Plum Area Subdivision Rejected By County
The Fayette County Commissioners Court rejected a preliminary plat for a new residential subdivision off Egypt Road in the Plum area. The developer, DGV Investments LLC of Houston, wanted to divide a 133-acre tract along Egypt Rd. into 12 lots ranging in size from two acres to 14 acres. Six of the proposed new tracts in the application were drawn as “flag lots” – each with a long, 30-foot wide segment to access Egypt Rd.
“Several of the tracts in here are flag lots, and several of the flag lots are adjacent to each other,” said County Inspector Clint Sternadel. “Some of the lots are of an irregular shape. So we’re here for some consideration and feedback from the court.”
These types of lots began appearing in the unincorporated areas of the County after the Commissioners Court amended the subdivision ordinance in 2018. That amendment required all newly-created properties to have exclusive access to a public road.
In 2021 they amended the ordinance again to discourage the proliferation of flag lots. These unusually-shaped parcels with long, narrow stems started to appear as developers found creative ways to meet the 2018 road access amendment. Then last year they amended the ordinance once more to tighten regulations on flag lots. The 2024 amendment requires 170 feet of road frontage for each lot, but it gave Commissioners Court some discretion on a case-bycase basis. Four of the flag lots in the proposed development on Egypt Rd. would be stacked next to each other.
“Where those four flag lots are, when it’s wet, that’s completely under water,” said Pct. 1 Commissioner Jason McBroom. “It does not drain.”
“It’s not part of the 100year floodplain, but there is a band of the 500-year floodplain that comes through this property and goes across Egypt Rd. that eventually drains to the (Colorado) river. That’s some very flat farmland over there,” Sternadel said.
“So the issue is where that water stands when it floods, people couldn’t get into their property,” said Pct. 3 Commissioner Harvey Berckenhoff.
“Where those driveways are, when it rains, its all under water,” McBroom said.
“That worries me from an emergency response perspective,” said EMS Director Josh Vandever. “All those long driveways – we have no way to guarantee their condition or what they’ll hold, our ability to get ambulances back there to those lots. I don’t like that, either.”
County Inspector Sternadel stated that the County has not approved more than two adjacent flag lots since the County started regulating them. He mentioned that multiple driveways stacked next to each other, each with their own culverts, complicates stormwater drainage.
“It sounds like there’s a lot of problems with this,” said County Judge Dan Mueller.
Sternadel recommended rejecting the application, which the Court unanimously voted to do.