Editing Horizon City, Texas (section)

==History==
The city, incorporated by referendum on October 22, 1988,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth276314/m1/1/|title=Texas Attorney General Opinion: LO89-25|first=Jim|last=Mattox|date=April 3, 1989|website=The Portal to Texas History}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.horizoncity.org/content/files/App2_ParksPlan_client.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=2014-07-27 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170321084025/http://www.horizoncity.org/content/files/App2_ParksPlan_client.pdf |archive-date=2017-03-21 |url-status=dead }}</ref> takes its name from the real-estate development corporation that developed it as a planned community beginning in the early 1960s, the Horizon Corporation. The Horizon Corporation bought up large tracts of land in the southwestern United States, including eastern El Paso County, platted them into subdivisions, and sold lots in them to thousands of people worldwide, often sight unseen, often without access to water or utilities and using questionable sales tactics, between 1962 and 1975. Eventually, the Federal Trade Commission stepped in to stop it in 1981.<ref name="elpasotimes.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_17498314|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150827163028/http://www.elpasotimes.com:80/ci_17498314|archive-date=2015-08-27|title=Horizon lots sit undeveloped;owners unable to sell|access-date=2023-08-07}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_18172193|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150512144128/http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_18172193|archive-date=2015-05-12|title=Ad scams prey on Horizon lot owners|access-date=2023-08-07}}</ref> Only one portion of the development was successful, the area around the intersection of Horizon Boulevard ([[Farm to Market Road 1281]]) and Kenazo Street; this became the nucleus of Horizon City.

Much of the land to the east of town consists of undeveloped subdivisions with highly fragmented ownership. The lots in these subdivisions cannot be legally sold and will be difficult to develop due to the 1994 Texas Colonia Act, a state law intended to stop the development of colonias, or neighborhoods underserved by utilities whose residents often live in substandard conditions. It forbids the sale for residential purposes of less than 10 acres of land or the sale of more than 10 acres of land without a guarantee of adequate access to water, sewer services and other utilities. Efforts are currently underway by a local homeowners' association, the Horizon Communities Improvement Association, to assemble these lots into tracts of land that can be legally developed.<ref name="elpasotimes.com"/><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.horizoncommunities.com/|title=Horizon Communities Improvement Association|website=Horizon Communities Improvement Association}}</ref>