CIBOLO, TX – The cracks that once divided Cibolo are now uniting the town.
For years now, people have complained their homes are built on poor foundations that are crumbling and sliding beneath their feet.
Until lately, the fight’s been with individual builders of those subdivisions but now the battleground is shifting to city hall.
“This crack was here before,” homeowner Ralph Himelrick shows News 4.
He thought he’d get a fix.
"Now it's opening up,” Himelrick says. “It's gotten a lot wider and it's moving that way."
He says all he really got was a band-aid.
"They say it's permanent, but why are the cracks coming back?” Himelrick says.
He says the problem is visible down the block, down the street and all over Cibolo.
"We really want some changes in the consumer protection laws,” Himelrick says. “That's what we're after."
More than 100 people brought that message to city hall where the mayor says council is on a mission to find the root of the problem.
"A lot of researching the homes that are already here,” Mayor Jennifer Hartman says. “Geotech engineers are helping us out with the soil."
She says Cibolo will use international building code to learn what additional legal oversight the city can have over home builders.
"Really trying to depend on independent individuals to give us that,” Mayor Hartman says. “Obviously, builders can be really biased of their own so I really think we need to find the true issues of what are going on rather than basing it on the builders that are out here."
Navigating the changes will take time and Himelrick hopes more homeowners take a crack at the problem.
"We want it to where there's a protection for if we're not fully satisfied with what is wrong, we can sue that builder and obtain some kind of relief,” he says.
Himelrick’s suggestion might sound similar to the lemon laws for cars.
Texas is the only state where lawmakers have ever filed a lemon law for homes. That was back in 2001. It’s been suggested several times since, but it’s never gained enough support to become a full-fledged law.
