Austin homebuilder Thomas Jones stands in the front yard of the $674,000 home he built at 1011 Ogden Drive in the Austin Lake Hills Section 2 subdivision between River Hills Road and Cuernavaca Drive. Three years into legal battles with the City of Austin, he is full of angry questions as to why he is being required to provide paved streets and a retention pond for the homes he builds in the area when no one else is required to do so and why the city refuses him electrical service when it provides service to those surrounding him.

Some of Jones’ neighbors in the 290-home subdivision have a question of their own. They want to know why the Travis Central Appraisal District Appraisal Review Board assessed a $1,000 value to Jones’ new 4,185-square-foot luxury home property in June and $250-$1,000 property values to five other lots Jones owns on Ogden.

Jones currently has the home listed for sale on the Multiple Listing Service at the $674,000 price and two lots for sale, one at 1103 Ogden Drive for $132,000 and one at 1101 Ogden Drive for $124,500.

Answers to those questions are few and far between in a tangled tale that goes all the way back to May 1961. That’s when Jones says Travis County approved and platted the subdivision and home building began. Travis County records show the subdivision approved at that time. He says homes built in the area are grandfathered under the rules and regulations in place at the time of the original subdivision approval and not under Austin’s jurisdiction.

Austin officials take a decidedly different stance. They say the area was in the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the city in 1961, and the subdivision needed to be approved by Austin. They say the subdivision was actually approved in 2001, under a special ordinance put in place to legalize subdivisions in the Austin extra territorial jurisdiction that did not receive required approval from the city originally. That puts Jones and other homebuilders in the subdivision under city rule, said Susan Scroggins, environmental program coordinator for the City of Austin Watershed Protection and Development Review Department.

In 2001, the City of Austin required Tom Jones Homes Inc. to pave streets and build a water quality and drainage collection system that included a detention pond to handle runoff from 36 lots he purchased and planned to develop on Ogden and Ottawa drives. Jones built the improvements at a cost of $357,000. The builder said the city required him to warrant the improvements for one year after construction. Some time after that in 2004, the pond failed, and the city notified Jones that he would have to repair the facility. Jones refused, saying that he was not legally required to build the pond in the first place, maintaining that he is grandfathered to Travis County jurisdiction and not under Austin’s authority. He further claims that Travis County took over responsibility for the maintenance of the pond prior to its failure.

In April 2005, the City of Austin issued a code violation on the TJHI property and a stop work order. In 2007, Austin Energy began refusing to provide permanent electric meters to TJHI homes.

Jones brought suit against the city in April 2008 for requiring him to build the pond. Charges were dismissed without prejudice in 2009, when Jones said he could no longer afford an attorney to represent his case.

Jones said the inability to obtain electrical service has cost him two sales contracts on the Ogden Drive home and will make it impossible to sell the home or his remaining lots in the future, unless the city relents.

Scroggins said Jones’ plans for building his homes were approved by the city with the stipulation that he provide a water quality pond and treat run off from the streets before it entered the Lake Austin aquifer.

“We have been attempting since 2004 to get the pond rebuilt in order to protect the aquifer,” she said. “We tried to work with the builder. We were trying not to penalize anyone as long as the pond was rebuilt.”

She said that the city went so far as to let Jones continue to finish a home in the subdivision and connected electrical services to the home after it issued its stop-work order on the promise Jones would use the money from the sale to finance the rebuilding of the pond.

“By 2007, we realized the pond was not going to be rebuilt,” she said. “We were told [by Jones] it was too expensive to rebuild.”

Austin currently has Class C misdemeanor charges filed against Jones in municipal court stemming back to 2006, based on alleged water quality control infractions. The case is set to come before the court on Nov. 30.

“It is the landowner or the homeowner association that has the responsibility to maintain ponds,” Scroggins said. “In this case, it is Mr. Jones.”

In June, Jones took his case to the Travis County Appraisal Review Board, saying taxes on his properties should be reduced because the City of Austin’s refusal to connect electrical service made them valueless. The TARB reduced the value on the 1011 Ogden property from a land value of $120,000 to a property with a partially completed structure assessed at $1,000 total value.

TARB chairman Don Rives said he was not present at the Ogden hearing and could not comment as to why the board decided to drastically reduce the taxable value of Jones’ properties. An unattributed remark in the comment section in the case file stated, “Due to city restrictions on the property, all properties were reduced to $1,000, except PID# 125468, which was set at $250.”

Jones said he is preparing for his upcoming municipal court date and working to find funding to hire an attorney that will continue his case against the city. Standing on the street he built, he points to a bulldozer breaking ground at 1206 Ogden Drive next door to his property. Another builder already has a bright green electrical box connected to a pole near the street. Jones points out a number of other properties, all under construction in the Austin Lakes Hills Section 2 subdivision, all with electrical connections from Austin Energy.

“I would like someone to explain why these homes continue to go up and get connected to services when their water is all draining into the creek or above ground, but I keep getting targeted out with all these unbelievably expensive restrictions,” he said.

Scroggins said the home at 1206 Ogden Drive under construction with electrical service was outside the area of the construction plan tied to the failed detention pond.