An ongoing court case to stop construction of a senior citizen housing project may still be on appeal, but one would may know it from looking at the buildings going up.

Construction of Edison Square Apartments, a 78-unit duplex-style community for people age 62 and older, is moving right along with a completion date estimated to be as early as June.

At the same time, a court case originally filed by a group of neighbors who did not want the complex in their Second Street neighborhood are awaiting a Corpus Christi Appeals Court to determine whether the project can proceed.

The outcome has not stopped the projected from proceeding, however.

Reginald Trainer, one of the plaintiffs in the case, said construction is going on fast and furiously.

“For some reason, they are working and we are still in court,” Trainer said. “There is dirt everywhere; they work from sunup to sun down. We wake up with noise; we go to bed with noise.”

Trainer said he has been unable to determine what is going on, but hopes to get some answers Tuesday at City Council’s regular meeting.

Scheduled for 8:30 a.m. at City Hall on the Fourth Floor, the city’s public works department is scheduled to give a presentation pertaining to Edison Square.

Since the project first started going on three years ago, it has been riddled with legal issues stemming from a group of neighbors who hoped to stop construction.

The project first came to the attention of the Port Arthur City Council members in July 2013 when the then owner of the Property, Port Arthur Independent School District requested a zoning change from two family residential to multiple family residential to allow for construction of a 128 townhouse style units.

At the time, more than 26 percent of residents living within 200 feet of the proposed building site opposed the project. That number was great enough to require a supermajority vote among City Council to change the zoning.

That number opposed was later reduced after some of those voicing objections said they would get behind the project as long as certain conditions were met such as only elderly people being allowed to reside there.

In July 2013, by a vote of 5-3, City Council cleared the way for construction of the 128-unit Edison Square when the supermajority vote was not longer needed because some of the residents opposing the building had changed their minds.

In October 2013 a temporary restraining order was issued by Judge Floyd to stop the city from allowing a zoning change. The plaintiffs hoped to have proved the residents changing their minds should not have been allowed after the original 26 were noted in City Council. At the time, the city argued it did not have regulations adopted that would provide a cutoff point to accepting residents’ opinions on a proposed building project.

Floyd subsequently ruled his court did not have jurisdiction in the case because he plaintiffs had not exhausted the appeals process at the local municipal level.

The residents’ opposed to the construction took their case to the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustments and Appeals to overturn the City Council’s prior vote to allow the zoning change.

Though successful in getting the vote overturned, the developer, ITEX Group, changed its project design from townhouses to duplexes, which the company believed was allowed under the city’s two-family zoning designation.

The city permitted the project in November 2014, and construction started on the revamped 78-duplex unit design.

Court papers filed with Jefferson County District Court indicate the project violates the two-family zoning designation because of the number of units proposed.

Since the plaintiffs exhausted the appeals process at the local level with the Zoning Board of Adjustments and Appeals, they looked to District Court for a decision on the projects legality.

That case has since been moved to an appeals court in Corpus Christi, where it remains and has not been resolved.

“I hear if we win they are going to have to tear it down,” Trainer said. “But, I don’t see how that will happen since the roofs are already up on a lot of them. We don’t know what is going on and that’s bad. I am a plaintiff on the court case and I don’t know what is going on across the street from my house. All I know is once I take and shower and lie down I am hearing knock, knock, bang, bang all day long.

“Somebody’s got to know something. Evidently these people across the street know something because they are out there working every day of the week, even Saturday and Sunday.”

Chris Akbari, president of ITEX, said the company is operating legally, and is trying to complete the project before the deadline is up for using Hurricane Ike recovery money, which is largely funding the project.

“All we are doing is trying to do what the project was approved to be,” Akbari said.

E-mail: sherry.koonce@panews.com

Twitter: skooncePANews