Texas residents are worried over a zombie town that's popped up. They are saying that abandoned homes and empty spots in the area is attracting squatters and homeless people. The zombie town has popped up in the Southstone neighborhood of Austin.
The neighborhood is currently under construction. However, they say that workers have not done any work since construction halted in 2022. That's left the area a dead spot.
"They just bailed out,' one local, Patty Davis, told Fox 7. Development work first started in 2006. However, the following 16 years brought a lot of plans and false starts. As it stands, many of the promised new houses are incomplete and in various states. Residents are complaining about the "zombie town," an area without residents but not natural in origin.
Texas Zombie Town
Nearby resident Gean Sutton said, "We just expected they'd start selling houses. And lo and behold, everything stopped. And within the last six months, there's nothing happening."
Residents feel unsafe living so close to the zombie town, which now has plenty of graffiti as well as broken windows.
One local said, "I don't drive by at night. We get transients, we get critters. The vegetation gets out of control. And then we have a lot of dumping."
'What the heck happened there?' Wayne Reddell asked KVUE. He owns a home across the street, saying, "It's obvious that somebody started and never finished."
In a statement to Fox 7, the City of Austin's Development Services Department said: "During the inspection on April 10, 2024, the code inspector found that the property had several code violations, including incomplete construction, unsanitary conditions, and high weeds. As the situation progressed, additional inspections were conducted, leading to the identification of new violations."
Meanwhile, new developers at MidCity homes have plans for the area. We will see if those come to pass or not. Until then, residents are waiting.
"The infrastructure is there, the electricity, the streets, the sewage, everything is there. You just need to put the houses on," Sutton told Fox 7.
Davis added: "I would like to see it developed. I would like some lovely neighbors like I have on this street."
