Carancahua Subdivision residents who don’t live on the water will continue to have access to their pier for at least 20 more years.
Jackson County Commissioners voted unanimously to approve a new 20-year surface lease agreement with Lewis Carancahua Subdivision non-waterfront property owners for access to the pier.
Jackson County Judge Jill Sklar explained that a District Court ruling over 20 years ago had led to the original surface lease agreement in 2005 with the county, which gave non-waterfront property owners a chance to build a pier to provide themselves access to the bay. That original 20-year lease agreement expires on April 30.
“I think the (Commissioners) Court entered into that agreement because of previous lawsuits where the District Court said that they must have access to the waterfront through that one section, based on how the plat was approved by the Commissioners Court,” Sklar said. “So that lawsuit kind of set up precedent saying, ‘yes, they’re going to have access.’ When they wanted to build a pier, the General Land Office said they only required proof of ownership.
“It’s not one individual who actually owns the waterfront property, it was the group of non-waterfront property owners.
They came to the county and said, ‘can you provide us with so-called lease that the General Land Office will acknowledge?’
That’s how we got here.”
Sklar said that the surface lease agreement recognizes that the group of property owners has ownership in the pier and asks that they don’t unreasonably withhold the ability for other non-waterfront property owners to also have some sort of ownership in the pier through a buy-in, which would then assist in rebuilding the pier in case of storm damage.
The agreement wording includes an ‘evergreen’ clause that will allow it to renew automatically every year unless one of the parties gives notice by Jan. 1 of that year, Sklar added.
In other business, commissioners: Approved the minutes of a recent meeting; Approved budget amendments, line-item transfers, and revenue certifications for the Fiscal Year 2025 budget; Approved a grant contract with the Texas Department of Family Protective Services for Oct. 1, 2025 to Sept. 30, 2032 to receive federal Title IVE funds for legal staff for child welfare cases; Approved applying for the Texas Commission on the Arts Performance Support Grant for the summer reading program with the Jackson County Memorial Library; Approved 30 mph speed limit signs in the Sunrise Bay Subdivision in Precinct 4; Approved a Funds Collateral and Pledge Agreement with Prosperity Bank and Federal Home Loan Bank of Dallas; Approved Prosperity Bank’s addendum to the Jackson County Depository Bank proposal; Proclaimed April as Fair Housing Month; Approved Voyager cards for new deputies; Approved the proposed settlement agreement with the Texas Department of Agriculture for the CDV21-0297 Community Development Block Grant (CDBG); Approved a quote from Sequel Data Systems, Inc.
(DIR-CPO-4881) in the amount of $25,000 to develop various cybersecurity plans and provide an incident response training exercise for the county; Approved a quote from Sequel Data Systems, Inc.(DIR-CPO-4881) in the amount of $22,500 to conduct a cybersecurity integrity audit, including penetration and exploit discovery testing, for the county; Approved an additional portage device in the amount of $2,018 required to migrate the Justice of the Peace i3 Verticals/Net Data software to a hosted environment; Approved procurement for electric power supply beginning Jan. 1, 2026 through the Public Power Pool (P3); Accepted a FY 2024 Operation Stonegarden Grant in the amount of $68,232.26 for law enforcement overtime and budget of same; Approved payment of county and precinct bills and one court order; Approved payroll changes; and Heard various county reports, news, and information.
