$8.7 billion capital plan approved by council

City Council passed an $8.7 billion five-year capital improvement plan Wednesday, despite a wide-ranging and at times tense six-hour debate among district council members about perceived inequities and project delays.

Mayor Annise Parker, in her final term, said this year’s meeting marked the most contentious during her time as Houston’s top official.

She said the pushback was coming from district council members who were not considering the city’s needs and instead advocating for equal funding across the board.

Councilmen C.O. Bradford, Michael Kubosh and Dave Martin voted against the plan.

“What you saw displayed here today is why I think it’s important that we actually have atlarge council members,” Parker said. “Because the district council members were very clear that they didn’t give a damn about the whole city. They only cared about their district, and you had at least four of them say as much, and the others were in concert. My job is to present a budget and a CIP that

the needs of the entire city and so not all the needs are the same.”

Though the questions about fairness are hardly new, a document released to council Monday breaking out the expenditures by percentage in each district and delayed projects drove the discussion about how and where capital improvements, such as road work and park upgrades, are funded.

The plan is a working document, with projects beyond the immediate fiscal year at the mercy of that year’s funding availability. A voter-imposed revenue cap and higher-than-expected construction costs have delayed projects.

A sweeping amendment offered by Martin would have reallocated more than $1 billion of the CIP equally among the 11 council districts eventually failed 6-10, but not quietly.

Martin’s District E, which stretches from Kingwood to Clear Lake, is scheduled to receive just 3 percent of the CIP expenditures during the next five years.

“This whole day has been quite an embarrassment,” Martin said. “The process is flawed.”

District C accounts for the largest share of planned projects at more than 20 percent of the planned expenditures. Councilwoman Ellen Cohen, who represents District C which includes Montrose and the Heights, said concerns around the dais were valid. But she noted that her district includes some of the oldest neighborhoods in the city.

“It’s not a numbers game,” Cohen said. “It’s not how many get what. It’s who needs the most when and now.”

Most of the more than 20 amendments submitted Wednesday were withdrawn or failed on a vote, but there were some surprises.

Perhaps most surprising was the final amendment of the day, which came from at-large Councilman Steve Costello. The mayoral candidate successfully sought to restrict the city’s use of ReBuild Houston funds in reimbursing companies that make street and drainage upgrades, part of an economic development tool called a Chapter 380 agreement. Voters narrowly approved the ReBuild Houston program in 2010, agreeing to assess a monthly drainage fee on property owners that would be used to create a pay-as-you-go fund to pay for street and drainage repairs.

Costello’s amendment, which applies to about $9 million worth of existing 380 projects not yet reimbursed, passed 9-7.

The city now will have to pull from the general fund to reimburse those developers.

“I’m totally for 380 agreements,” Costello said. “What I’m not for is misleading the public on the use of the funds.”

Parker chalked Costello’s amendment up to a campaign maneuver — “it has nothing to do with real facts it has to do with real politics,” Parker said.

Councilman Larry Green also successfully argued to reinstate parks projects in his southwest district. Councilman Oliver Pennington, whose District G includes some of the wealthiest neighborhoods to the west, offered to reduce some of the funding scheduled for a fire station in 2020 to free up debt capacity for Green’s project.

Martin, too, netted a win. Council voted to fund a drainage and paving project along Kingwood Drive by drawing down maintenance funds slated for 2020.