A Houston-based developer has landed on a tiny Texas town of 240 for its future 1,200-home master-planned community.
Last December, Maple Development Group bought a 433-acre tract in Brazoria County from two different owners: 359 acres from Plano-based Avex Group and 74 acres from the local Coleman family. Now, the Houston Business Journal reports that Maple is planning an expansive master-planned community there called Pecan Ranch.
The village of Bonney is about 35 miles south of Houston off Highway 288 and it’s about as rural as it gets. For Maple Development Group, however, that’s a plus, because the firm specializes in rural land development.
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The decision to develop in Bonney wasn’t easy, according to Maple co-founder Itiel Kaplan. The firm originally bought a 1,500-acre tract for the project further north on Highway 288. Maple had put more than $200,000 into the project, when Brazoria County Commissioners’ Court increased the county’s minimum lot-size requirement to 80 feet, a decision Kaplan called “a disaster.”
“We immediately dropped the deal,” he said. “There’s no way that we are going to work on a 1,500-acre tract (with an 80-foot lot requirement) no matter the price of the land. … This is extremely risky.”
Kaplan said Maple was fortunate that Bonney was willing to work with the developer, as “most of the cities in Brazoria County were very hesitant to go against the county in that regard,” Kaplan said. As part of the agreement, Bonney even annexed part of the land to ensure it will be subject to the city’s jurisdiction and not the county’s.
Kaplan estimates homes will sell for between $290,000 and $410,000.
“Affordability is definitely front and center,” he says, adding that inflation and rising mortgage rates have made it “very difficult to end up with a product that can be affordably priced for first-time homebuyers.”
Phase 1, slated to be complete early next year, includes 500 homesites. There is also about 41 acres set aside for retail and restaurants, but the commercial part of the development is not expected to start until home sales have stabilized.
— Maddy Sperling