A vast Houston-area housing development popular with Hispanic buyers has been attacked by conservative influencers, investigated by Texas’ Republican leaders and sued by the Biden administration.
But after settling the federal lawsuit last month, the owners of the development known as Colony Ridge are fighting back. Their first target is Alex Jones.
Late Wednesday, the owners filed a defamation suit against Mr. Jones, the right-wing conspiracist, and a former Republican candidate for Texas governor, Pete Chambers, over a February video interview about the development, and how it was promoted on social media.
In the interview and the promotional material for it, the housing development was described as a “sanctuary city” controlled by Mexican drug cartels and occupied by “mostly illegal” Hispanic residents, according to the suit. The video has since been taken down.
“Now it’s time for us to stand up, finally,” John Harris, one of the owners, said in an interview this week at the development.
Chris Hilton, a lawyer for Mr. Harris, said that while the owners could have sued a number of people who they believed had made false and defamatory comments, they decided on Mr. Jones because the show, which aired on Feb. 6, reached a large audience.
“We really hoped we were past this, quite frankly,” Mr. Hilton said.
Mr. Jones and Mr. Chambers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The suit, filed in Liberty County, Texas, follows years of state and federal scrutiny of Colony Ridge and its collection of subdivisions, which transformed an undeveloped swath of forest northeast of Houston into a community of around 40,000 residents.
For about a decade, the development has expanded without attracting much notice outside Liberty County, where it’s located. It now covers more than 12,000 acres, meeting the demand for a mix of affordable housing options less than an hour from Texas’ largest city, including plots or fully constructed homes, for less than $200,000.
Colony Ridge first attracted the ire of Republican state leaders in 2023, when migrant crossings at the Mexican border surged during the Biden administration.
Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton initiated investigations, saying the development could be a hub of illegal immigration and crime. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick flew over it in a helicopter. The State Legislature held hearings.
The state police became a regular presence. Officers did not find high levels of crime among the residents, or any wrongdoing by the developers.
In late 2023, the Biden administration filed suit after its own investigation, accusing Colony Ridge of engaging in illegal predatory lending and dishonest sales practices that included going after buyers with little or no credit and rapidly reselling properties in foreclosure cases.
“Colony Ridge had always followed the law in its lending practices,” Mr. Hilton said.
The Trump administration reached a settlement this year with Colony Ridge, agreeing to set aside the fair housing suit brought by the Biden administration in exchange for $68 million in spending by the development on infrastructure improvements and additional law enforcement services.
The nature of the settlement was unusual, and the federal judge on the case objected, saying it “bears little relationship” to the fair housing law violations alleged in the original suit. He declined to oversee its implementation.
Despite the legal scrutiny, Colony Ridge’s developments, especially the largest, called Santa Fe, have expanded. During a visit this week, there were indications everywhere of growth.
Several new chain restaurants were being constructed. A high school for a charter school network was nearing completion. “Bubble tea, coming soon!” a banner read near a commercial strip, one of several built in the last three years.
Mr. Harris said he and his partners were hoping in their next phase to attract big-box stores, perhaps a Walmart.
During the February interview, Mr. Jones showed video of Mr. Chambers, an Army veteran and medical doctor who was running for governor, flying over the development in a helicopter. Mr. Chambers used the segment to attack Gov. Greg Abbott, who in the past had taken large campaign contributions from Mr. Harris’s brother William, one of the owners of Colony Ridge. (Mr. Abbott won the March primary with more than 80 percent of the vote.)
“This was a mortgage scam,” Mr. Chambers said in the interview featured in the video.
“How many people are currently at this giant fraud site?” Mr. Jones asked him.
A post on one of Mr. Jones’s social media accounts described the development as a “sanctuary city,” according to the suit. The post has since been taken down.
In the first year of the Trump administration, the development was subject to raids by federal immigration agents. Mr. Harris said that the company had seen a spike in foreclosures around that time but that there had been little sign of immigration enforcement in the area since that time.
“There are not that many people out here that are illegal,” Mr. Harris said. “And there never were.”
J. David Goodman is the Texas bureau chief for The Times, based in Houston.
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