About the MSLA

Timeline of the McElwreath Subdivision Landowners Association

1979

Don McElwreath, a real estate developer working out of Austin, Texas bought a tract of land in southern Bastrop county that was known as the Steiner Ranch, comprised of about 1311 acres. Mr. McElwreath filed the deed to this property along with two other documents, entitled “Declaration of Landowners Association”(Declaration) and “Restrictions, Uses, Covenants”(Restrictions).

His intent was to subdivide the ranch into smaller tracts for sale, and these documents were intended to be conveyed to buyers of the land to establish their rights, restrictions and obligations that came with the purchase of land. Original buyers of the land from Mr. McElwreath were provided copies of these documents to accompany their deeds at closing.

This road assessment fee was originally stipulated as $2/acre and Mr. McElwreath was to serve as Trustee of the Association and collect fees, due annually on November 1, and he would administer those funds and be responsible for maintenance of the roads.

1990 

Mr. McElwreath met with Bastrop County Precinct 3 Commissioner Pat Meuth to see if there was a way the county could assume maintenance and upkeep of the roads in the MSLA. Under advice from the commissioner, Mr. McElwreath made a considerable investment in hiring a contractor to apply base to the roads, up to 8” deep, install multiple culverts and address drainage and any other issues deemed to be relevant to bring the road up to a higher standard. For reasons never made clear, there were no signed legal documents and the road was never transferred to county control. This was the last effort to attempt a road upgrade to enable the roads to be taken over by the county.

2000

The McElwreath Subdivision Landowner’s Association is reorganized and active again. 

In practice, in the years up to 2000, Mr. McElwreath never made any efforts to collect the road fees due annually, so it was a voluntary act for landowners to submit payments to him. The reality of his situation is that he paid for all road materials and maintenance as it was needed. When the condition of the roads became too bad, owners would call him and eventually he would respond with contractors who did the work. There were various emergency situations during that time period with washouts and potholes from rain and one time a collapse of the 3-culvert bridge over Sandy Creek, and he responded with such responses as were necessary to keep the road passable. For original buyers of land from Mr. McElwreath there was an implication that Bastrop County would eventually assume responsibility for the roads and they would become county roads.

In January 2000 construction began on a cell phone tower at the very end of Sand Hills Road under the LCRA high-tension power lines that run from the Fayette County Power Plant to Lytton Springs. Heavy construction equipment was driving Sand Hills Road to access the construction site, which was not situated on McElwreath Subdivision property but on adjoining property owned by the McReynolds family. The McReynolds had gained access to Sand Hills Road by acquiring a 20’ right-of-way to their property sold by a McElwreath Subdivision resident off the edge of their property. As Article 1 of the McElwreath Subdivision Restrictions forbids commercial use of properties in the subdivision, this use of the subdivision road was in violation of the property rights agreement assented to by all owners of property in the subdivision.

Confronted with the fact that they were using a private road without permission for purposes not allowed in the property rights agreement, the owners/builders of the cell tower, GTE, decided to pull their construction traffic off Sand Hills Road and access the tower site through the McReynolds ranch roads instead. During this legal wrangling, Mr. McElwreath was informed of the problem confronting the subdivision and asked for his advice and possible help in resolving the matter. Mr. McElwreath divulged that he was suffering from terminal cancer and could not spare the energy to get involved, and he asked to be relieved of his Trustee duties and pass them on to one or more resident subdivision members. He said he would no longer be able to maintain the road and that responsibility would now fall on the landowners themselves. Kimberly McCutcheon was the person in communication with Mr. McElwreath, so he appointed her and James Harris as the first Trustees to act in his stead. The two new trustees accepted their new responsibilities and formed a legal entity called the McElwreath Subdivision Landowners Association (MSLA).

Meetings were held with residents and discussions followed, centering at first on the effects of the cell tower construction on our roads. GTE did pay for some road repairs, but the work accomplished little in long term improvement of the roads and they did not offer any long term support in recompense for their use of the road. Discussions were held at meetings about organizational plans for the MSLA, including the necessity of raising adequate  funds to maintain the road and whether to continue with the trustee arrangement or instead set up an organization modeled on homeowner’s associations with elected officers and a set of bylaws governing the organization. Mr. McElwreath donated an old road maintainer to the community and it was used for some early road work, run by community volunteers. The $2/acre road fee assessment was found to be very inadequate as far as establishing a fund for paying for machine maintenance and road materials, as it would only bring around $2,000 a year if every member paid their fees. Many subdivision landowners did not pay their fees so the actual funds collected were less than half the amount if all fees were paid.

2003

Mr. McElwreath succumbed to his illness so any support he may have offered was now gone. After a couple of years as trustees, the initial trustees suffered burnout and new trustees were appointed by them in January 2003, to include Chris Erlon, Michael Collier and Craig Chapman. Craig soon moved away and the vacancy was filled by Linda Laughinghouse. Discussions at meetings led to proposals for organization with new bylaws, and preliminary documents were proposed, but these were never followed up on, as legal advice was decided to be needed and there were no funds to pay for those legal fees. Instead members worked on a set of revisions to the existing McElwreath Declaration and Restriction documents (historical and current versions can be seen here). These changes set up a process for amending the governing documents and a process for establishing quorums for meetings that would allow landowners to vote for actions to take regarding the roads and their maintenance and for amending the existing Declarations and Restrictions, if needed. 

2006

Residents were presented with a ballot to vote on and the changes were approved by a majority of landowners in 2006-7.

2010

Since it was realized the original funding process was inadequate, after long consideration, it was decided to change the road fee assessment from $2/acre to a simple of fee of $120/year per landowner, whether that landowner owned one parcel of land or multiple parcels and whether landowners owned the minimum lot size of around 5 acres or larger acreages. The principle established was that everyone owning land needed access to their land and all landowners would pay the same amount, not based on acreage owned, but on the fact that every landowner had an equal need for road access to their land. The funding formula was changed and submitted by ballot to a vote by the landowners and approved in 2010.

2011

After the severe Bastrop Fire in 2011, the Laughinghouse and the Erlon landowners moved out of the subdivision and new trustees Joe Dickson, Ed Dupnick, Reza Pouragabher, and Jim Williams were appointed by the previous trustees and took on the MSLA management duties. 

2015

Severe flooding rains in spring 2015 further damaged the bridge, or 3-culvert overpass, at Sandy Creek and subsequently the local garbage truck, in passing over the bridge, broke through the top. It was found that the underside of the bridge was severely eroded, culverts were rusted through and the bridge was literally starting to fall apart. Several consultants, from Bastrop County and TXDOT were asked to look at the damage and offer suggestions. Their advice was to replace the bridge. Extra diligence by several community members ended up with a contractor who rebuilt the bridge with new culverts and a reinforced concrete shell over and around the culverts that should prove much more durable than what was in place. The repairs were an unanticipated expense and exhausted the MSLA treasury, costing about $18,000 in the summer of 2015.

2017

To clarify issues about the MSLA that continue to arise, this history of the McElwreath property is first written and a website created to capture information.