WILLIAMSON COUNTY, Texas (KXAN) — In between the sounds of wildlife on his Williamson County property, Pat Hudspeth can faintly hear the Vista Ridge High School Band practicing in the distance.
“We’ve been here for 20 years and it’s been wonderful,” Hudspeth said.
It’s one of the reasons he and others, like Andriel Rotzler, chose to live in their private community just outside Cedar Park, tucked in between East Park St. and East Whitestone Blvd.
“The Place” is a small neighborhood made of four streets. Rotzler said it’s a “little bit of country,” but still close enough to commute downtown and walk to Target. A “slice of heaven,” she said.
But according to Rotzler and Hudspeth, their sense of peace and quiet came to a screeching end early into 2025 when residents in The Place were told the county would stop maintaining their roads.
In the spring, the county looked into replacing a bridge over a crumbling culvert going into the neighborhood on Skyview.
“And so that’s when we sort of figured out that these were actually private roads,” said Cynthia Long, who represents Williamson County Precinct 2, which includes Liberty Hill, Leander and Cedar Park.
“If that bridge is down, you’ve got 41 people who don’t have any way out,” Rotzler said.
The 1977 deed
In order to fix the culvert and build the bridge, legally, the county would have to get permission from the owners of the land via an easement.
In a meeting with Long on Sept. 9, residents said the paperwork exists and was signed by the neighborhood’s original developer, Kenneth Bell, in 1977.
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Copy of a land deed between Kenneth Bell and Williamson County signed in 1977 (Courtesy Andriel Rotzler) -
Copy of a land deed between Kenneth Bell and Williamson County signed in 1977 (Courtesy Andriel Rotzler) -
Copy of a land deed between Kenneth Bell and Williamson County signed in 1977 (Courtesy Andriel Rotzler)
“It says right here to dedicate a 40-foot strip of land to the public as a roadway — to the public,” one resident told Long at that same meeting as he held a copy of the land deed Bell signed.
Long explained to upset neighbors that, yes, Bell did sign a document that would allow 40 feet of the property to be used for a public road, but that was only step one of several that would need to be taken for the road to officially be made public.
“Taking that next step to actually do the dedication requires Commissioners Court action at the time,” Long said. “That second piece never happened, and so that’s what we’re trying to rectify now.”
Long said neither the county nor Bell ever followed up with creating a plat, a document that illustrates the boundaries of properties and how they’re broken up.
KXAN investigates reached out to Dallas property attorney, Matt Hurt, to explain the easement process and whether he’s seen something like it before.
“A plat would say: We hereby dedicate to the public forever, the roads, the streets and easements shown here …” Hurt said. “And, if that had happened in 1977… then it would have already been owned by the county. And the county already would have had maintenance obligations, and it would be a county road, not private roads.”
Long said all the residents in The Place will have to sign a perpetual road easement that would allow them to keep their land but give permission for the county to maintain the roads within the community.
On Sept. 12, the new easement was sent to residents. It includes the middle of each road and 20 feet on either side of the center line.
“I mean, that’s a good chunk of land,” Rotzler said.
Long said the county is trying to expedite the process so the work to maintain the roads continues.
“This is the county going above and beyond, trying to help resolve this problem,” Long said.
“And so we want to get it done as quickly as possible, so that we can treat these as county roads and maintain them.”
But some property owners, like Hudspeth and Rotzler, said the new easement was too vague.
“It gives them a little bit too much — too much availability to our property,” Hudspeth said. “And they could take anything down.”
The two said the easement puts anything within 10 feet of the existing road in jeopardy if the county expands in the future.
Hudspeth said the columns and fences are already expensive, so moving or replacing all of those items would be costly to the homeowner.
Who benefits?
Hurt said the situation between Williamson County and neighbors at The Place is unusual but the language in the easement is standard. He added the pros include the fact that property owners get to keep their land. But, they’ll still have to pay taxes on it and won’t be able to change anything on it themselves.
Hurt said the easement doesn’t help the county in a big way but is more of a plus for homeowners.
“This isn’t like a highway taking where there’s a benefit to a large public,” Hurt said.
The county gave residents a deadline of Oct. 17 to sign the easement.
“That’s going to be a little hard for us to do that quick of a turnaround,” Rotzler said.
The county said it sets the following year’s maintenance schedule by mid-October, so it needs 100% of neighbors to be on board by then.
“The reason that it takes everybody to participate is, you can imagine, the difficulty of playing hopscotch,” Long said. “We have an easement from this person, but not from that person. So there would really be no way to do it unless there’s 100% participation, because it would be next to impossible to even perhaps get your equipment to the next piece of property.”
Rotzler said she and some of her neighbors are consulting with their own attorney and want specifics added to the easement before handing it to the county.
“I just, I can’t, in good faith, sign something that gives such a vague and open-ended rights to somebody on the property without, you know, compromise,” Rotzler said. “A red line negotiation. Not only that, but just educating myself about that.”
Roztler said she wants to know the county’s plan for that area in the future before moving forward.
The four families closest to the bridge deeded over that part of their property at the beginning of 2025.
The roads on the other side remain in limbo.
“Like I said, they did a great job of resurfacing the road,” Hudspeth said, referring to the county. “We’re working with the commissioner, hopefully, to get this taken care of. And to, you know, get this situation where the county should do what they’ve been doing for 50 years.”
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