Community Forum: Death of a program will hurt us all
To the editor:
Well, it looks like the Texas Residential Construction Commission is no more.
Thanks to the homebuilders and homebuilders associations throughout Texas that lobbied for their destruction since their inception. You’ve finally won. You must be real proud of yourselves. There is no one left to hold you accountable.
No one left to make sure you build a quality product.
I feel sorry for anyone deciding to build their “dream home” now or in the future. I feel sorry for anyone making that “biggest investment” in their lifetime, because there is no one left to protect them from an unscrupulous homebuilder.
Yes, I know that they all only have your best interest at heart, and that they truly want to build you your dream home.
They don’t cut corners. They all own a Code book, and they all know how to read a set of blueprints.
But, shortly before its demise, the TRCC instituted a “County Inspections Program.” This meant that contractors had to actually get their work inspected by a “certified” inspector. Certified meant under the “current codes,” not a 1975 edition of the Building Code, but the current state-adopted International Codes. This meant that builders could no longer pull out their little bag of tricks when building in unincorporated areas. After all, building a home in rural areas of the county was “pay dirt”; there was no one there to make you build it to code, and the buyer was none the wiser.
The county (Hidalgo) would simply issue you a building permit, and that’s it; inspections were not required.
The TRCC has sent letters to all county agencies encouraging them to “continue” the program; I wonder if the letters sent to Starr, Cameron and Hidalgo county offices ended up in the trash.
Probably since it’s not in their best interest to continue the program. I spoke to Hidalgo County Planning Dept. and told me they had no intention of continuing the program. Maybe someone in the county has a relative who’s a homebuilder
or contractor? Oh well.
The only county entity that has proudly announced that they are going to continue the program is Harris County. Harris County has decided to continue to protect the interest of the public by ensuring quality construction and Code compliant development in the unincorporated areas of their county.
So I ask you, why can’t Hidalgo County do what Harris County did?
Please don’t tell me it’s because of the bureaucracy involved. Harris County found a way. The Valley counties need to find a way; make the homebuilder building for a profit accountable.
I plan to build my home someday; I guess it’ll be a roll of the dice for me, and now many, many others.
Heron Longoria,
McAllen
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On religion and the U.S. foundation
To the editor:
Carl Sagan wisely wrote, “The Bill of Rights decoupled religion from the state, in part because so many religions were steeped in an absolute frame of mind — each convinced that it alone had a monopoly on the truth and therefore eager for the state to impose this truth on others.”
Often, the leaders and practitioners of absolute religions were unable to perceive any middle ground or recognize that the truth might draw upon and embrace apparently contradictory doctrines.
The framers of the Bill of Rights had before them the example of England, where the ecclesiastical crime of heresy and the secular crime of treason had become nearly indistinguishable.
Many of the early colonists had come the America fleeing religious persecution, although some of them were perfectly happy to persecute other people for their beliefs.
The founders of our nation recognized that a close relation between government and any of the quarrelsome religions would be fatal to freedom — and injurious to religion.
Toni Garza,
Hebbronville
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