After many months of community meetings, stakeholder discussions and volunteer-based research by residents, the Houston City Council unanimously voted on Wednesday, December 9th to create a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone, commonly known as TIRZ, for the Montrose area. The funds the TIRZ will generate will help Montrose repair and enhance its currently failing infrastructure.
This is great news for Montrose to address the "critical needs" we have related to infrastructure. At many of our general meetings, we've talked about how our streets are currently failing. This Montrose TIRZ will facilitate completion of infrastructure projects much more quickly than the City's Capital Improvement Plan and, ultimately, this Montrose TIRZ will lead to more City funds being freed up for the CIP projects to be prioritized/completed elsewhere. This is a net gain.
We are excited that the goals of the Montrose TIRZ include projects around:
- Infrastructure improvements
- Pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly environments through the reconstruction of streets, infrastructure and sidewalks, with lighting and streetscape amenities
- Facilitation of completion of transit corridors
- Economic development and growth
- Reinforcement of pedestrian-attractive retail developments and mixed-use developments along the major corridors
- Parks and related amenities
- Workforce housing
Winlow Place has been involved significantly throughout this year-long process, and along the way it became very clear that Montrose streets don't just serve Montrose – our transit corridors are the day-to-day work horses for commuter traffic to get people to jobs, schools and homes. This TIRZ is a much-needed practical solution for our needs – today andtomorrow – and we are so pleased that it passed unanimously.
Many thanks to you all for the conversations throughout the past year.
– by Caroline Garry