On a much smaller scale, thisdevelopment was started near where I was living 10 years ago. Roads and curbs were put in. Power, phone and cable lines were buries. Road signs putup. 3 houses and 2 pairs of duplexes were put up as show homes. 10 years later, that still all there is in this area. If I had the money, I’d consider buying a whole block or maybe 2, because it’s probably dirt cheap, has all the utilities run, and I liked living in the area.
One summer job found me working for a small engineering/survey shop.
The owner knew his stuff, but had money trouble, so brought in a “co-owner” who was a complete screw-up.
Some farmer came in and told co-owner he wanted to plant houses in his soybean field on the edge of town.
He promptly spent a few week’s worth of the shop’s time drawing up plans, preparing plat books, staking out roads, etc.
THEN somebody asked about soil samples, etc.
Ooopppsss
Water level was less than 2’ below ground.
That is the best-surveyed soybean field in the state.
Wish I remembered the company name - I doubt it made it. Maybe the owner got a govt job.
I used to ride my motorcycle over what is now that development. I took some pictures of the area just after the dam was built and it started to flood. (Film camera) I should maybe look for them.
It was a rocky fucking Hellscape back then. That canyon is actually pretty damn deep.
As far as I recall, one of those mansions is where Celion Deon lives.
So when you say “abandone[d] housing developments,” does that mean that there’s no one living in the finished homes? Because I seem to see filled, clean pools and other signs of life.
Certainly there seem to be people living in the finished homes (although looking on Zillow there is a lot of foreclosed bank-owned property there). “Abandone[d]” was meant to refer to the areas that had been graded and had roads laid out but had never got beyond the groundworks. It must be a bit odd living in a finished house with something that looks like an open-cast mine looming above you. Another pic here.
On a related note, I wonder what it must be like living in one of the only handful of houses on a big ghost subdivision.
Here’s an example - the Golden Gate Estates south of I-75 was the archetypal “Florida swampland” deal. Apparently most of the lots there have been bought back by the state as a nature reserve but there seem to be a few people that have figured, “I bought this bit o’ swamp (or more likely my daddy/grandaddy did) so I’m damn well going to build on it!” I can’t imagine there is much, if any, infrastructure there, so I guess you have to have well water, generators etc.
Or on a less extreme note, places like this. Presumably more infrastructure in place, but only a tiny fraction of the lots built on. It must be pretty weird living like this on an almost totally “ghost” estate. Yet the property is clearly well maintained.
Long story short, it was supposed to be a quaint seaside holiday town, with a wonderful white sandy beach that stretched for miles.
There was a 600 foot cliff between the two :smack:
Interchanges like the one between the 60 and the 202 loop in the OP’s linked photoset are the only bits of scenery I miss from Arizona. There’s at least one more on the west side of the metro area. It’s like the Jetsons took over Tatooine.
There’s a small subdivision of what was going to be “Luxury Townhomes!” near here that never got past the Phase 1 buildout. There are a few built and inhabited triplexes at the north end, but south of that, it looks like someone planted pipe and wire seeds as there’s nothing but grass and an array of what I’m assuming to be PVC conduits sticking out of the earth, some with wires poking out.
The irony is that the southern end of that land is slated to be taken over to plant a new road that will allegedly ease traffic congestion, so much of that buried infrastructure will get stripped out. Despite the abandoned housing project, this area is heavily built up with homes and commute traffic is ugly.
The big sculpted defunct development is still undeveloped. The second pics are from out at Lake Las Vegas, a luxury residential development that is far from abandoned. A majority of those built out homes are more than likely occupied. The vacant lots are just waiting for the market to recover here to continue building.
Actually, developers are snatching up undeveloped lots at bargain prices right now to begin building on- buying up the vacant tracts and vacant lots in partially built out developments (I do a lot of work for a home builder doing environmental site assessments for landowner liability).
I know the one you’re talking about, it’s over on Gibson south of the 215.
yep, she still owns a home out at Lake Las Vegas.