El Paso Inc. this week had a nice feature on Hunt Companies’ development in Northwest El Paso.
Have you been out there? The development is really nice. Mature trees. Quality landscaping.
The only reason I was up there was because I was looking for the Lost Dog Trailhead, which will soon be destroyed moved.
Here’s what Hunt’s Southwest Development Division president Justin Chapman said when asked about TIRZ 12:
The Canyons community lies next to the Lost Dog trail, which has been at the center of a heated dispute between the city of El Paso and area residents and open-space advocates.
When asked about the city’s plan to develop a tax increment reinvestment zone that would smooth the way for development in the area, Chapman said Hunt Companies has not been a part of the city’s plans and does not know if it will impact their project directly.
“Because we are a developer, we would love it if they offered that land for sale for development under the current plan,” he said. “But it’s not part of the story we’re telling (here).”
How about that? The City is ignoring the passionate pleas of some of its citizens, destroying open space, and incentivizing sprawl on the irreplaceable fringe of the city, and, if they have a developer in mind, it’s not Hunt Companies. And the president of Hunt’s Southwest Development Division is cool with that, even though the property abuts Hunt Companies’ new development up there.
Either they’re lying, of El Paso is suffering from an epidemic of colossal incompetence.
I’d say that’s an even bet.
Of course, experience has shown us that we don’t have to pick. They could both be true.
Later they will say that they misspoke, or were misquoted. Either way, just glad I don’t live out there. And, frankly, glad that I am an old man, who won’t live long enough to see all the ill effects of these years of mismanagement, greed, and corruption.