North and South Arlington neighborhoods organize

More Arlington neighborhoods are organizing responses to lease offers.

The Villages of Fairfield neighborhood group in south Arlington (click here for the group's web site) is organizing to respond to an offer from Four Sevens/Chesapeake Energy. The offered terms: $5,000-per-acre signing bonus, 25 percent royalty, no surface access. The neighborhood says the drill site would be at Bob McFarland Park. Bill Tinsley, Bill_Tinsley@sbcglobal.net, one of organizers, says he and others in the neighborhood have passed out 500 fliers to get things going. The group's initial meeting is 3 p.m. Saturday at the park.

The Villages are north of Southeast Green Oaks, east of Matlock Road, west of the Arlington Municipal Airport and south of Interstate 20. The group initially sought to join the CCNG (Concerned Citizens: Natural Gas Drilling) group in south Arlington, whose neighborhoods are south of Green Oaks, but those neighborhoods had lease offers from different companies and a different drill site, Tinsley says.

The Villages didn't have an established homeowner association, but is organizing one, Tinsley says. He believes his group has effectively been able to get homeowners to hold off from signing leases. "I've been getting email every day," he says.

In North Arlington, the Parkway Central Homeowners Association is holding a meeting 7:30 p.m. Saturday Jan. 19 at the Rolling Hills Country Club to discuss its next move on a lease offer from Marsh Operating Co. of Dallas. Marsh has a city-approved drill site at the club and a deal to drill there, and could reach the Parkway neighborhood from that site, the neighborhood says. Parkway is east of the club. Marsh also has secured leases with three nearby churches, the neighborhood says.

"Marsh...is willing to give us a per-acre bonus payment for our mineral rights, plus a 25 percent royalty once the drilling has produced gas to sell," the neighborhood says in a flier publicizing the meeting. Parkway is inviting other nearby neighborhoods to come to the meeting.

(Map: What neighborhood says is potential reach of Rolling Hills Country Club drill site, large blue circle; institutional leases, smaller blue circles.)

-- Scott Nishimura

(Photo: On the swing at McFarland Park)

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Comments

[Janet Leach]

Can you please tell me when most of the Interlochen Neighborhood in North Arlington, Texas signed a gas lease? What group did they join?
Thank you.
Janet

[Bill Tinsley]

Please vist our new website @ www.vfna.net

[Bill Tinsley]

I would like to announce that the Villages of Fairfield group has expanded to encompas those homes North of Cravens park. To those residents I welcome you to our group!

Bill Tinsley
Villages of Fairfield