CenterPoint Energy has started reclaiming easement property from homeowners who had been maintaining and using the property for years:
A few months ago, CenterPoint Energy told homeowners throughout the Houston area that it would begin taking back the right of way by moving fences back to the original property line.
They started in this southwest Houston neighborhood, in the 7800 block of Twin Hills.
“It is absolutely about safety and reliability,” says Emily Mir Thompson of CenterPoint Energy.
[snip]
CenterPoint Energy says homeowners across the Houston area who have built out onto the right of way will have to move back to the original property line.
CenterPoint says it will seek legal action for those who don’t make the move.
We covered this previously and according to a Chronicle story, in at least one case, homeowners had been using utility easements for 30+ years at the request of the utility company:
[…]Houston Lighting and Power — now CenterPoint Energy — requested that residents extend their fence, landscape and maintain the utility company’s property easement backing their property. The arrangement more than quadrupled the size of the yards over the original lot’s dimensions.
It was also an unwritten agreement, leaving residents with no legal recourse in CenterPoint’s plan to take over its easement Nov. 1, tearing down wooden fences, digging up flower beds and cutting down trees that have long blocked the view of its power lines and steel towers.
I still say it’s overly heavy-handed on the part of CenterPoint. Surely some compromise or compensation could have been worked out.
