5 On Your Side: Property issues frustrates Donna family attempting to build driveway
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A Donna family is hoping to resolve a property issue to build a driveway to the back of their property.
The process hasn’t been easy, and Dalila Adame Rivera called on 5 On Your Side for help.
Rivera said she and her family have had no luck in their attempt to build a driveway over an irrigation ditch off of Midway Road to access a portion of their five-acre property.
The family said all their other neighbors have driveways to their properties built over the ditch.
“We're trying to do it the legal way, we're trying to get permission from everybody, yet everybody is turning their backs on us,” Rivera said. “All we want is access to our property and just a driveway, that's all we need.”
Adding to their frustration is a yellow gate that blocks them from their property.
“The city and the county, none of them are taking initiative and saying they put in on there,” Rivera said. “We don't care who put it… we want that gate removed so that we can have access to our land."
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When the gate is locked, the family says they have to drive to Edinburg to borrow a key from the office of Hidalgo County Precinct 4 to unlock the gate and access to their land.
“Why should we have to share our driveway with a neighbor when we have our own land,” Rivera said. “If you look around these houses, everyone has their own driveway, why can't we have our own… we want our own.”
The family says their neighbors told them the driveways were built by Hidalgo County Precinct 1.
5 On Your Side reached out to Donna City Mayor David Moreno, who said off camera that the Donna Irrigation District owns the ditch, but it's unclear if Hidalgo County Precinct 1 or 4 is responsible for maintaining it.
Moreno added that whoever is responsible for maintaining the ditch is likely responsible for putting the yellow gate there.
Moreno said he set up a meeting for next week with precinct leaders and Donna’s irrigation team to get answers for Rivera and her family.
Watch the video above for the full story.
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