Galveston eyes deal on housing lost to Ike
GALVESTON — More than a decade after Hurricane Ike destroyed most of Galveston’s public housing, the city is nearing an agreement with the Texas General Land Office to finance the construction of the remaining units.
The Galveston Housing Authority board considered a resolution Monday to approve a $90 million agreement with the General Land Office to finance the construction of 284 of the 569 public housing units lost to Ike, a Category 2 hurricane that severely flooded the island in 2008.
The agreement calls for the construction to be done in at least two phases over three years from the time the agreement is finalized, with the first phase including 142 units on the former Oleander Homes site owned by the housing authority at 53rd Street and Broadway.
It is unclear where the second phase will be built. Housing authority officials mentioned the 9.2-acre Alamo campus site on Avenue N ½ as a possibility.
Toni Jackson, an attorney representing the housing authority, said one obstacle is that the the agreement calls for both phases of development to open at the same time, even though the authority owns only the Oleander site.
“The concern is having the same commencement date for a second site that we don’t currently have control on,” Jackson said. “If (the negotiation) takes another three months, that deal, based on this commencement date, is al
ready three months behind and has to have that same 36-month time.”
The housing authority board tabled the resolution on moving forward with the $90 million agreement, in the hope of persuading the land office to stagger the completion of the two phases. Jackson said she hoped the two agencies will have the agreement finalized by next month’s board meeting.
The General Land Office did not respond to a request for comment.
Delays in rebuilding the island’s public housing have frustrated affordable housing advocates and poorer island residents priced out of the increasingly expensive housing market.
Fewer than half of Galveston’s 569 public housing units have been rebuilt since Ike. The city is required by state and federal mandate to rebuild every unit, but construction has been delayed for numerous reasons, from a lack of capital to limited land options and vocal public resistance.
The General Land Office had earmarked $66 million in federal disaster grant money for 287 scattered-site units. That allocation was set to expire at the end of this year. The new proposed agreement would extend that timeline and enable the housing authority to continue to look at sites for developing the remaining public housing as part of a mixedincome complex.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which must sign off on the agreement before releasing the $90 million, gave the housing authority permission to redevelop the vacant Oleander site in May.
The agreement must also pass muster with the affordable housing advocates who negotiated the original deal between Galveston and the state in 2012. The new housing must meet federal Fair Housing Act guidelines and must not add to the concentration of poverty on the island.
“They’re out trying to put together a way to get all of the rest of the units built, and I think that’s what we all want to see,” said John Henneberger, co-director of the Texas Low Income Housing Information Service, a statewide housing advocacy group. “It just must be in a way that doesn’t rebuild the type of Jim Crow-era segregation we have had in Galveston.”
The Alamo campus proposal could be the next piece of that puzzle.
Galveston Independent School District officials are negotiating with St. Louisbased developer McCormack Baron Salazar to lease the Alamo campus property as part of a mixed-income development.
The art deco school building, which once held up to 600 students, was converted to a multipurpose center in 2008 and now houses a disciplinary alternative education program with 100 students.
McCormack Baron Salazar redeveloped the former Magnolia Homes and Cedar Terrace public housing projects, also destroyed by Ike, into two mixed-income developments on the island, with 145 units reserved for public housing residents between the two complexes. McCormack Baron Salazar also plans to develop the Oleander site.
The housing authority approved a resolution on Monday calling for the developer and school district to create a development plan for the Alamo site, including environmental assessments and land appraisal.
Louis Bernardy, senior vice president and director of development in Texas for McCormack Baron Salazar, said it was too early to determine how many homes could be built on the Alamo site.