Council weighs affordable housing project in East End
City Council on Wednesday will consider approving a 400-unit affordable housing project in the East End that has drawn opposition from the area state representative and a local developer who says the land poses environmental health risks.
The project at 800 Middle is a joint effort between the Houston Housing Authority, a public agency that oversees low-income and affordable housing vouchers for tens of thousands of Houstonians, and NRP Group, an Ohio-based developer.
Officials ultimately plan to build more than 900 mixed-income units at the new apartment complex, though the council only is considering approval of 400 low-income units for the first phase of the project at Wednesday’s meeting, along with a 4 percent federal tax credit for the project.
Housing authority officials acquired the land, located east of downtown along the southern shore of Buffalo Bayou, using a portion of the funds they received after selling a nearby housing facility, Clayton Homes, to the Texas Department of Transportation for $90 million in 2019.
The state transportation agency plans to demolish Clayton Homes to make way for its planned expansion of the adjacent Interstate 45, while the housing authority intends to relocate residents of the housing facility to the new project at 800 Middle.
About three-quarters of the 400 proposed units would be for households earning up to 60 percent of the area median income, defined by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as roughly $45,000 for a family of four. The remainder would be for households with incomes up to 30 percent of
the area median income, housing authority interim president and CEO Mark Thiele said at a city council meeting last month. A portion of the 926 units envisioned in the final project would be offered at market rate.
The proposed development has come under scrutiny from local developer Alan Atkinson, who has sought to stop the project through a lawsuit that is currently before a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. In court filings, Atkinson — who previously owned the land before selling it in 2006 — says the property is located next to a lead processing facility that makes it unsuitable for development. He also said the land remains contaminated from its use as an ash landfill site for city garbage incinerators decades ago.
“They could not have picked a worse location on the bayou for pollution to build low-income housing,” Atkinson said.
The city has denied Atkinson’s charges, arguing in court filings that the land had no “known environmental issues” until part of the property eroded along the bank of Buffalo Bayou in January 2020 as the result of recent storms. The owner of the land, Pinto East End LLC, installed a bulkhead along the eroded area that will prevent “potential exposure of ash to the bayou or any person,” according to city court filings.
Before using proceeds from the Clayton Homes sale to buy nearby land, housing authority officials first had to gain approval from the U.S. Housing Department, which controlled the funds because Clayton Homes is a HUD-assisted housing project. Atkinson alleges Pinto and the housing authority unlocked the funds by submitting inspection reports to state and federal officials that misrepresented the environmental status of the land at 800 Middle.
City and housing authority officials have denied Atkinson’s charge, noting that state officials deemed the land suitable for “any use” in 2016.
They allege in court filings that Atkinson opposes the affordable housing project because he believes it would hurt the value of the townhomes he owns nearby, and argue that Atkinson has not taken legal issue with a planned highend development next to 800 Middle.
Atkinson said he has long supported low-income housing development in the area and argued he is mainly concerned about what he views as a poor use of public funds.
“Any private developer can go build on this property, and nobody could stop them, because private developers can take risk, and they're passing that risk along to the people that they sell to,” Atkinson said. “But HUD operates by completely different rules, because when HUD approves a location to build housing on, they are taking on the responsibility to guarantee that that location is safe for its residents. Because those residents are typically impoverished people who don't have the financial ability to choose where they live.”
Council member Karla Cisneros, whose district includes the proposed site, said she supports the project in part because it will help ensure Clayton Homes residents are relocated nearby, instead of elsewhere in the city “where they’re not connected, away from their jobs and schools and families.”
“I'm a huge fan of affordable housing, especially in my neighborhoods that are gentrifying,” Cisneros said. “It is one of the best tools we have to (create) places where rents are protected and people can afford to live in their communities.”
Ahead of the city council vote, Atkinson has sent a letter to each council member outlining his arguments against the proposed project. He acknowledged he is waging an uphill battle, given that Mayor Sylvester Turner supports the project and council members typically vote with the mayor under Houston’s strong mayor form of government.
Within the letter, Atkinson also argued the existing surface streets surrounding the housing project would not provide adequate access to Navigation Boulevard nearby. He said the streets would need to be widened to meet city rightof-way standards and support increased traffic resulting from the new apartment units.
State Rep. Christina Morales, whose district includes the proposed housing project, echoed those arguments in a letter to Houston Housing Director Tom McCasland last October, in which she expressed her opposition to the development.
“I have heard from both long-time and recently relocated members of the community who have communicated to me that the project is not a good fit for the neighborhood,” wrote Morales, D-Houston. “There are issues regarding the negative impact it will have on traffic, congestion and accessibility. To accommodate the increased traffic, improvements to the street grid will be necessary. This will require the displacement of current homeowners, which I find unacceptable.”
McCasland could not be reached for comment Tuesday. In court filings, the city and housing authority have denied Atkinson’s trafficrelated charges, calling them speculative.
Jason Arechiga, senior vice president for NRP Group, the project developer, told council members at a March 31 meeting that Middle and Kennedy streets — the two main points for accessing the apartment complex — would be “improved and extended” as part of the project.