The current public signal supports investigating subsidence, not accepting a three-foot site conversion. - July coverage says Houston-area monitoring still shows sinking in communities including The Woodlands, while the Houston region's own subsidence authority explains that legacy benchmarks had to be releveled as the ground moved. That makes a datum discrepancy credible; it does not establish the Lot 4 offset. See The Katy News and the Harris-Galveston Subsidence District.
The practical consensus is to reconcile the reference system before comparing numbers. - FEMA's training material warns that the flood elevation, grade, and structure elevations must share one vertical datum. The useful deliverable is therefore a sealed benchmark crosswalk and a current elevation certificate—not an oral subtraction applied across every plan. See FEMA.
Recent practitioner content was thin and noisy, so it is context rather than authority. - The social run found very little directly on construction datum conflicts; most high-engagement results were unrelated despite targeted searches. The reliable recent thread is regional: public monitoring and survey practice both favor current observation, explicit datum labels, and repeatable control. The project decision should remain anchored to NOAA, FEMA, the County, the RPLS, and the civil/structural engineers.