Houston passed the Fourth Ward Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone’s budget after amending it to require coordination with the city’s housing department on its affordable housing plans.
The gist
The Fourth Ward TIRZ, which represents the area west of Downtown and includes Freedmen’s Town, received approval for its $15.2 million budget on Aug. 28. Previously council member Julian Ramirez delayed the vote on it because he had questions about how the TIRZ would spend $8.3 million on affordable housing in the next five years.
“It didn’t seem to me like they had a real coherent, detailed plan on how to go about that,” he said.
The concerns
Ramirez said when TIRZs have infrastructure projects, such as road reconstruction or drainage, they work with the city’s public works department.
“But when TIRZs do affordable housing, that same requirement is not present,” he said.
The Fourth Ward TIRZ is one of three TIRZs that do affordable housing work, but don’t work with the housing department, Ramirez said.
“The Midtown TIRZ now works hand in hand with the housing department on affordable housing for all the lots that they have,” Ramirez said. “I think the same should be required of the Fourth Ward TIRZ to work with our housing department.”
The options
Ramirez initially proposed an amendment to the TIRZ’s budget that would require the Fourth Ward to work with the city’s housing department to ensure that the TIRZ’s work is in compliance and alignment with the city. However, that would require the Fourth Ward TIRZ board to go back and vote on the amendment. That amendment would also only be for this year’s budget, he added.
However, Gwen Tillotson-Bell, the city’s chief economic development officer, said an agreement to work with the department would not require a change to the TIRZ’s budget, just the city’s ordinance that approved their budget.
“This is not part of the budget,” Tillotson said. “The question is, could we just do something and have a record that we would have proper documentation confirming endorsement by the housing director?”
The takeaway
Council ultimately agreed to amend the ordinance—not the actual budget—to require that if the TIRZ acquires or develops property for affordable housing, it would have to work with the city's housing department and get the housing director's endorsement.
Community Impact reached out to the Fourth Ward TIRZ for comment, but did not hear back by publishing time.
