Affordable housing in Houston: Briargrove and Tanglewood homeowners in dispute over conversion of Derwood apartments

Houston, Texas (KTRK) – Briargrove Landlords Association President Whitney Russell came to the Houston City Council on January 24 to express her displeasure with a plan to convert some of the housing in the Deerwood apartments, located at 5800 Woodway Drive, into affordable housing.

“The main concern is how the Houston Housing Authority has the authority to remove significant property tax returns from our property tax base,” she said.

This stems from a 2015 law enacted by the state legislature that gives condo owners tax-exempt status if they change some of their units into affordable housing.

However, A.J 2020 study on law by the University of Texas School of Law It doesn’t serve the state’s affordable housing needs, he says, and doesn’t come with much provision or oversight.

Russell’s concern is that withdrawing property tax revenue from The Deerwood and another area complex would create additional resource problems for the Briargrove and Tanglewood neighborhoods.

“We have countless requests to fix a broken main line, fix broken lights, not to mention traffic control,” she said when describing the problems she and other homeowners face.

The way the law works for properties like The Deerwood is that they have an agreement with HHA, which is not actually a city administration.

There are currently 13 of these projects in the works in Houston, per Reporting from our partner at the Houston Chronicle.

Related: $45 Million in Affordable Housing in Midtown Breaks Ground

During a council session that Russell attended, Mayor Turner said he would not become embroiled in concerns about affordable housing in a particular neighborhood, but would address the issue of private entities not paying their fair share.

“If a developer gets, say, 100% tax credits and only provides 10% affordability, that’s not a good deal,” Turner said.

For now, Turner said in a statement to ABC13 on Tuesday that approvals and rejections for these types of affordable housing projects, known as utility companies, are pending.

He said he was also looking to see if entities other than HHA could issue such decisions.

The HHA also sent a statement to ABC13, saying in part that it will continue to work with the City of Houston to address Houston’s “affordable housing crisis.”

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SEE ALSO: Houston’s public housing waiting list is now accepting applications for the first time since 2018