Education & Affordable Housing
A rooster crows in the afternoon on Andrews Street, and a skinny, collar-less dog wanders aimlessly down a cobblestone street. A boarded-up, dilapidated house groans of old age as it rests nearby.
Only blocks away, a row of new three-story, brick townhouses attempt to hug the cobblestone street, separated only by a grass strip the size of a welcome mat and a six-foot iron fence. The smell of new construction thickens the air.
The old and the new of this area no longer butt heads as they once did. Redevelopment has caused property values to soar to the point where the old -- mostly African-American -- residents were unable to afford the new housing and left the area known as the Fourth Ward.
“I don’t go down there [to the Fourth Ward] anymore. I don’t like to,” said Joseph Caronna, 83, a former member of the neighborhood of Italians who once lived in the ward. Caronna once owned and occupied the property at 1308 Bailey St.
Reviews of real property valuations obtained from the Harris County Appraisal District tell the story of Caronna and his property-owning neighbors in the ward.
Caronna said that he sold his property to Julio Laguarta of Houston Renaissance for $5 a square foot.
“They lied to us – Laguarta and Renaissance,” said Caronna. Laguarta told Caronna and the other owners that the property had to be developed into low-income housing and that the city would take the land by eminent domain if necessary.
Houston Renaissance, headed up by Julio Laguarta, began buying land in the mid-1990s, said Anise Parker, a Houston City Council member.
Julio Laguarta, a former member of the Houston Planning Commission, formed Renaissance for the purpose of redeveloping the Fourth Ward. Even before the private, non-profit organization filed for bankruptcy, it produced controversy. At the heart of the controversy were Renaissance’s plans for the area and its method of achieving those plans.
After Renaissance went bankrupt, Houston Housing Finance Company took over ownership of the property.
The finance company’s spin-off, Hou-Tex Redevelopment Authority, then took control of the properties, said Parker. Hou-Tex transferred property to develop low-income housing and sold the remaining property to investors.
Although low-cost housing is still planned, developers privately hold the vast majority of the land, said Parker.
Harris County Appraisal District records show that the Housing Authority of the City of Houston owns about 20 properties, and Hou-Tex still holds title to about 120 properties in the area.
A review of the HCAD records shows that developers have bought property in the area. Bagby Apartments L.L.C., Urban Lofts III Ltd. are two of the most active developers with combined holdings of over 50 properties. Other developers, local churches, absentee landowners and a handful of owners who occupy their property own the remaining land in the area.
From 1990 to 1994, Caronna’s property was valued at $55,000, according to HCAD reports. In 1994 -- the year before Renaissance began buying property -- the value was reduced to $33,000.
Houston Renaissance bought the property in 1999, according to HCAD records, but Caronna said that he had sold it earlier. Caronna said Stewart Title Company was slow and it was at least a year between the time the property was sold and the time he received his money.
The property was appraised for over $65,000 in 2000, according to HCAD records, and that same year the Houston Housing Authority assumed ownership.
Caronna’s former property is now valued at over $130,000, about twice the price Caronna was paid. His former property remains undeveloped, but a similar section of land down the street has been developed, according to HCAD records.
Perry Homes is selling townhouses in the 1800 block of Bailey Street in the low to mid $200,000s. According to the HCAD appraisals, the land value of each of these developed lots is appraised at about $60,000. The 10 original lots of this 50,000 square feet of land have been sliced into 30 lots.
If Caronna’s land should be developed and sell at the same price as the Perry Homes townhouses, the 13,000 square feet he sold for about $65,000 would then be worth more than seven times what he was paid or about $468,000.
“Perry Home-organization” is the word Parker uses to describe the area.
“Gentrification is a part of the process of cities,” said Parker. “Areas of the city go in and out of favor; the ethnicity of the people changes. It’s not necessarily a bad thing.”
Parker said that historic parts of the city should be preserved and clearly one of them should have been the “black downtown.”
© Copyright World Internet News 2006-07
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