County sets vote for $2.5B flood bond

Infrastructure plan on ballot on Harvey’s one-year anniversary

Harris County Commissioners Court on Tuesday unanimously agreed to place a $2.5 billion flood infrastructure bond before voters on Aug. 25, the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Harvey.

If passed, the bond would be the largest local investment in flood mitigation since the storm flooded 154,000 homes across the county.

“I think the whole nation is going to be watching us,” County Judge Ed Emmett said of the region’s approach to flooding post-Harvey. “Everyone is saying Houston, Harris County, the whole region — we have the chance to do it right.”

The decision comes after county officials have held just two of around two dozen community meetings to seek suggestions from residents about flood control projects, limiting the county’s ability to make major changes to its plans for the funds.

The bond would, over a 10- to 15-year period, fund infrastructure improvements, including home buyouts, a new flood warning system, engineering studies and channel improvements across the county’s 23 watersheds.

The Harris County Flood Control District is continuing to hold meetings in each watershed to seek advice from residents about which projects to pursue. Based on input, Executive Director Russ Poppe said, the flood control district may add additional projects. While the bond would allow the county to borrow no more than $2.5 billion, Poppe said more flood mitigation efforts could be funded using the district’s regular operations and capital improvement budgets, which total $120 million a year.

The next public meetings are

in the Carpenters Bayou Watershed, from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Thursday at the ML Flukinger Community Center; and Friday in the Cypress Creek watershed from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Raveneaux Country Club.

Emmett last month said the number of projects to be included in the bond issue would be in the hundreds. He has said he hoped to publish a complete list of projects to be funded with bond proceeds by the first week of August, when early voting begins.

Debate on buyouts

Three residents spoke in favor of the bond proposal Tuesday. Belinda Taylor of the Texas Organizing Project said the nonprofit would support the bond only if it includes projects that benefit northeast Houston, around Mesa and Tidwell, in the Greens Bayou watershed. Taylor also said residents who volunteer their homes for buyouts should be able to move to comparable housing in drier areas.

“Any buyouts … must leave people with the same kind of housing, no additional debt and in nonflooding neighborhoods,” Taylor said.

Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said that a priority for bond funds must be communities that are less likely to benefit from federal assistance. He said that the federal government uses a formula for dispersing disaster recovery money that places a premium on increasing property value rather than assisting the most people, which Ellis says skews unfairly toward wealthy neighborhoods.

Commissioners said if different funding sources become available, such as the state or federal government, the county may not need to borrow the full $2.5 billion. The county will sell bonds on a rolling basis, rather than all upfront, to avoid paying interest on money for which it has no immediate use.

Property tax hike

The county’s budget analysts estimate that the bond would result in a property tax rate increase of 2 to 3 cents per $100 of assessed home value. Homeowners who are disabled or over the age of 65, and whose property is worth less than $200,000, would pay no additional taxes.

Also Tuesday, the court agreed to receive a grant from the federal government that, when matched with county funds, will pay for around 170 home buyouts in flood-prone areas.