Major new home development in Austin plagued with foundation issues

When Maria Lopez, an elementary school custodian, bought a brand new house in 2016, she was leaving a troubling living situation. The home she lived in for nearly 30 years was damaged in a flood in 2013 – and again in 2015. The next year the City of Austin purchased her home as a part of a buyout to relocate people living in the Onion Creek floodplain. When she moved into her new home in the south Austin development Lennar at Bradshaw Crossing, she hoped for a fresh start. But Lopez said soon after moving in, she began noticing cracks growing in the corners of her walls. “They would say ‘no,’ that ‘it’s OK. That’s normal’,” Lopez said in Spanish about her calls with the developer, Lennar. “But I insisted.” Copeland Engineering, an engineering firm registered in Texas, conducted an inspection on Lopez’s home for Lennar, inspection records show. The engineer had taken pictures of the cracks in her walls and of the gaps growing in her driveway.

A year later, the inspectors returned to Lopez’s home on behalf of Lennar, inspection records show. This time, engineers found it needed repair. They recommended the developer lift her home three inches above the clays it was built on, according to the report. Lopez’s struggles with her foundation are not unique in her neighborhood. Email after email sent to KXAN from homeowners in Lennar at Bradshaw Crossing detail cracking in walls of their homes and driveways, and the slow-going process to get repairs covered under their warranties. Lennar built hundreds of homes in Bradshaw Crossing in the last decade. In 11 years’ worth of records, KXAN Investigates found 49 different homes in the neighborhood had city permits filed for foundation repair.