Director of Development Services Travis Tanner presented City Council with a commercial strategy report June 1 that is intended to help the city begin to prepare to potentially implement new commercial development strategies in fiscal year 2026-27.
The setup
In August 2025, the city hired HR&A Advisors to consult the city on economic development and establish a commercial development strategy. In his presentation, Tanner said the team completed a tour of the city, met with stakeholders and conducted a market analysis.
Before finalizing the report, HR&A held a workshop in February with council members and city officials. The workshop, according to the agenda item, resulted in establishing three main priorities for improving the commercial real estate in Bellaire, including: easing parking regulations, facilitating land assembly and creating one or more special districts to fund public improvements that could incentivize private investment.
“I thought that was a really successful conversation,” Tanner said. “There was really good feedback from the consultant and from City Council.”
Zooming in
Since the city’s workshop, Tanner said the Planning and Zoning Commission has already begun to work on the first item—easing parking restrictions.
A public hearing was held May 14 to discuss and hear from residents regarding a change in the city’s code of ordinances related to parking requirements, which included discussing the possibility of alleviating development constraints in commercial districts by:
- Creating a new purpose statement to better align with Bellaire’s intentions
- Providing a pathway for parking credits and reductions
- Adding flexibility for off-site and shared parking
- Providing administrative discretion on a reduction of parking up to 10%
Tanner said another P&Z meeting is planned for later this week to approve and send over more market-driven approaches as it relates to the parking ordinance to City Council, with an item expected to appear before council in the next few months.
More details
The other two items involve land assembly and special district creation. Tanner said land assembly could include repurposing public rights of way that aren’t in use and packaging land together.
“The reason for that is that a lot of our commercial land here in the city is fragmented in terms of ownership,” he said. “Instead of having large tracts that are owned by one landowner or developer, we have a lot of small tracts that are owned by various individuals. That is a difficulty in development.”
The other item that was discussed included the possible creation of a special district, which could involve creating a tax increment reinvestment zone, management district or a public improvement district.
Tanner said each option involves its own strengths and weaknesses, and City Council will have to decide which district would be the best decision for Bellaire before moving forward with that type of strategy.
Key takeaways
HR&A has since finalized its report, which involved analyzing demographic trends, retail overview, physical and zoning constraints, and setting up potential next steps, opportunities and strategies. Some key statistics from the report include:
- Bellaire’s commercial land zoned for commercial uses is only 6.42%.
- There are 50 owners in the city who own only one parcel of land.
- There are 42% of properties where built improvements are worth less than the land value.
Tanner said the report also showed an implementation matrix that involved different strategies the city could take and highlighted each option's planning and design time frame, financial costs, staff capacity and value impact.
A few options that were indicated as “high impact” included subsidizing the cost to redevelop in a floodplain, developing a private investment land aggregation catalyst and exploring the feasibility of a Downtown TIRZ or PID. To see the full report and implementation matrix, click here and scroll down.
Next steps
City officials anticipate discussing the potential options more in-depth during the FY 2026-27 budget process, with implementation expected to be divided between short-term and longer-term projects.
The presentation of the proposed budget is set for July 20, with the public hearing set to follow. According to the FY 2026-27 budget calendar, the city will adopt the budget Sept. 21.
