Under city code, walls in San Antonio over four feet tall were supposed to go through a permitting process. But until Rivermist, that permitting process rarely happened in new subdivisions — despite the widespread use of large walls to sculpt hillsides in the rapidly growing Texas Hill Country.

In other words, no one at the city could vouch for the safety of other retaining walls, many of which are 20 feet high or taller.

After the collapse at Rivermist, the city announced that all tall residential walls built in the last three years had to be verified as safe by an engineer and permitted. So far, most walls have passed muster.

But one subdivision with 14 retaining walls is still having problems.

It’s called the Heights of Crownridge, located on the far North Side by the Crownridge Canyon Natural Area. Jennifer Hiller found out about it after a concerned resident emailed her photos of a long vertical crack in a huge wall in the middle of the subdivision.

Jennifer and I had written a bunch of stories about the problems with retaining walls in San Antonio. After Jen got the tip, we drove to Crownridge over the weekend with baby Sophie sleeping in the car. The subdivision was unfinished — streets were completed but only a handful of homes had been built. There were no lawns. Just sun-baked dirt and rock.

And there are a lot of tall retaining walls. The one the tipster alerted Jen to is huge:

And sure enough, there was a long, very noticeable crack on the northern section. This is part of the crack:

Jen sent an open records request to the city for more information about what was going on at the Heights of Crownridge. A couple weeks ago we sat down in an office of the city’s Planning and Development Services Department to read a stack of letters and engineering plans related to all the retaining walls in the unfinished subdivision.

No engineering plans had yet been received for the big wall we checked out. (I later interviewed Scott Rozier, the owner of Rosch Co., which built the wall with the crack. He stood by his work.)

But there were problems with other walls. Going through the documents, Jen and I had a case of deja vu. It turned out some of the same people involved with the wall at Rivermist also designed and built a wall that later cracked at the Heights of Crownridge.

Engineer Russell Leavens designed the Rivermist wall, and it was built by Gravity Walls Ltd. They also designed and built a different wall at Crownridge that suffered from a large crack and was deemed unsafe. This wall was on the southeast corner of the subdivision, which we hadn’t known about. Engineer Tim Theis determined that the wall had not been built according to plans.

At Rivermist, city officials had also claimed that Gravity Walls Ltd. did not build the wall according to engineering plans.

Theis mentioned problems with the particular type of retaining wall used in both subdivisions. Gravity walls rely on their sheer mass to remain stable. But once they’re built, it’s difficult for inspectors to make sure the walls were constructed right. That problem was noted at Rivermist and also at Crownridge.

As we reviewed the documents, a city engineer who was handling the case came by the office. It turned out construction had been on hold at some lots for months as the concerns about the retaining walls were being sorted out.

The pile of documents included maps showing the location of each retaining wall and who built it. Coupled with the info we learned from other documents and interviews, the maps helped me build this interactive feature that showed readers what was going on in the subdivision:

View Retaining wall problems at the Heights of Crownridge in a larger map

We could have cranked this story out faster if Jen hadn’t made the open records request. But the documents gave us details that we might not have otherwise known, such as the connection to Gravity Walls Ltd.

It simply pays to dig up pertinent records … even if it slows you down.

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If you want to know more about the background of this story, check out this timeline of the major events related to the retaining wall collapse.

The post Timeline of retaining wall collapse in Centex Homes neighborhood built in San Antonio appeared first on John Tedesco.

After a tall retaining wall buckled in a San Antonio neighborhood, threatening dozens of homes, rancher Ernest Ruiz called us with a tip about another faulty retaining wall.

Ruiz’s story had an interesting twist: The collapsed wall near his rural property hadn’t been constructed by Centex Homes or other homebuilders. This wall was owned by the city:

From a mostly quiet tract of land surrounded by the hubbub of urban life, Ernest Ruiz has waged a nearly three-year fight against the city of San Antonio over the failure of a retaining wall.

In the summer of the epically wet 2007, a city-owned retaining wall that sits between Pearsall Park and Ruiz’s South Side ranch collapsed during a rainstorm, sending dirt and debris onto his property and into Leon Creek.

“There were rocks all over the place,” said Ruiz, a 72-year-old rancher who has been buying property in the area since the 1980s and now has about 265 acres that he calls Leon Creek Ranch. “When that rain came, it tore everything right down the middle.”

While San Antonio rebuilt the damaged portions of the retaining wall and cleaned up its property, Ruiz said the city has done nothing to clean up his property, and he’s still trying to recover.

Ruiz found it ironic that the city criticized Centex Homes for not pulling a permit for the wall at the Hills of Rivermist, while the city suffered its own wall failure.

Read more: How to research a property’s history using Bexar County’s free records search

Jen’s story about the legal dispute featured some colorful details about the ranch — how Ruiz’s family likes to play cards on poker nights and fish for perch, and how the rumble of jets at Lackland AFB drowns out the country tunes from the AM radio in Ruiz’s Toyota pickup.

I like articles that paint a scene for the reader. One way to do that is to write descriptions that engage all the senses — not just how something looks, but how it sounds and smells and feels. Jen’s story makes you feel like you’re sitting in the truck cab with the old rancher, going along for the ride.

The post City of San Antonio owned a faulty retaining wall, too appeared first on John Tedesco.

An interesting status report was posted online tonight by San Antonio officials who are examining the retaining wall collapse at the Hills of Rivermist. Officials met with local builders, who were told they must review all retaining walls built over the past three years that are more than four feet tall. The builders must make sure an engineer designed each wall and that the structure was built correctly. And the builders must pull permits for each wall by March 31.

Related: Centex Homes wrong about wall threat

The builders raised several concerns about the city’s permitting requirements, some of which were discussed in our story about the city’s lack of oversight of retaining walls. Here’s the complete status report on the city’s Web site:

Development Services, the Greater San Antonio Builders Association, and approximately fifty of its members met today to discuss the need for the public to feel assured retaining walls in San Antonio have been built correctly. At the meeting, Development Services discussed:

* The City’s building code requirements to obtain permits for retaining walls.
* Builders need to (1) identify all retaining walls over four feet and built during the past three years, (2) provide documentation the walls were designed by an engineer and built correctly, and (3) obtain permits for the walls by March 31st.
* Development Services will use the information to develop a tracking system for retaining walls.

At the meeting, the builders initially expressed that they did not believe all retaining walls require permits. In addition, since some of the walls were constructed several years ago, they were concerned about the challenges of finding documentation to satisfy the City’s permitting requirements. Finally, they expressed a need to amend the Unified Development Code to clarify permits are required during the site development stage of construction.

Development Services responded to the builders’ concerns by reiterating permits are required for retaining walls over four feet. The department will work in partnership with the builders to issue permits and to obtain documentation that attest to the safety of the walls by the end of the summer. Finally, Development Services agreed to explore an amendment to the Unified Development Code to reinforce the procedures for permitting retaining walls during all phases of construction; from land development to building development.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Development Services and the builders agreed it was important to restore the community’s confidence that existing retaining walls built in San Antonio are safe. Development Services will develop information bulletins and new applications to reinforce the procedures for permitting retaining walls related to new construction.

The post San Antonio builders must check all retaining walls built in past three years appeared first on John Tedesco.

New documents offer more information about the retaining wall that collapsed at the Hills of Rivermist, a neighborhood in San Antonio built by Centex Homes. Comparing the wall’s engineering plans to a memo describing how the wall was actually built shows the retaining wall might have lacked crucial features:

Related: A history lesson about old neighborhoods and race in San Antonio

The memo was posted on a city Web page set up to provide daily updates about Rivermist. The city posts new information at the end of every business day.

The post Was cracked retaining wall built correctly? appeared first on John Tedesco.

Jen and I wrote a story that ran in Sunday’s paper and was posted online today about the lack of oversight of retaining walls in San Antonio. We looked at this issue after a retaining wall in The Hills of Rivermist, a neighborhood built by Centex Homes, split apart and jeopardized dozens of houses:

Despite the growing popularity of towering retaining walls like the one that buckled last week, San Antonio officials have paid scant attention to the structures in residential subdivisions and can’t vouch for their safety.

No one at City Hall tracked how many walls were built over the years as thousands of residents flocked to the Texas Hill Country and developers reshaped steep terrain for new homes.

City inspectors never checked the walls.

And, according to members of the real estate industry, it wasn’t widely known that a permitting process existed for tall retaining walls.

“No one can find where the city has ever asked for or insisted on a permit,” subdivision developer Norman Dugas said. “I can’t find anyone who has ever gotten one.”

Related: Web tools and apps to track weather emergencies in Texas

The post San Antonio officials paid scant attention to towering retaining walls appeared first on John Tedesco.

Jen and I wrote a follow-up story today about the sinking neighborhood in San Antonio called the Hills of Rivermist:

The retaining wall that collapsed last week and jeopardized a neighborhood built by Centex Homes was built with less mortar than what engineering plans called for, according to city officials who inspected the wall Friday.

“Staff determined that the retaining wall was not built in accordance with the design provided by (the) design engineer,” Assistant City Manager T.C. Broadnax wrote in an e-mail to his boss, Sheryl Sculley, Mayor Julián Castro and the City Council.

“For example, the building plans for the wall show limestone mortared throughout the wall. Based on field observations of the failed portion of the wall, mortar was not installed according to the building plans.”

There are many different types of retaining walls. The one at Rivermist is called a gravity wall, which relies on a heavy mass of mortar and stones to remain stable. So if a contractor skimps on the mortar in the core of the wall, the wall becomes lighter and it can become unstable.

Here’s the city e-mail describing the lack of mortar inside the wall. The city also set up a new Web page that provides updates about Rivermist. Residents can also report concerns about retaining walls near their homes.

The post Retaining wall not built to engineering specifications appeared first on John Tedesco.

Feel free to get in touch with me with any tips or story ideas about #slopefail — here’s my contact page.

Updated 1-29-10: Two more useful Web pages that are new:

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