Colony Ridge: Everything you need to know about Liberty County’s largest developer

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Colony Ridge is home to an array of enterprising entrepreneurs , and its explosive growth is the driving factor behind the state’s fastest-growing school district.

Colony Ridge also faces a slew of legal challenges. Both the U.S. Department of Justice and state of Texas sued the developer and accused the company and its subsidiaries of exploiting Latino land buyers.

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Explore our reporting on Liberty County’s largest development featuring: in-depth investigations, community stories, legal challenges and more.

The lawsuits have come as some Texas Republican legislators have falsely claimed that the community is a magnet for illegal immigration and Mexican drug cartels.

From fact-checking far-right rhetoric to investigating predatory lending practices, covering pending lawsuits and documenting the influx of student enrollment at Cleveland ISD, here’s everything you need to know about Liberty County’s largest developer.

What is Colony Ridge?

The housing development is a collection of six subdivisions and nearly 42,000 lots built by brothers William “Trey” Harris and John Harris beginning in 2011.

Neighboring communities and conservative media compared Colony Ridge to a colonia because of largely Latino, non-U.S. citizens the development attracted with cheap land and limited regulation. State and federal officials generally define colonias as unincorporated settlements near the U.S.-Mexico border with scant public services.

Why did Colony Ridge attract lawmakers’ attention?

Last year, the Harris brothers invited 22 lawmakers and staffers from the Texas attorney general’s office and the Texas House of Representatives to tour Colony Ridge after far-right media reports referred to it as a “magnet for illegal immigrants” in early October.

Touring state lawmakers did not see anything to support those claims and said further action must be backed by facts.

However, all 25 Republican members of Texas’ U.S. House of Representatives delegation, none of whom attended the tour, signed a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick , claiming that Colony Ridge has a “staggering illegal immigration population” and deals with “continuous drug cartel activity.”

At the time, Patrick conflated the development’s growth with President Joe Biden’s immigration policies but did not provide any evidence to support his claim. The lieutenant governor also cited environmental, public safety and educational concerns.

What do Liberty County officials have to say about these claims?

Liberty County Sheriff Bobby Rader said that while Colony Ridge has had its share of crime and cartel activity, violent crime in Colony Ridge is no more prevalent than in other communities in the Houston region.

State data shows that Liberty County’s violent crime rate was lower in 2022 than in jurisdictions overseen by the Houston Police Department and sheriffs of Harris, Galveston and Chambers counties. Montgomery, Fort Bend, Brazoria and Waller counties also reported lower violent crime rates.

Rader’s biggest complaint is not having more deputies to patrol the development, which spans 33,000 acres — an area larger than Manhattan — that is hamstringed by the county’s relatively small tax base.

Was this the first time lawmakers, state agencies learned about Colony Ridge?

Not necessarily. Records show at least three state agencies were warned about the developer’s business practices before last year.

Between 2016 to 2023, residents made more than five dozen complaints to state agencies about Colony Ridge and Terrenos Houston, a sister company of Colony Ridge that advertises lots, financing options, commercial zones and all the options for building or placing a home on a property.

The state received 69 complaints in total.

Who makes up the population in Colony Ridge?

Population estimates vary depending on who you ask, but most residents are of Latino descent, said John Harris, president and CEO of Colony Ridge Inc.

Harris said the development is home to about 40,000 people. But Liberty County officials estimate there are anywhere from 75,000 to over 100,000 residents.

The U.S. Census Bureau says that just over 108,000 people reside in Liberty County, but local officials say that number is an undercount because Colony Ridge residents, who are largely immigrants, are harder for census takers to reach.

RELATED: Watch a satellite video of the growth at the housing development between October 2016 through July 2024.

The boom in population has also brought an entrepreneurial spirit. The development is ripe with local businesses , such as restaurants, food stands, food trucks, hair salons, auto mechanic shops and more.

How does Colony Ridge affect the local school district?

Colony Ridge’s rapid growth has catapulted student enrollment at Cleveland ISD. In 2013, the district had fewer than 3,300 students. By the end of the 2023-2024 school year, enrollment reached more than 12,000 students.

To keep up, the district built three additional elementary schools and a middle school.

Since 2019, Liberty County voters have failed to pass four Cleveland ISD bond propositions, including an issue last year that would have funded additional school buildings, classrooms and buses.

Why do so many people purchase land from Colony Ridge?

Unlike standard lending institutions that have strict borrowing requirements and lengthy approval processes, Colony Ridge does not check credit history when offering loans.

This, on top of nominal down payments, has resulted in a population boom. Company officials say many of those who have moved to Colony Ridge over the past decade are Latino and likely would have had trouble securing loans elsewhere due to their limited credit history.

The in-house loans, however, come with steep interest rates of up to 13 percent .

What’s Colony Ridge accused of doing?

The Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has accused Colony Ridge of targeting Latino borrowers with false advertising and predatory loans.

In a federal lawsuit filed in December, the government claimed Colony Ridge set borrowers up to fail with loans they could not afford, lied about the conditions of for-sale lots, and exploited language barriers by marketing almost exclusively in Spanish while only providing crucial financial documents in English.

Federal prosecutors hope to convince the judge overseeing the case that Colony Ridge engaged in “ reverse redlining ,” which is the illegal practice of extending credit on unfair terms to disadvantaged communities on a discriminatory basis.

In March, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed his own state lawsuit against the developer, claiming it uses an aggressive marketing strategy to lure vulnerable borrowers into securing loans they cannot afford.

“The development profited from targeting consumers with fraudulent claims and predatory lending practices,” Paxton said earlier this year. “Their deceptive practices have created unjust and outsized harms. Nearby communities have borne a tremendous cost for the scheme that made Colony Ridge’s developers a fortune.”

John Harris has said the lawsuits, which echo findings from a Houston Landing investigation into Colony Ridge’s business practices, are without merit and were prompted by outsized attention from politicians and right-wing groups.

Will Colony Ridge buyers ever get relief?

Residents who contend they were duped into buying land from Colony Ridge hope to receive some sort of relief should Texas and the DOJ prevail in their pending lawsuits.

The Landing spoke with several lending discrimination experts, all of whom said both Texas and the federal government have strong cases. Settlements are possible, but distributing relief to former Colony Ridge residents could prove a challenge, however, as many have since moved elsewhere.

What’s next for Colony Ridge?

Lawyers for Colony Ridge, the Department of Justice and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appeared in court in August for a hearing on the federal case.

Ari Cuenin of Stone Hilton argued for dismissal, saying the federal government had failed to meet the standard for discrimination.

“I had a hard time following the government’s argument when they tried to articulate what the legal standard is,” he said before U.S. District Court Judge Alfred Bennett. “It broke down during their presentation.”

Bennett gave no indication of when he might rule on the motion to dismiss.

No hearing has been scheduled in the state case, which was recently transferred from U.S. District Court Judge Keith Ellison to Magistrate Judge Peter Bray.