City may help with Savoy's rebirth. Nancy Sarnoff, Houston Chronicle
City eyes tax break for razing blight. Mike Morris, Houston Chronicle
Houston's Midway to help redevelopment of Upper Kirby's Levy Park. Erin Mulvaney, Houston Chronicle
Two of the three "investments" are being organized by Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones or TIRZ. If you've followed my blogging for any period of time you know that I feel TIRZ are a horrible idea for two reasons. One, they (by their nature) pick winning and losing neighborhoods for development, quite often the winners are the affluent areas. Because of this there is less tax money in the till for the overall basic needs of the city. Two, they are ran by unelected boards who are making decisions regarding the use of very large sums of taxpayer money. In essence these TIRZ run with almost no oversight. In Houston, they are not audited in any meaningful way that I've ever seen, although I do presume that the City Controller (Ronald Green and before him Annise Parker) would have auditing authority so the problem probably lies with who's been in the office more than with the set-up of the TIRZ themselves.
Kevin Whited of BlogHouston has deemed these dealings "The Houston Way" and the Way appears to be on the come. In Houston (and Harris County for that matter) our elected leaders don't like being told what to do by the common class, in some cases it offends them when the citizens try. TIRZ are a good way around that. You set up a TIRZ, place a politically connected individual as Chair, and then let them make the decisions you don't want to make lest people who aren't reaping the benefits become offended.
What this really means is that people who most Houstonians have never heard of, have never cast a ballot for, are given control over huge chunks of taxpayer money that, by law, can only be used within the TIRZ for it's "betterment" not for the good of the community as a whole.
On the surface, this would not be a bad thing. Would that the TIRZ used the money for roads, sidewalks and things that develop infrastructure I would say good on ya' and let's move forward. Unfortunately, most of the things TIRZ spend money on are either trinkets, or give-aways to private business. TIRZ board members like art and parks and shiny things to which they can affix a plaque with their names on it in perpetuity, not streets and esplanades. And while it's true the TIRZ in the story is going to do sidewalk work, it's really just around the old Savoy with the rest of the money going to the owner of the hotel in terms of tax breaks. The story of the Upper Kirby park is even worse.
Not that it will blunt any criticism, but I like parks. I live near(ish) to Bear Creek park in NW Harris County and think it's great. But these types of parks are really green spaces contained within a builder's control (in this case, in between two buildings owned by the same owner) whose sole value will be felt not by the community in the area, but by the property owner who can now charge higher rents for what are already sure to be upscale apartments. Never mind that the Upper Kirby area is thriving and there's probably no incentive needed for someone to make a go of luxury apartment living, this is a TIRZ project and has been determined to be something in-line with the greater good.
But what is the greater good?
In Houston, it's increasingly becoming a gentrified idyllic Houtopia where the poor can't get access to good public transportation where large increases in rents (which harm the poor) are seen as a good thing and where winners and losers are picked through the natural selection process of Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones. The problem with the Houston Way, Houtopia and all of these other visions of grandeur is what is happening to the rest of the city while these enclaves of utter happiness and joy continue to insulate themselves from the rest of the city.
In some places, the road system resembles what one might expect to find in a third world country. You could homogenize milk on some parts of Navigation and other streets on the North East side. Even Richmond Ave on the rather affluent West side of Houston feels like you're driving over a moon-scape in places. Elsewhere, the city is struggling to fund the staffing needs of the fire department (whether due to poor management or a political agenda I'll leave to you) and the pension mess is looming on the horizon having been kicked down the road for several administrations now. Houston does have the new rain tax revenue rolling in, but noises are already being made that even more tax money is going to be needed for repairs to its outdated, crumbling system.
Given all of this should spending tax money on a park and hotel in affluent areas really be the chief area of concern? Also, how motivated are people going to be to fix blighted buildings if the neighborhoods and roads leading up to them more closely resemble a shanty-town than thriving communities? Of all of the programs above, I have less problems with the plan to redevelop blighted buildings. For one, it's going to be voted up or down by elected officials, and two, it's something that can benefit the city as a whole, not just specific regions. However, I still think a better use of money would be to fix the streets and infrastructure around these buildings, which is something Houston should have been doing all along.
