COMFORT — A decision to call off plans for a wastewater treatment plant that would have served a planned 1,100-home development makes it difficult for the project to move ahead, critics of the facility said.
A Dec. 23, 2025, letter to the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality from Jamie Miller, of JA Wastewater, informed the commission of Lennar Homes’ intent to withdraw the permit application originally submitted in October 2024.
“As of this date (Dec. 23), we have removed the application from our record, pending applications,” Miller stated.
Without the plant, the project cannot proceed or at least is stalled, officials said.
However, there has been no official word from Lennar Homes that the Comfort 590 development near town has been scrubbed. Two calls placed this week to the company were not returned.
Meanwhile, to Roy Die and other Comfort area residents, the letter signifies a possible end in a struggle to oppose Lennar’s housing plans and curtail what critics said could be potential damage the plant would have had on the area.
Die is the organizer of the grassroots group Comfort Neighbors.
If approved, “the plant would dump 600,000 gallons of effluent a day into area creeks ... that had never seen anything but rainwater and spring water,” Die said. “That would have killed all the fish life and made it unsuitable for any recreational activity.”
“The plant would dump 600,000 gallons of effluent a day into area creeks ... that had never seen anything but rainwater and spring water.”
— Roy Die, ‘Comfort Neighbors’ organizer
Kendall County Precinct 4 Commissioner Chad Carpenter echoed Die’s concerns, citing a lack of water in the creeks and streams.
“We have a serious water concern in the Comfort area,” Carpenter said. “We don’t have any backup water source; area (well) levels ... continue to drop, that’s 100 percent factual.”
He added, “They wanted to dump treated wastewater into the north creek, which runs into the Cypress Creek, which feeds the Guadalupe River and into … Canyon Lake. The problem right now is, there is no water in Cypress Creek. So Cypress Creek would eventually be filled with nothing but wastewater.”
Die and other members of Comfort Neighbors said it will be hard for the project to move ahead.
“It is probably finished,” Die said. “The withdrawal of the wastewater-treatment permit is a good sign that the deal is not going forward.”
Without the plant, available water and sewage service to an 1,100-home subdivision would not exist, he added.
“I think they just came to a realization that this was just not a good fit for them,” he said.
The Comfort “590” moniker refers to the 590 acres Lennar would buy and use for its development. But Carpenter said the 1,100 homes were only going to be built on about 200-plus acres of flat terrain. The rest of the acreage is steep, hilly ground.
“Based on the map, the homes were clustered, four and five homes per acre, on the available flatland. It was definitely high-density building,” Die said.
Die said Comfort Neighbors organized shortly after two neighboring landowners received letters from TCEQ informing them about the wastewater plant permit.
“That’s when we came together to combat this subdivision,” he said. “This was a grassroots organization that ... got a lot of people involved and delegated certain things. We’re not going to dissolve this; the issue (housing developments in the Hill Country) isn’t going to go away.”
Die said the lack of infrastructure and services made the Lennar plan unsuitable for the area.
Comfort Neighbors meetings were standing-room only, he added, once word spread.
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