Right of Way · Eminent Domain &Condemnation Consulting Firm
Call or text(469) 484-7960
Emailinfo@nationalrow.com
Right of Way · Eminent Domain &AEP Texas and CPS Energy have asked the Public Utility Commission of Texas to approve about 370 miles of 765-kilovolt transmission from CPS Energy’s Howard Road Station in Bexar County to AEP Texas’s Solstice Station in Pecos County. The application put 77 alternative routes, built from 268 segments, across a study area covering 14 counties. This is the longest of the Texas 765 kV projects and the only one that runs through the Hill Country. It is also the only one the Commission has taken up and not decided. Until an order is signed, every landowner inside that study area is still a candidate.
Almost every condemnation case is a fight about a number, not about the law.
Almost every condemnation case is a fight about a number, not about the law.
A photo of the offer is enough — a senior consultant reads it and tells you what we see.
Text (469) 484-7960 →Four documented matters, each traced from the original offer letter to final settlement — two utility easements and two highway condemnations, labelled on each. Not an average and not a prediction; when we look at yours and think the number is close to right, we tell you so. National ROW is a right-of-way consulting firm, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice.
| Official project name | Howard to Solstice 765 kV Single-Circuit Transmission Line |
| Applicants | AEP Texas Inc. and the City of San Antonio, acting by and through the City Public Service Board (CPS Energy) |
| PUCT docket | 59336 |
| Application filed | March 2, 2026 |
| Intervention deadline | April 1, 2026 (passed) |
| Hearing on the merits | Held at SOAH, May 19–22, 2026 |
| Filings in the docket | 2,721 |
| Current stage | The Commission took this docket up on August 28, 2026 and tabled it rather than deciding. No final order has issued. |
| Routes studied | 77 alternative routes, built from 268 segments |
| Length | About 370 miles |
| From | CPS Energy Howard Road Station, Bexar County |
| To | AEP Texas Solstice Station, Pecos County |
| Counties in the study area | 14 |
| Voltage | 765 kV single circuit. The PUCT selected the 765 kV option for the Permian Basin plan on April 24, 2025. |
Also searched as: Howard Solstice transmission line, AEP CPS 765 kV San Antonio, Docket 59336 route, 765 kV Hill Country, Devils River transmission line, Val Verde County power line easement.
One page showing the 14 counties named in Docket 59336, the two endpoints, and the project facts as filed. Print it, take it to your appraisal district, or send it to whoever is advising you.
Download the study-area map (Docket 59336)
Why this map shows counties and not routes. Oncor publishes its corridor geometry through a public mapping service, which is how the maps on our other 765 kV pages draw every filed link. AEP has not published machine-readable geometry for Docket 59336, so the individual routes cannot be drawn here without redrawing them by hand from filed exhibits — and a hand-traced corridor is exactly the kind of thing a landowner should not rely on. Send us your address and we will check it against the filed maps ourselves.
On our Oncor 765 kV pages you can type an address and get a distance, because Oncor publishes its corridor geometry. AEP does not publish geometry for Docket 59336, so an automated check here would be guesswork dressed up as a measurement. We are not going to do that. Instead: find your county below, then send us the address and we will check it against the filed route exhibits by hand and tell you what we find.
If your county is on that list, you are inside the study area for a 370-mile 765 kV line and the routing record is still open. Send us your address and we will check it against the filed routes.
Related reading: what we do on a transmission line easement, our Texas condemnation guide, and the full Texas 765 kV docket tracker.
Tell us about your property. A senior consultant reads every one of these and calls you within the hour, 8am–6pm Central, Monday to Friday. Outside those hours, first thing the next morning.
Your case is in review. A senior consultant reads everything you shared and calls you within the hour, 8am–6pm Central, Monday to Friday. Outside those hours, first thing the next morning.
In the meantime, don't sign anything and don't feel pressured to respond to their representatives.
Running west from San Antonio to Fort Stockton, in geographic order. Because no route has been chosen, none of these counties is safe and none is certain.
Find your county below and tap it to open.
The line starts here at CPS Energy’s Howard Road Station. Bexar is the most urbanised county on any Texas 765 kV docket — a corridor near San Antonio crosses land priced for development, not grazing, and the damage to what you keep is usually the dominant number.
Irrigated farmland on the Medina River and the growing western edge of the San Antonio commute. Pivot interference and field shape matter here, and so does the development horizon on tracts near US 90.
Brush country and Eagle Ford surface, with ranching between. Landowners here often already carry oil and gas infrastructure, which is an argument for a larger cumulative-burden number, not a smaller one.
Hill Country recreational and second-home country. Value is in view, canyon and privacy, and steel towers up to roughly 200 feet tall are visible across that terrain for miles. That loss lands in damages to the remainder.
Some of the most expensive rural acreage in Texas outside the metros. Ranch, river frontage and estate tracts where a transmission corridor across the front of the property is a direct hit to the reason someone would buy it.
Frio and Nueces canyon country, hunting leases and recreational tracts. Small counties with high per-acre values and terrain that makes a corridor unusually conspicuous.
Edwards Plateau ranch country — sheep, goats, cattle and hunting. Lease income is documentable and a corridor affects the pasture, not just the strip.
Irrigated farming on the Nueces and Frio, hunting country north of town. A corridor that clips a pivot circle takes the productivity of the whole circle.
Large ranches, hunting leases and low population. Tracts here are big, which means the remainder is big — and the remainder is usually where the money is.
Devils River country. Conservation interest in this county is organised and vocal, and the routing record reflects it. Recreational and conservation value is a real component of market value on tracts here, and it is not something an agricultural comparable captures.
One of the emptiest counties in Texas by population and one of the largest by area. Ranching and hunting, with terrain that makes access and construction damage a bigger issue than the easement acres.
Edwards Plateau ranching and hunting, plus wind development. Crockett also sits in the Big Hill–Sand Lake study area on Docket 59182, so a landowner here can be inside two separate 765 kV dockets at once.
Ranch and hunting country with existing transmission already in the county. Being near an existing line is a negotiating posture, not a valuation principle — the next 200 feet is not free.
The line ends here at AEP Texas’s Solstice Station. Irrigated farming around Fort Stockton, oil and gas across the rest, and a growing amount of utility-scale solar competing for the same flat, close-to-line ground. Pecos is also in the Big Hill–Sand Lake study area.
Crockett and Pecos counties sit in this study area and in the Big Hill–Sand Lake study area, Docket 59182 at the same time. If you own land in either county, read the docket number on anything you receive before you respond to it — two different utilities are working two different cases across the same ground.
We will tell you where your land sits against the filed corridors — and what a first offer on a 765 kV taking usually leaves out.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — a senior consultant answers owners the same day.
Electric load in the Permian Basin has grown faster than the transmission built to serve it, and the Legislature directed ERCOT to plan for that growth. ERCOT’s Permian Basin reliability planning concluded the region needed a step change, and on April 24, 2025 the Public Utility Commission of Texas selected 765 kilovolts as the voltage for the new backbone — the first lines at that voltage anywhere in Texas.
Most of that backbone is Oncor and LCRA territory in West and Central Texas. Howard–Solstice is the southern leg, built by AEP Texas and CPS Energy, and it is the longest single project in the programme at roughly 370 miles.
It is also the most contested. The route has to get from San Antonio to the Permian Basin, and the shortest paths run through the Hill Country and across the Devils River watershed — some of the most environmentally sensitive and most expensive rural land in the state. That is why the docket has drawn 2,721 filings and organised opposition, and it is very likely why the Commission took the case up on 28 August and tabled it rather than deciding.
What that means for a landowner is not that the project goes away. The need has been decided at the state level. What is still open is which of 77 filed routes gets chosen, and after that, what each affected owner is paid.
Docket 59336 has been heard and is sitting with the Commission. Here is where it stands and what follows.
Tap any step to see what happens.
The PUCT chose 765 kilovolts as the voltage for the new backbone, which set the scale of everything that followed.
AEP Texas and CPS Energy mapped a study area across 14 counties, held open houses, and developed 77 alternative routes from 268 segments.
Docket 59336 opened.
The date by which a landowner had to formally intervene to become a party. That date has passed, which affects standing in the routing case — it does not affect the right to just compensation for a taking.
The contested case was tried before administrative law judges.
The Commission put the docket on its agenda and did not decide it. That is unusual, and it is the clearest signal available that the routing question here is genuinely unsettled.
One route is selected and an order signed. That order is what turns a study area into a centerline.
Land agents ask for written permission to survey, the company orders an appraisal, and a written offer follows. Under Texas law that offer has to be a bona fide offer — a procedural standard, not a promise the number is right.
The condemning entity files, three special commissioners are appointed, and they hold a hearing on value. Either side can object to the award and take it to court.
A 200-foot permanent easement across a mile of your property is a little over 24 acres inside the strip alone. On this corridor the strip is rarely the expensive part, because the land it crosses is bought for reasons a per-acre agricultural figure does not measure.
A transmission easement is not a sale. You keep title, keep paying taxes, and cannot build on it, plant tall growth in it, or put permanent structures in it. On a working pasture that costs little. On a canyon rim tract in Bandera or Real County it can cost the reason the property was worth what it was.
This is the defining issue on the eastern half of this route. Kerr, Bandera, Real and Edwards county tracts sell on view, seclusion, water and hunting. Self-supporting steel lattice towers up to roughly 200 feet tall are visible for miles across that terrain, and where a buyer was paying for an unbroken skyline the loss is measurable in comparable sales. It belongs in damages to the remainder, and a first offer built on grazing comparables will not contain it.
Across Edwards, Real, Kinney, Val Verde, Sutton and Crockett counties, hunting lease income is a documentable revenue stream, often the primary income from the land. A corridor through a pasture affects the lease value of that pasture, not merely the acres inside the easement. Lease history is evidence.
Val Verde County and the Devils River watershed carry conservation value that shows up in the market — buyers pay for it. Where a tract carries a conservation easement, a wildlife management valuation, or river frontage, a transmission corridor can conflict with the existing encumbrance as well as the value, and that interaction needs looking at before anything is signed.
In Bexar, Medina and northern Atascosa counties the market is pricing what land will become, not what it grows. A corridor across the buildable frontage takes the part of the value the price was based on. Highest and best use is a valuation question and on tracts inside the San Antonio growth ring it is usually the whole argument.
Construction on a 765 kV line is heavy, and this route runs through terrain where access is difficult. Tower foundations, crane pads, pulling sites and access roads sit outside the permanent strip under a temporary construction easement negotiated separately. On canyon and plateau ground the roads cut to reach a tower site can do more lasting damage than the tower.
In Atascosa and Pecos counties much of the surface already carries oil and gas infrastructure, and Sutton County already carries transmission. Each additional corridor takes from a shrinking remainder of usable surface. Land agents present that as a reason to pay less. The valuation runs the other way.
A senior consultant will walk your numbers with you — the easement acreage, what it does to the remainder, and the value the first offer tends to leave on the table. No cost and no obligation.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — a senior consultant answers owners the same day.
Once the Commission signs an order and your tract is on the chosen route, the sequence is survey, appraisal, written offer. Under Texas Property Code Chapter 21 that first written offer has to be a bona fide offer supported by an appraisal. Bona fide is a procedural test. It does not mean the number is correct, and it does not mean the appraisal looked at everything it should have.
| Component | What it pays for | Typically |
|---|---|---|
| Value of the part acquired | The strip itself, priced per acre against comparable sales | Largest single line |
| Damages to the remainder | Lost value to everything you keep — severance, access, layout, irrigation, marketability | Frequently understated |
| Cost to cure | What it costs to fix what the taking broke — fences, gates, cattle guards, crossings, reseeding, drainage | Often omitted entirely |
| Temporary construction easement | Extra ground used during construction, separate from the permanent strip | Priced as an afterthought |
An offer that consists of one per-acre number multiplied by the acres in the strip has quietly priced three of those four lines at zero.
Eight things that are compensable, that landowners on Hill Country and Edwards Plateau takings routinely are not paid for, and that a per-acre offer does not address.
Tap each one to see what it means on your tract.
A 200-foot high-voltage corridor can reduce the market value of your whole tract, not just the strip. On Hill Country land that effect is usually far larger than the easement payment.
Kerr, Bandera and Real county tracts sell on view and seclusion. Towers up to roughly 200 feet tall across a ridgeline show up in comparable sales, not in a per-acre offer.
Hunting leases across Edwards, Real, Kinney, Val Verde, Sutton and Crockett are often the main income from the land. A corridor affects the lease, not just the easement acres.
In Bexar, Medina and northern Atascosa the land is priced on what it will become. An agricultural comparable will not show what a corridor takes.
Where their trucks enter, how often, and what happens to gates, ranch roads, cattle guards, fences and low-water crossings during and after construction.
Extra ground taken during construction — pads, pulling sites and access roads cut through canyon terrain — negotiated separately and routinely underpriced.
Devils River frontage, conservation easements and wildlife-management valuations all carry market value and can conflict with a new corridor. That interaction needs review before signing.
Texas Tax Code § 23.55(f) provides that rollback tax sanctions do not apply when the change of use results from a sale for right-of-way or from a condemnation. Confirm it with your own appraisal district — and ask separately what the corridor does to ag use on the remainder.
Send it over with their appraisal if they gave you one — a photo of the pages is enough. A senior consultant reads it and tells you what their number left out, what we would argue for, and whether it can be moved.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — a senior consultant answers owners the same day.
We are on the owner's side of the right-of-way. We are paid out of the increase, which means we do not get paid unless you do better.
Send us whatever they sent you — a survey permission form, a letter, an appraisal, an offer. We read it and tell you plainly where it is weak. No charge, no obligation.
We bring in independent, certified appraisers to value the part acquired and, critically, to document damages to the remainder and cost to cure.
We deal with the land agents and their appraisers directly, with documentation behind every number, so you are not negotiating alone against people who do this full time.
Our fee is a percentage of the increase above the original offer. If we do not improve it, you owe us nothing.
Tap any question to see the answer.
No. The contested case was heard at SOAH in May 2026, and the Commission took the docket up on August 28, 2026 and tabled it rather than deciding. As of September 9, 2026 no final order has issued and all 77 filed routes remain on the table.
Because AEP has not published corridor geometry for this docket in machine-readable form. On our Oncor 765 kV pages you can type an address and get a real distance, because Oncor publishes its route data through a public mapping service. Building a checker here would mean hand-tracing corridors off filed exhibits and presenting the result as a measurement, which is the sort of thing a landowner should not rely on. Send us the address instead and we will check it against the filed exhibits ourselves.
You lost party status in the routing case. You did not lose your right to just compensation. If the chosen route crosses your land, the condemning entity still has to make a bona fide written offer supported by an appraisal, and you can still negotiate it, reject it, and take it to special commissioners.
Both are applicants. AEP Texas Inc. and the City of San Antonio, acting through the City Public Service Board, filed jointly. Which entity approaches you depends on the segment. Either way the standard for what you are owed is the same, and neither of them is on your side of the table.
Possibly. Both counties sit in this study area and also in the Big Hill–Sand Lake study area, PUCT Docket 59182, which is a separate Oncor and LCRA project. Two utilities, two dockets, two sets of land agents, across the same ground. Read the docket number on anything you receive before responding.
This is a 765 kV single-circuit line. On the Oncor 765 kV projects the published right-of-way is approximately 200 feet with self-supporting steel lattice towers typically 155 to 160 feet tall and a maximum just under 200 feet. AEP has not published its own figures for this project in the same form, so confirm the exact width and structure type against the easement document you are actually offered rather than against a comparison.
It may affect which route is chosen — organised opposition is part of why this docket is unusually live after the hearing. It does not affect what you are paid if the line ends up crossing your land. Those are two separate fights, and the second one starts the day the order signs.
Nothing up front. We work on contingency — our fee is a percentage of the additional compensation we secure above their first offer. If it does not move, you owe us nothing. We are owner-side only, nationwide, since the 1980s, and we have never worked for a condemning agency or utility. We are not a law firm and not a tax advisor; legal counsel is coordinated when your case requires it.
Survey permission form, letter, appraisal, easement draft, offer — whatever stage you are at, we will read it and tell you where it is weak. Free, and there is no obligation to go further.
Free review by a senior consultant →Or call or text (469) 484-7960 — we answer owners the same day.
County lists and study-area figures on this page were taken from the applicants’ own filings in PUCT Docket 59336 and from Oncor’s published project materials, and the corridors drawn on the map are read live from Oncor’s public CCN mapping service. No route has been approved, so no mileage-by-county figures are given — they do not exist yet.
