Published Monday January 12, 2009
Loess Hills sinkhole turns their $329,000 dream home into: The Money Pit
BY JOHN FERAK
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
GLENWOOD, Iowa - Christi and Nelson Leidel own a
$329,000 house that isn't safe to call home.
Click to Enlarge
Nelson Leidel circles the growing area of sunken
land at the back of his property in Mills
County's Loess Hills. The movement of the soft
ground under his house caused the foundation to
shift, leaving the home uninhabitable for Leidel and his wife, Christi.
A close look would show the house's foundation
has shifted, opening cracks and buckling floors.
A first-floor bay window sags. A bathroom wall
bows. Large chunks of the backyard continue to
slough off into the creek bed behind their lot.
In November, federal officials determined that
the four-year-old house was unsafe for the
Leidels to occupy. Yard signs caution neighbors.
The problem traces to rain draining from a
subdivision into the house's backyard, which sits
at the bottom of a steep slope in an area of
western Iowa known for its bluffs and unusually soft ground.
The uninhabitable house has left the Leidels with
broken hearts and mounting debt and fostered
worries among neighbors that they, too, could be in trouble.
The house also has raised questions about Mills
County's oversight of new construction. One
county official wondered whether experts should
be hired to determine if erosion problems are
more far-reaching and need mitigation.
Click to Enlarge
Federal officials determined the house unsafe for habitation.
"Emotionally, this has almost destroyed our
family," Christi Leidel said. "I am living in a
rental dwelling and still paying on a home and
storage unit and not enjoying a single luxury
item in my home. We are financially ruined."
Both Leidels are military veterans who served in
the Persian Gulf War and relocated here from
Denver is 2003. Christi, 39, works as an
insurance agent in Glenwood. Nelson, 37, is an
intelligence analyst for Northrop Grumman in
Bellevue. They have a son, 13, and a daughter, 11.
After falling in love with Glenwood's small-town
quaintness and reputation for good schools, they
chose to build a custom home in Mills County.
The county, one of metro Omaha's fastest-growing,
also is part of one of Iowa's most unusual
geologic features, the Loess Hills. The hills,
which cut a swath through western Iowa, were
formed by windblown glacial dust over thousands of years.
The Leidel house is in Park Place Acres, an
upscale development of 60 acreages north of
Glenwood that dates to the late 1990s. At that
time, Mills County had few regulations governing
housing development. In 2006, Mills County became
one of the last western Iowa counties to adopt zoning.
The area's topography and the permeability of the
soil provide habitat for an interesting variety
of plants and animals. It also makes it a risky
place for large housing developments, said John
Thomas, an Oakland, Iowa, geologist.
Developers, builders and local officials must
exercise good judgment when deciding where homes
can be built on Loess Hills soil and whether too
many houses would cause erosion problems over time, Thomas said.
Click to Enlarge
Nails pulled from walls in the master bedroom of
the Leidels' house come out rusty from water damage.
To this day, Mills County does not issue building
permits, although the county plans to adopt a building code.
The proposed rules - in the works for months and
expected to get a final vote in March - would
require building permits and inspections for
residential and commercial projects, county
officials said Friday. Plans for the new code are
unrelated to the Leidel case, they said.
Major structural problems in new homes within the
Loess Hills region are not unheard of, officials said.
In Pottawattamie County, Council Bluffs condemned
two homes along Jim Brown Parkway after the
hillside behind those homes collapsed. A third
home, near the Mall of the Bluffs, developed huge
cracks throughout the structure before Council Bluffs condemned it.
The Leidel house is believed to be the first with
such structural problems in Mills County, county officials said.
After part of their backyard slid into the creek
bed last summer, the Leidels contacted county
officials. Within months, cracks exposed gaping
holes, and the home was declared unsafe.
Click to Enlarge
Water runoff from the road has carved a line in
the Leidels' property downhill to the creek.
Pieces of their backyard are sloughing off into the creek bed.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency paid the
family about $5,000 for temporary shelter. FEMA
provided no other compensation because the
problem wasn't a result of a natural disaster, such as a tornado.
The Leidels' homeowners insurance policy denied
their claim to pay for a new house. Earth
movement isn't covered by their policy.
So now the Leidels are arguing that their builder
and developer should compensate them for their troubles.
"Basically, our house should never have been
built there," said Nelson Leidel. "That should have been a drainage area."
A letter from their attorney, William Bianco, has
demanded $2.8 million - enough to not only cover
the property loss but also to help pay for a lake
to mitigate future erosion in the area.
Subdivision developer Jim Hughes said his
insurance adjusters are still reviewing Bianco's
letter, and a decision has not been made whether
to offer a settlement or force the homeowners to file a lawsuit.
His son, Mark Hughes, who built the home - and
lives only three doors away from the Leidels -
denies that any fault rests with him or his father.
"They are seeking $2.8 million from someone, and
I don't have that," Mark Hughes said. "We did
excellent work on their home, and they are looking for someone to pay for it."
He and Jim Hughes, owner of Jim Hughes Real
Estate, say the Leidels should be pressing their
own insurance company to cover their losses.
"It's a bad deal," Jim Hughes said, "and I
sympathize with the owners. It's an unfortunate
happening, but you never know with Mother Nature. . . .
"They have got a beautiful home there. I wish
there was something I could do. You would not
expect this to happen, but it did."
Mark Hughes said he did not conduct soil samples
on the subdivision lots because there was no
reason to suspect that the ground was unsuitable
for housing. He said his own yard, with a shed at
the edge, has not had erosion.
"How do I, as a builder, cause their backyard to erode?" he asked.
The county's proposed building permit process
would not require soil sampling, Mills County Board member Ron Kohn said.
Thomas, the geologist, said he's not surprised by
the Leidels' erosion problems.
"Building one house out there on Loess Hills soil
is not going to make a big problem," he said. "In
Mills County, they have developments. If you have
got 60 homes, you are going to have a lot of runoff and a lot of erosion."
Another homeowner, Mike Malone, told the County
Board last month about significant soil erosion
problems he is experiencing. His lot sits at the
opposite end of the subdivision from the Leidels' empty house.
Malone said that professional engineers inspected
his yard and estimated that it could cost $20,000
to $40,000 to stop soil erosion from causing more
damage. So far, none of the erosion has damaged his home, Malone said.
"I know if I don't do something, I will have a
bigger problem over time," he said.
Still, County Board member Kohn said he thought
the Leidels' experience was "a real fluke."
"I'm hoping it is," he said.
Kohn said the county may want to hire outside
soil experts to determine the extent of soil erosion problems.
With their dispute far from resolved, the Leidels
find themselves in financial straits.
They pay $1,350 per month, plus utilities, to
rent a temporary home in Glenwood.
Meanwhile, they must continue to make monthly
payments on their 30-year, adjustable-rate
mortgage for the house they can't live in.
To help pay lawyer fees and living expenses,
Christi hocked her wedding ring. Nelson sold his
prized hunting rifles. The couple said they have
cashed out retirement and savings accounts. They
sold household items at garage sales.
If the Leidels don't prevail in getting
compensation, they fear defaulting on their
mortgage and ending up in bankruptcy. If that
occurs, Nelson Leidel could lose the government
security clearance he needs to hold his job.
"We don't want to give up," Christi Leidel said.
"How am I supposed to stomach this? My family is suffering."
•
Published Monday January 12, 2009
Advice for building in Iowa's Loess Hills
Thinking about building a home in the Loess Hills region?
Rich Maaske, urban conservationist for Iowa's
Division of Soil Conservation in western Iowa,
and John Thomas, a geologist for the Golden Hills
Resource Conservation and Development in Oakland, Iowa, offer some tips:
• Examine where you want to build. Low-impact,
small-density developments are better than
high-density ones. Realize that any large
development can change the hydrology of the Loess
Hills soil. Development can increase the likelihood of runoff.
• Consider hiring someone to survey the soil.
There are different types of loess soil,
depending on the location, and some types can
easily erode during major storms and extremely wet periods.
• Visit with the local soil and water
conservation district to get advice and
suggestions on whether locations are suitable for
homebuilding. Be careful about building near
gullies or near steep slopes, where soil saturation will cause erosion.
Because water runs downhill, be aware of the
drainage area, land use and slope. Study the
neighboring properties. How do neighbors address
storm water runoff from their land?
• Examine the work of the builder and developer.
Have previously built homes encountered any problems?
If you build, use landscaping to thwart
high-velocity storm-water runoff from your property.
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