A month after the Houston Housing Authority’s new president said the agency would stop accepting proposals for a controversial tax break program, two new tax-break deals received final approvals, both featuring a far greater share of affordable units compared to pastdeals.
The program had been criticized for doing little to meaningfully lower rents while generating millions of dollars for developers in property tax exemptions.
Houston Chronicle investigations have found that, in the past, the majority of “affordable” units supposedly created by the tax break, which commonly involves what are known as public facility corporations, or PFCs, actually catered to middle-class Houstonians who could already afford around $1,500 a month for a one-bedroom.
With market-rate rents often being counted as “affordable” without a discount, the program’s biggest beneficiaries were landlords and political insiders, rather than low-income Houstonians.
However, the authority said these deals had already received preliminary approvals and differed from most deals the Chronicle investigated. Instead of providing rent discounts to only a fraction of units, every unit in these two complexes will be affordable to households earning 60% of the region’s median income and below.
The Enclave at Louetta in Spring will be anew, 358-unit complex. The board had its first vote on the complex before the authority’s new president, Jamie Bryant, came on board. Bryant told the Chronicle in April that the housing authority would rethink how it evaluated deals to ensure that more of the tax break — which can amount to roughly $1 million a year for a large apartment complex — benefited low-income renters.
Bryant first brought the 252-unit Regency Park Apartments in the South Belt/Ellington neighborhood to the board for a vote in March. Five of the units will be set aside for extremely low-income renters earning 30% of the Houston area’s median income or less. According to the housing authority, the tax break deal will allow the apartments to undergo significant renovation and stay affordable for the long term.
Both complexes layer the tax break on top of the low-income housing tax credit, another government incentive.
