We were recently sent the letter below. In addition to raising specific issues about construction of an office building in the Panther Creek area, it makes some accurate points about who is really in control of The Woodlands.

The letter reads as follows.

Dear Woodlands Monitor,

Have you been following this story? I can’t express how disappointed I was in the tone and the outcome of the meeting with The Woodlands Development Company (WDC) recently over the proposed 4 story building on New Trails in Herald Oaks. In summary, the residents were told that the covenants were made by WDC, residents had no say, and the WDC could and would do what they pleased, albeit with a few token concessions that were meant to appease the residents.

The core complaint of the residents was glossed over, that being that residents were told when they bought their property that the commercial buildings beside residential areas would be held to tree top height. At the meeting the WDC showed residents a copy of the original 1988 covenants and stated that the height limits were not clearly defined in the text of those documents. However, the printed materials that were shown to each and every resident pictured a commercial building three stories tall. Agents of WDC and various sales representatives with the custom home center in addition to the information office of The Woodlands have touted this treetop height to many, many residents over the years. I heard the treetop limit when I purchased my home in 1993; other more recent residents to Herald Oaks heard the same sales pitch. Indeed, if you look at the comments on Chron.com, you will see residents of other villages saying the same thing. It was a sales pitch told repeatedly by those pushing lots in Herald Oaks and the surrounding area when we inquired about the commercial land to the north of our properties. We did our homework, believed the agents’ assurances regarding tree top height plans, and look what it got us - a proposed high rise back door neighbor.

What I’d like to know is who is representing the homeowners’ interests in this dispute. If a seller represents an item and then later the consumer discovers the item was not as it was represented, it’s known as bait and switch. The homeowners of Herald Oaks would likely have made different purchasing decisions had they known that they might be living directly beside a busy commercial area. Indeed, consumer lemon laws have been designed to protect many consumers from false claims on far less expensive purchases, but here the Herald Oaks and Split Rock residents are unprotected from the WDC self-granted height allowance increase at the time when Clover Park residents also had similar gripes regarding a proposed multi-story building in 1999. The building abutting their property turned into a two story structure next to their neighborhood.

Closer to our neighborhood on the north side of New Trails and Research Forest, the most recent construction, an unfinished commercial building, is only two stories, as are most buildings on the north side of Research Forest. Why can’t the residents be afforded the same building height consideration as the buildings that don’t abut a neighborhood??

How can so many people have been deceived without anyone stepping forward to stand up for us? The meeting with the WDC was nothing more than their opportunity to humor us by letting us vent and then tell us to be oh so grateful that they were only building a 4 story building when they could have built a 6 story. That’s like saying they only bloodied our nose when they could have done far worse.

I’m sorry - wrong is wrong. They misled us when we purchased our property and they should be held to the height limit as advertised in 1988 and still in existence when these neighborhood homes were built. Anything else is consumer fraud. My major financial investment was based on information provided at that time, and WDC shouldn’t be allowed to change their rules on a whim (conveniently after our neighborhood was recently built out).

So again I ask. Who is looking out for the Herald Oaks residents who don’t have the money and the expertise to fight the vast resources of the WDC? Please, please step in and represent our interests in this matter. If the WDC is successful in this travesty, two more neighborhoods to the west of Herald Oaks will be the next to suffer as WDC takes their multi-story campaign further west on Technology Forest Drive. Their e-mails will start pouring in to you, I’m sure, as soon as they hear about their new “good neighbor”.

Help us by looking into our claim and speaking to the WDC about keeping to the covenant promise that was used to entice us into purchasing in our neighborhood. We could really use a champion about now.

Thank you for your attention to our request.

Sincerely,

Susan Graham
6 English Glade Ct.
The Woodlands, TX 77381