That area is socioeconomi- cally disadvantaged, so it’s definitely lower dollar values of homes. And we created incentives and the relocation incentives, because we had an idea of the values of the homes going into this. There’s no way in this day and age that someone’s going to be able to relocate for that amount of money.” Buyout delay factors With around three years elapsing between the funding application due dates and final awarding of funds for the FEMA programs, other factors can delay the buyout process. Lumb- ley said obtaining a clear title on the home has been the biggest factor in delaying a buyout. “That is ultimately the big one because if we can’t have a clear title, we cannot purchase the home,” she said. “So that can actually stop [the buyout] in its tracks.” According to Brittany Eck, director of communications for the Texas Gen- eral Land Office, the federal require- ments behind the FEMA and HUD
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RIVER PLANTATION DR.
WEST FORK SAN JACINTO RIVER
ROBERT E. LEE DR.
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RIVER PLANTATION DR.
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SOURCE: MONTGOMERY COUNTY OFFICE OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT/ COMMUNITY IMPACT
HUD’s Community Development Block Grant for Disaster Recovery. “They are vastly different from each other,” Lumbley said. For FEMA’s programs, eligible applicants are identified before the county applies for the funding while HUD’s program works in the opposite way, with eligible applicants being identified after the county receives the funding, Lumbley said. The Texas Water Development Board provides oversight for FEMA’s grants while the Texas General Land Office oversees HUD’s grants. Through the FEMA and HUD pro- grams, Montgomery County has been awarded $44.96 million and $21.08 million, respectively. “Typically, once the funds are awarded, the funds are ‘earmarked’ on the county side,” Lumbley said in an April 5 email. “Funds are spent on the front end, and throughout the program the county seeks reimburse- ments from the state.” There is no structure cap for buy- ing out homes through the FEMA program, and homes that have been
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Day and Memorial Day floods in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The Conroe area, in places such as Ladera Creek and Trinity Park, also experienced flooding following Tropical Depres- sion Imelda in 2019, Community Impact previously reported. “I wish more people would take advantage of this program,” Mont- gomery County Precinct 2 Commis- sioner Charlie Riley said. “For so many years, we’ve been watching people get flooded and flooded and flooded, and we just go back and let them rebuild and rebuild. The time’s come that we’ve got to get away from that program. We’ve got to get these people out there somewhere else where we don’t have to continually rebuild stuff that we know is not going to last.” Breaking down the buyout program When it comes to home buyouts, Montgomery County has received around $66 million across four FEMA programs and two programs through
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