Mayor Turner’s Coronavirus Cover-Up
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Houston State Senator Paul Bettencourt is calling on Mayor Sylvester Turner to halt controversial public housing projects until the coronavirus shutdown is over.
The Houston Housing Authority claims it cannot provide public records on the planned 84-million-dollar land deals because it is closed for business, all while they’re moving ahead to close on the real estate deals.
“It is anti-transparency,” says Sen. Bettencourt. “Just because you’ve got a COVID pandemic, there’s nothing that should suspend public knowledge of these projects and you shouldn’t use that as a reason not to provide the information. The mayor should not be proceeding.”
The Chairman of the Senate Property Tax Committee raises an even bigger alarm for Houstonians. Dozens of projects approved by the Houston Housing Authority will take as much as $1 billion of value off the tax roll, creating a windfall for a few developers. That will mean a loss every year of nearly $11 million to HISD, $4 million to Harris County and millions more to the city to pay for firefighters and police.
In San Antonio, a similar taxing break resulted in a $10 million profit for developer NRP in a single year. The company is also developing the East End project here in Houston.
What’s worse, says Bettencourt, is that the members of the HHA aren’t elected, but appointed by the Mayor without even City Council approval.
Harris County Commissioner Jack Cagle says this is simply unfair.
“What I’m most concerned about is that taxpayers are now having to pay more, and others are having to pay less without it coming through the entities that should have to make that decision,” Cagle said.
“The Houston Housing Authority is just starting to pop these things out like popcorn and that’s not what the law was designed for,” says Bettencourt. “The problem is when you don’t have elected officials ratifying these decisions there’s no accountability at all.
“I can guarantee you that one bill I’m going to file next session is that these deals have to be approved by city council and all taxing entities that are losing the income,” says Bettencourt.
One of Houston’s biggest apartment developers calls these tax-exempt public housing projects “insane.”
“It’s a shady little deal,” says Eric Barvin of the Barvin Group. “I think it is a real tragedy for the City of Houston. I mean taxpayers should be outraged by this whole thing.”
The planned EADO 800 project just south of Buffalo Bayou in the East End includes 5 acres of contaminated land, and the rest of the planned housing project will be surrounded on three sides by contaminated property.
Based on the limited records available, it appears the mostly low-income apartments will end up costing about $260,000 a piece to build, tens of thousands more than the average first-class apartment complexes.
“Can we be real? It would be far cheaper to give every low-income family a check for any apartment in town, or buy them a house in the suburbs and a luxury car with a gas credit card where the schools are better anyway,” says Wayne Dolcefino, President of the Houston-based investigative media firm, Dolcefino Consulting.
The public housing story has curious political connections. The wife of Harris County Commissioner Rodney Ellis and the former city public housing chairman Lance Gilliam are cashing in on virtually every recent city housing contract.
Dolcefino Consulting has been exposing the Houston Housing Authority deals on Facebook and on www.dolcefino.com.
The Houston Housing Authority Board of Commissioners is meeting at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, April 21, 2020 by telephone conference.
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