{"id":419543,"date":"2026-08-28T20:08:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:08:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419543\/"},"modified":"2026-08-28T20:08:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T20:08:08","slug":"houston-approves-fourth-wards-15-2m-budget-changes-affordable-housing-agreement-heights-river-oaks-montrose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/419543\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston approves Fourth Ward\u2019s $15.2M budget, changes affordable housing agreement | Heights &#8211; River Oaks &#8211; Montrose"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Houston passed the <a href=\"http:\/\/file:\/\/\/Users\/mac\/Downloads\/T14_FY27%20Budget%20-%20Final%20(1).pdf\" rel=\"nofollow\">Fourth Ward Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone\u2019s budget<\/a> after amending it to require coordination with the city\u2019s housing department on its affordable housing plans.<\/p>\n<p>The gist<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/4thwardhouston.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Fourth Ward TIRZ<\/a>, which represents the area west of Downtown and includes Freedmen\u2019s Town, received approval for its $15.2 million budget on Aug. 28. Previously council member Julian Ramirez delayed the vote on it because he had questions about how the TIRZ would spend $8.3 million on affordable housing in the next five years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt didn\u2019t seem to me like they had a real coherent, detailed plan on how to go about that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The concerns<\/p>\n<p>Ramirez said when TIRZs have infrastructure projects, such as road reconstruction or drainage, they work with the city\u2019s public works department.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut when TIRZs do affordable housing, that same requirement is not present,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The Fourth Ward TIRZ is one of three TIRZs that do affordable housing work, but don\u2019t work with the housing department, Ramirez said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Midtown TIRZ now works hand in hand with the housing department on affordable housing for all the lots that they have,\u201d Ramirez said. \u201cI think the same should be required of the Fourth Ward TIRZ to work with our housing department.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The options<\/p>\n<p>Ramirez initially proposed an amendment to the TIRZ\u2019s budget that would require the Fourth Ward to work with the city\u2019s housing department to ensure that the TIRZ\u2019s work is in compliance and alignment with the city. However, that would require the Fourth Ward TIRZ board to go back and vote on the amendment. That amendment would also only be for this year\u2019s budget, he added.<\/p>\n<p>However, Gwen Tillotson-Bell, the city\u2019s chief economic development officer, said an agreement to work with the department would not require a change to the TIRZ\u2019s budget, just the city\u2019s ordinance that approved their budget.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is not part of the budget,\u201d Tillotson said. \u201cThe question is, could we just do something and have a record that we would have proper documentation confirming endorsement by the housing director?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The takeaway<\/p>\n<p>Council ultimately agreed to amend the ordinance\u2014not the actual budget\u2014to require that if the TIRZ acquires or develops property for affordable housing, it would have to work with the city&#8217;s housing department and get the housing director&#8217;s endorsement.<\/p>\n<p>Community Impact reached out to the Fourth Ward TIRZ for comment, but did not hear back by publishing time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Houston passed the Fourth Ward Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone\u2019s budget after amending it to require coordination with the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[1500,45419,146144,146145,56,58,3770,57],"class_list":["post-419543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-affordable-housing","tag-fourth-ward","tag-fourth-ward-tirz","tag-housing-and-community-development","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-housing","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}