Here's more on the White Chapel Corridor Group in Southlake...
Homeowners in the group now are entertaining inquiries from two companies. XTO Energy is offering to sign leases at $5,000 per acre and a 25 percent royalty -- home sites in the area range between half an acre and an acre. Dale Resources, signing leases for Chesapeake Energy, has sent out letters, saying it wants to sign up leases and offers are coming soon.
The White Chapel Corridor Group began organizing four weeks ago after three homeowners reported being approached in door-to-door soliciations by landmen repping XTO. Those property owners signed the lease offers.
The group says it covers the area generally from White Chapel Boulevard on the west, 1709 on the south, Carroll on the east, and Texas 114 on the north. Owners of a 120-acre farm inside 114 and Carroll reportedly are negotiating their own deal and represent a potential drill site.
White Chapel Corridor's neighborhoods: Mission Hill Estates, 
Chapel Downs, Oak Hill, Homes on Highlands, Lakewood Acres, Foxborough, Southview, and Diamond Circle. The group says it's included homes west of White Chapel just north of Bicentennial Park.
Trenton Stillwell, president of the Mission Hill Estates association and one of the lead organizers of the White Chapel Corridor Group, says the group potentially covers 382 homes. "One half of the homeowners have joined the organization and committed not to negotiate individually," Stillwell said.
The organizers say they want the best financial terms, as well as careful consideration of environmental issues such as drill site location, potential impact on the water wells many of the homeowners have, height and lighting of rigs, hours of operation, and truck traffic.
"There are so many other things that go into a lease than just negotiating a bonus and percentage," said Karen Whitaker, the Mission Hill Estates secretary and another chief organizer behind the White Chapel Corridor Group.
In the early stages of organization, there were seeds of opposition, Stillwell said. "Initially, the group 
was comprised of people who didn't care about the money. They just didn't want a huge yellow light blinking in the backyard," he said.
But the potential availability of drill sites led to an assessment of inevitability and a move to band together a larger group. "It's a Right to Drill State," Whitaker says. "It's going to happen one way or another."
Meanwhile, the White Chapel Group says it's just learned of an $11,500-per-acre offer going out to homeowners in the Lonesome Dove Estates neighborhood north of 114 in Southlake. More on that when we get it.
Click here to visit White Chapel Corridor Group's web site. The group is asking interested homeowners to contact their homeowner associations or block captains. Click here to send an email to the group: missionhillestates@mac.com.
Click here to read our previous posts on Southlake.
-- Scott Nishimura
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(Photos: Bicentennial Park)
