Resident resistance to the Ashby high-rise has been fierce, with the above image planted on yards and fences throughout the Southampton area.

At this rate, the Ashby high-rise could make a cameo appearance on AMC’s popular drama “The Walking Dead.”

After years of protests from citizens and lawmakers alike, Houston Mayor Annise Parker has mailed a letter to the residents of Southampton, where the high-rise would be constructed, telling them the city has no legal basis to restrict development of the tower, according to the Houston Chronicle.

Originally submitted in 2007, the project, which would be a 21-story high-rise building neighboring Rice University with 228 residential units, 10,075 square feet of restaurant space and four town homes, faced immediate resistance from the start, with community action, lawsuits and even copyright infringement detailing its epic progress towards construction.

Though Buckhead Investment Partners, the developer behind the project, received the go-ahead for the project in 2009, it claims it has been stalled repeatedly by sluggish performance from local government boards and by resident protests, both of whom do not want the high-rise to be built among the quiet, upscale homes in the Southampton area.

As the Houston Chronicle wrote late last year, though, the project returned, with Buckhead filing another request for a building permit, despite repeated permit denials and a pending lawsuit it has filed against the city, which, coincidentally enough, may be settled by the city, according to Parker’s letter.