Lawsuit alleges design of Timarron Park subdivision ignored flood plain history
HOUSTON, May 31, 2018 – Hundreds of Woodlands-area homeowners blame faulty subdivision design for the severe flooding they endured after the landfall of Hurricane Harvey last year, according to a new lawsuit filed in state district court in Houston.
The lawsuit alleges that The Woodlands Land Development Company L.P., the Howard Hughes Corporation, and LJA Engineering Inc. designed the Timarron Park subdivision and allowed homes to be built at inadequate elevations despite decades of flooding in the nearby Spring Creek area.
The homeowners are represented by Tommy Fibich of Fibich, Leebron, Copeland, & Briggs, of Houston; Muhammad S. Aziz of Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner, of Houston; Annie McAdams of Annie McAdams PC, of Houston; Larry G. Dunbar of Dunbar Harder PLLC, of Houston; and James E. Bradley of the Bradley Law Firm, of Houston.
According to the lawsuit filed on behalf of 485 homeowners, the defendants knew or should have known flooding had occurred at leave five times, including October 1994 flooding, in the Timarron Park area in the 40 years before Hurricane Harvey.
The lawsuit alleges, “Despite knowingly building in a 500-year flood plain, Defendants did not develop and build homes in a manner that put them outside of a 500-year flood plain to reduce the likelihood of flooding. Defendants had no set standards for determining the elevation of a house relative to its geographic location and that location’s risk of flooding. Furthermore, to the extent it did take into account standards for determining the elevation of a home, the standards were based on obsolete, antiquated data instead of newer, more reliable data that was readily available.”
Homeowners attorney Muhammad Aziz, of Abraham, Watkins, Nichols, Agosto, Aziz & Stogner, said, “We allege the developer made errors by building all or some of the homes in Timarron at an elevation that was unreasonably low for the elevation of the land it was built on. It knew or should have known to build the houses at an elevation adequate to prevent or reduce the likelihood of flooding.”
Homeowners attorney Annie McAdams, of Annie McAdams PC, said, “Because of the negligence and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act we allege, our clients have been displaced from their homes and have endured and will continue to endure months and years of costly repairs and rebuilding.”
The case is “Jason Alexander, et al., v. The Woodlands Land Development Company L.P., et al.,” in the 215th District Court of Harris County, Texas. The plaintiffs allege negligence, gross negligence, and violations of the Texas Deceptive Trade Practices Act (DTPA).
CONTACT: Annie McAdams, Annie McAdams PC, Houston, 713-785-6262, [email protected].