Affordable housing key issue in Buda race for City Council
Controversy over water project does not appear to be major factor in election.
After a year of turmoil over Buda’s involvement with the Electro Purification water project, City Council Member Jose Montoya thought he might be challenged in the Nov. 3 election over his support for the controversial deal. But Montoya’s two challengers — David Nuckels and Basil J. Lombardo — are spending more time attacking him for his position on affordable housing than water.
At issue is the Pointe at Overlook, a proposed apartment complex that sparked controversy in Buda but never materialized. To bolster the project’s chances of receiving federal funding through the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit program, the council in February voted 6-1 to endorse Florida-based Picerne Real Estate Group’s plan for a 110-unit rental complex on FM 967 near Cole Springs Road.
The lone dissenter was Council Member George Haehn, who is running unopposed in Buda’s only other council race this year. In the end, the state agency that distributes the federal funds did not choose the project.
Montoya said he supported the project because it would have cost the city little — a loan of about $118,000 — and diversified the housing stock. While home prices are cheaper in Buda than they are in Austin, the city is considered less affordable than Kyle and San Marcos. “Affordable housing is wanted, and diversity makes a community stronger,” said Montoya, 71, who spent 20 years in the Air Force and 10 years working as a contract administrator in state agencies before retiring in 2004.
Nuckels, a 39-year-old compliance specialist at the Texas Department of Transportation, said that Buda doesn’t need subsidized housing, noting that he, like many people, moved there from Austin because the housing already was affordable.
“Why do we need to change? It’s not like we’re having any problem getting people to move here,” Nuckels said.
Lombardo, who owns an office furniture business, said the council should work on making Buda affordable for everyone by cutting spending and taxes, rather than benefiting only the occupants of one complex. “Individuals shouldn’t be subsidized. You should focus on the whole community having a lower cost of living,” Lombardo, 39, said.
Montoya said he believes Lombardo, who moved from Wimberley eight years ago, is running because of the controversy over Electro Purification, the Houston-based company that contracted to pump up to 5.3 million gallons of water per day from wells in the Wimberley area. The city of Buda, along with the Goforth Special Utility District in Niederwald and the planned Anthem development near Mountain City, are the company’s expected customers, and they bore the ire of residents near the wells who feared the project would run their residential wells dry.
(A new state law put the project under the jurisdiction of a groundwater conservation district that could limit how much the company pumps and jeopardize its financial viability. Buda officials are exploring other water sources.)
Asked whether he would have voted for the Electro Purification contract, Lombardo said, “I don’t think it would be fair for me to second guess people who voted for it. ... I didn’t sit through every discussion.”
Nuckels also said he didn’t have enough details to say whether he would voted for or against the contract.
Montoya said he voted for the project because Buda needed water. He does not believe the company’s wells would have impacted those of its neighbors, he said, because they were drilled deeper than most residential wells, into a different aquifer.
Early voting begins Monday and ends Oct. 30.