Houston Mayor seeks property tax hike for Harvey recovery

I think the issue that is unnerving so many is the 'promise' the hike will 'only be' for 1 year. Citizens have been fed that line countless times before and got burned in the end. The city of Houstons track record for their 'promises' isn't very good. The thought process is kind of like 'heh, come on Houston this ain't my first rodeo, I see what you're doing'.

I know I would have no problem paying an extra 8% for a year

The sam houston tollroad was supposed to be a tollroad until the costs of building it were re-reimbursed, in which it would then be opened up to be used freely. Not only did that not occur as promised, but the toll rates went up higher. You get a taste of extra green and you're going to give that up. It's a re-occuring theme in the city. I can see how many people feel the same thing will happen here. I fully understand, kind of like fool me once shame on me etc.. and have no disdain for anyone against this.

That is my best guess for the resistance

 

The toll road is a county function, not city government.

 

http://www.khou.com/news/local/verify/verify-are-houston-toll-road-fees-ever-going-away/441366866

I found this about the toll roads; summing it up never going to be free and they never said they would be.

 

you're ignoring two key points while disparaging large groups of people.

1) how to guarantee that money is spent on disaster proof enhanced infrastructure and 2) how to guarantee it reverts (based on current law) to lawful rates

those are reasonable positions and you don't have to discriminate against two groups of people who might have those concerns. learn how to work with folks who have a different viewpoint then you do and you just might get your enhanced infrastructure. label and categorize entire groups of people and they most likely dig in their boots deeper. all you end up with is anger and no enhanced infrastructure.

 

You could move to one of the suburbs.

 

Why do this? Just ask Trump to build a wall around Houston to keep all the illegal hurricanes and floods out.

 

Not living in Houston anymore I don't have a vote but this sounds like a sensible and moderate step to address some major problems. Passing the buck to state and Federal isn't a long term solution when those entities also seem they aren't going to do so much. At the same time relying on insurance ignores that with Irma also the insurance industry is going to be stressed and will likely fight claims very hard. It makes sense for the city to take other measures to make sure recovery and rebuilding happens.

Also given that Houston has flooded several times in the past few years there is clearly a structural problem. Insurance isn't going to cover improvements and new infrastructure. It would be very sound for Houston to allocate resources to greatly improve existing infrastructure and preparedness for the next major flooding.

 

If the public was guaranteed that the money would be spend on the following you would have support. This is the Rice Baker Institute recommendations post-Harvey.

https://www.bakerinstitute.org/medi...t/03d3e4fe/BI-pub-Blackburn_Harvey-090617.pdf

Highlights for the lazy.

1. Repair, clean out existing Addicks & Barker reservoirs
2. Build 3rd reservoir that's been proposed and waiting for funding for years now
3. Scrap 100 year flood plain, forced switch to 500 year flood plain
4. Massive buyouts (with federal money support) converting those areas to natural prairie, wetlands, water retention, parks, etc...
5. Stricter building codes, new and rebuilt homes must be well above crown of street
6. Build proposed Ike Dike and/or Mid-Bay proposal which is great idea if you're not aware of and should check out

All of that and a few more ideas.

Guarantee all or most of that gets done and most will say shut up and take my money.

 

hmm.. not sure about that. that's a might hefty bill for all of that that includes many different entities and i doubt feds pay for all of that especially the buyouts to green-space conversion. either way, you have to communicate to the folks that their money helps them and doesn't go to politicians or corporations. guarantees and transparency are not optional.

 

As I understand the proposal, Houston can't collect more revenue because of the real estate tax cap. The proposal is to suspend the cap for one year, meaning it would automatically turn back on a year from now. They don't have to take affirmative action a year from now to lower the tax again; instead, they would have to take affirmative action to keep it at the higher rate, if anything. So, I don't think there's much risk it becomes permanent.

Or at least they now say they never said the tolls would go away. I was just a dumb teenager when they built Beltway 8, but I was interested because I lived so close to it. And the impression I was given at that time was that the tolls would eventually go away. It was probably naive of me to believe it, but that's what we were told. But the toll roads are the libertarian dream. Use taxes. If you don't use a service, you don't pay for it. And since they are all on the periphery, the liberal inner loopers don't have to pay much for them anyway. If it wasn't for family in Katy, I probably wouldn't even get a toll tag.

 

Nice assumption, try facts or an actual argument next time.

 

Makes too much sense and thus will never happen.

 

It's about the market. There are too many other factors (interest rates, job market, demographics, etc) that affect the home prices in a more significant way than property taxes. I will agree that property taxes do play a part in rental pricing, however to say the rental price directly impacted by the annual variability of property taxes is not correct. If the dozens of other factors that play a role in the pricing of rentals do not justify an increase in rental price, the home owner should not pass along the cost. Not to mention by your logic, rental prices should also decrease when property taxes decrease - this doesn't happen and would make you a terrible business owner.
Please let me know if you need some assistance with your troll business, I doubt it's very good.

 

Houstons pension issue prevents it from spending more money on infrastructure.

 

Really rent is a function of market price not cost. You might elect tor rent for less than market price, in which case your minimum consideration may be cost, but most people rent for however much they can get. Usually that amount far exceeds their cost.

 

That's not true. We have a dedicated fund that we charge city of Houston customers for drainage. This funds street and drainage projects. Maybe in the past, it was different, but since 2010 having this dedicated drainage funds has given the city more money to improve infrastructure.

The problem we have in this city is that we are a flat area with shitty soils that don't have a ton of capacity. For those of you trying to pin this on developments, that's bullshit. Developments are designed to current code and detention in these developments are intended to hold 100-yr rain events.

The problem with this city is that our infrastructure is old. We also have channels that can just withhold a 10-yr event so anything above that just cripples the system. I think the county, the city and the state have to work a lot closer together. We have these rebuild Houston projects that are making street and drainage improvements to provide a level of service for the 100-yr rain events, however we are discharging into channels that don't have the capacity to hold these flows.

Harvey was a monumental storm. It was an 800 - 1000-yr rain event in many parts of town. There is no way you can feasibly build infrastructure to withhold this much water, is just not realistic. I assure that you re-write the code to make developers design their systems for a 500-yr storm and now you are looking at taking up more area for larger detention ponds (underground detention is typically not feasible), therefore now you have less lots to sale. Some developers just won't do it.

The problem we have in the city is that many areas of town are so old they were built during times where detention was not required, so now you make your problem a lot worse since those areas are vulnerable to large rain events. The other issue is that we continually allow folks to rebuild in areas that act as conveyance zones for water. We need to buy out people that have flooded multiple times and stop trying to help them rebuild. We can use bought out land to build regional detention in order to relieve our channels during large rain events.

The drainage rules are written in such a way to minimize impacts on surrounding communities. The problem is that public infrastructure has not kept up and we haven't taken this flooding issue seriously until very recently.

My solution is to buy out vulnerable lots. Widen channels that require more capacity and continue rebuilding streets and neighborhoods. I'm fine with redoing floodplain maps to include 1000-yr flood boundaries. I'm not fine with trying to make everyone design for a 500-yr storm, it's just isn't realistic.

 

Infrastructure is very expensive. Considering $20 million is just for the debris cleanup it's very possible the whole amount raised by the tax could be used for repairing city facilities and replacing vehicles. A city needs to provide services to it's residents and given how big and spread out Houston is it shouldn't be a surprise that it will be expensive to recover from a major natural disaster like this. The city can't help home owners and businesses unless it can deliver services.

 

What about support for folks dealing with insurance companies? Like free counseling on making claims. Advice on what is wind vs flood damage etc. legal aid.

That would help maximize the money coming in from the insurance companies and FEMA and therefore does not need to be made up in some way by the local area.