The Annual City of Houston Capital Improvement Plan Meeting is Wednesday, March 4th

Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) meetings are held every year to keep citizens updated on upcoming projects in relation to ReBuild Houston, which is the City's pay-as-you-go system to rebuild drainage/street infrastructure. At the meeting for District C, you will be able to hear from and give input to City officials, including the District C Council Member Ellen Cohen. The listing of current and future citywide CIP Projects is here: http://www.houstontx.gov/cip. An interactive website with details on street, drainage, water and sewer CIP projects can be found at http://pwecip.houstontx.gov. The meeting will also include presentations on the City's first in-progress General Plan and an updated Arts and Cultural Plan.

Details for the District C Meeting:
Date: Wednesday, March 4, 2015
Time: 6:30pm – 8:00pm
Location: The Metropolitan Multi-Service Center (Gymnasium)
Address/Link to Map: 1475 West Gray Street

For additional information, contact Rhonda Sauter with the Mayor's Citizens' Assistance Office, a division of the Department of Neighborhoods (DON), at rhonda.sauter@houstontx.gov or 832-393-0955. To learn more about DON, visit http://www.houstontx.gov/neighborhoods/.

– by Caroline Garry

Recycling Day Change

Many of you may have recently received a letter from the City in forming you that the solid waste department is changing the recycling schedule for our neighborhood. For those of you that didn't, here's what you need to know:

  • Recycling pickup will remain every other week on Monday
  • The only thing that's changing is that our neighborhood is being moved from the "B" schedule to the "A" schedule.
  • The change is happening at the beginning of march.
  • You should put out your recycle bins for pick up as usual until February 23, 2015.
  • After that, you should put out your recycle bin for pickup on March 2, 2015, and every other week on Monday after that.

A calendar is available from the city at this link. Thank you for helping to make the city's recycling initiative a success!

– by Ben Garry

TIRZ 101

TIRZ stands for Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone. They are special zones created by City Council to increase investment in specific areas of the city. A TIRZ works by establishing a base year for property taxes, and then setting aside any future tax revenue over the base year amount (the "tax incitement") to be used for projects within the TIRZ boundary. As an example, say a TIRZ is established in 2014 and the real estate taxes for that year are $1 million. If in 2015 the real estate taxes were $1.1 million because of property appreciation, then that extra $100,000 tax increment would be set aside for projects within the TIRZ as directed by the TIRZ board and approved by City Council.

It's important to remember that a TIRZ is not an additional tax. Instead, it is just a reallocation of the taxes that are already being collected. With a TIRZ, any increase in property values that results in a collection of additional real estate tax revenue is set aside for projects within the TIRZ boundary, instead of being sent to the City of Houston for general use.

Much more detailed information about the composition and operation of TIRZs can be found on the city's website at http://www.houstontx.gov/ecodev/tirz.html.

Background on the Midtown TIRZ Annexation

Montrose does not have a TIRZ, but Midtown does. The Midtown TIRZ, also called TIRZ #2, was established in 1994 and has resulted in the completion of several substantial infrastructure projects in Midtown including the recent improvements to Bagby Street. In December of 2014, a proposal was announced where the Midtown TIRZ would "annex" certain parts of Montrose, mainly the commercial corridors along Montrose, Richmond, Alabama, and Westheimer.

Click to enlarge

The idea was that the tax increment and experience built up by the Midtown TIRZ could be used to help rehabilitate some of the important streets in Montrose that needed substantial improvement and repair. However, many felt that this proposal was announced very suddenly and without the input of the Montrose community. As a result of special neighborhood town halls that Council-Members Ellen Cohen and David Robinson facilitated, the voices of the community were heard, and the annexation of parts of Montrose by the Midtown TIRZ will not go forward at this time.

Next Steps

Because one of the largest concerns with the proposed annexation was the lack of Montrose community input, the process is going to start again from the ground up to make sure that community voices are heard. The Midtown TIRZ annexation is not a foregone conclusion, and there are proposals on the table for a separate Montrose TIRZ as well as the ability for Montrose to say that we don't want a TIRZ at all.

Starting in January 2015, various stakeholder committees will be formed and will have meetings to determine the specifics of how – or even whether – Montrose will participate in a TIRZ. Those committees will meet through January and February of 2015 with the goal of preparing a proposal in March that reflects the considered choices of the Montrose community. If the community would like to participate in a TIRZ, the proposal will go through a review process in April of 2015 with an eye toward presenting the proposal to City Council for approval in May.

This is an important process and everyone's voices should be heard. Watch this blog for more information on how to participate in the stakeholder committees that will be formed at the beginning of next year.

– by Ben Garry

Guest Speaker Council Member Ellen Cohen

Council Member Cohen was gracious to carve out a significant amount of time for Winlow Place during what we all know is a very busy holiday season. We were very pleased to have her in attendance at the December Winlow Place general meeting.

To shed some perspective, Council Member Cohen began with the high-level outline of how are City Council is composed. There are:

  • 11 Districts (in which we are District C)
  • 5 At-Large Council Members
  • 1 Mayor

This totals 17 members in the Council who each receive one vote. There were previously 15 members, but two positions were added when Houston reached a population of 2 million.

Pubic meetings:

There are no "executive" meetings – that is to say that as of now, every meeting is open to the public, and often there is a significant amount of time allocated to public input. The meetings that are of primary interest are the ones each Tuesday afternoon at 1:30pm. These are the Tuesday Public Sessions, which are devoted to public comment. A few resources:

  • The City Council agenda is published on Friday afternoon prior to the next week's meeting. You can view these agendas at this web address – under the City Secretary's Office Links there will be an item called "Current Agenda" which will get you to the right place.
  • Check the Council meeting calendar since there are some weeks that are scheduled breaks (due to holidays, etc.).
  • Sign up to speak by calling the City Secretary at 832.393.1100, sending an email to citysecretary@houstontx.gov or coming by the office on the public level of the City Hall Annex, 900 Bagby, Houston 77002 by 1:30pm that Tuesday.

More about District C:

District C is very populated, and very participatory in community goings-on. You can see how geographically large and complex this district is by looking at the map to the right. There are about 215,000 people in this district, and a huge core value to these residents is quality of life. Appropriately, Council Member Cohen is the chair of the Quality of Life Committee who has championed issues like the Houston Equal Rights Ordinance, food truck deregulation, smoking bans in parks, and the ban on synthetic marijuana. In addition, this committee works to make Houston a city that attracts visitors and conventions so as such, they are currently working on plans for the possibility of a botanic garden (as we do not currently have one).

You may always feel free to contact Council Member Cohen by using this info:

Council Member Ellen R. Cohen
City Hall Annex 
900 Bagby, First Floor
Houston, TX 77002
 
Phone: 832.393.3004
Email: districtc@houstontx.gov 

Helping out Winlow Place:

A few of the recent issues Council Member Cohen has helped us with include the controversy regarding the classification/use of Dunlavy Street, as well as facilitating the appropriate dispersement of information regarding the proposed annexation of Montrose into the Midtown TIRZ (which is currently off the agenda thanks to her help until 2015). Both of these issues may resurface in 2015, but it is likely that our neighborhood (and surrounding neighborhoods) will receive more accurate and timely information so that we have an opportunity for response. Please also read the "TIRZ 101" blog post written by Ben Garry. For more information on either of these, contact president@winlowplace.org.

A big thanks to Council Member Cohen.

– by Caroline Garry

Holiday Cheer

Calling all Winlow Place residents to show us your best holiday decor! Our Yard of the Month committee will be judging for the December award on Monday, December 15th. Be sure to have your lights on in full effect for our judges as they make their rounds. The winner will be announced at the General Meeting on Tuesday the 16th, as well as in our next newsletter. Thanks, as always, for making our neighborhood such a fun place!

– by Caroline Garry