BETCO pulls plug on proposed apartment complex in Beeville
By SCOTT REESE WILLEY
Bee-Picayune staff
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posted June 11 -
BETCO no longer wants to build an apartment complex on 4.5 acres of county-owned property in south Beeville, County Judge David Silva reported Tuesday afternoon.
He said the development company said it was not interested in buying the property from Bee County because the City Council had recently withdrawn its support of the project and because the company doesn’t believe Bee County residents support the idea either.
BETCO had offered to buy the property from the county for $85,000, almost four times the amount of its appraised value.
Silva and county commissioners believed the deal was good for the county financially.
Precinct 2 Commissioner Susan Stasny said she supported the sale because the county would be able to sell the property for more than it was worth and because she doesn’t believe the county should be buying property for resale.
She voted against the original motion to buy the property in October 1998, saying the county should not be in the land speculation business.
Although she supports the sale of the property, Stasny has said she does not necessarily support the sale of the property to BETCO because of allegations that the company has another apartment complex in Mathis which is the site of many domestic disturbances.
Beeville City Councilman Mike Scotten said he talked with the Mathis Police Department and was told by the chief there that his officers are summoned several times a week to the apartment complex for domestic disturbances or other mischief.
Silva said BETCO executives assured him that the company only built the apartment complex in Mathis but that it is run and operated by another company.
He said BETCO planned to manage the apartment complex it planned to build in Beeville. That apartment complex would have been located at the intersection of Hillside Drive and Galloway Drive and adjacent to the county yard and down the street from the county jail.
The proposed complex would have leased at least 85 percent of the apartments at market rates and 15 percent of the apartments as “affordable housing.”
A BETCO executive assured commissioners earlier this year that the company would carefully screen the applicants to ensure that criminals and other miscreants do not lease or live in the affordable housing units.
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