The Dallas City Council has approved a housing development project worth almost $200 million and agreed to waive 75 years of tax payments on the property.
During a Wednesday meeting, the council authorized the Dallas Public Facility Corporation (DPFC) to purchase a 15-acre property at 9999 West Technology Boulevard.
The DPFC is a nonprofit that develops and manages land. Properties acquired by the DPFC are tax-exempt.
The DPFC will lease the land to the private developer LDG Development, who will then develop a housing complex on the property known as The Park at Northpoint for an estimated $177 million.
The 75-year tax-exempt lease will be offered to LDG Development in exchange for half of the complex’s 615 units being designated as “affordable housing.”
Council Member Cara Mendelsohn noted on Twitter that the lease payments from the private developer do not go to the City of Dallas but rather to the DPFC, meaning that “the city coffers” will miss out on $4 million per year from this agreement.
Mendelsohn and Council Member Adam McGough were the officials to vote against the agreement on Wednesday that authorized the DPFC to use $10 million of Community Development Block Grant Funds to acquire the property.
“I think it’s pretty outrageous to vote on something when you don’t even know how much money you’re giving up,” Mendelsohn said.
Council Member Omar Narvaez, who represents the district in which the complex will be developed, emphatically supported the deal. He said it is important to bring residential buildings to the area.
He described the location as the “perfect place” to develop housing due to its close proximity to restaurants, a school, parks, a trail system, and a lake.
“Everything you need is there, except it was originally developed to be a commercial area,” he said. “Mixing in residential is going to be the key factor for us to start to redevelop this area.”
Narvaez said the City “desperately needs” to continue developing mixed-income residential housing.
“You don’t have a lot of places where you have all of these amenities ready to go [where] you can bring housing in. That’s why it’s working in Northwest Dallas,” he continued.
However, Council Member Mendelsohn noted the lack of financial transparency in the documentation of this deal. Most deals that offer tax exemptions provide an “estimated revenue foregone” figure that shows the amount of tax money the City will go without.
This deal offers a 75-year tax exemption, but no such figure was provided.
Mendelsohn insisted that it is “inappropriate for us to be approving an item when we don’t even know what our revenue foregone would be.”
Mendelsohn also voted against two other housing development agreements during Wednesday’s meeting.
“I just don’t see the public benefit when it’s so many dollars that we will be missing from our general revenue,” Mendelsohn explained.
Despite Mendelsohn’s objections, the City Council also authorized deals for two additional housing developments costing a total of $12,123,705 in estimated tax revenue foregone over the next 15 years.
The two properties are Fitzhugh Urban Flats at 2707 North Fitzhugh Avenue and Larkspur Fair Park at 3525 Ash Lane.
Affordable housing is a misnomer. It means that you expect someone else to subsidize you living in a house or apartment that you cannot afford. Stealing money for yourself is illegal but the government stealing money on your behalf and giving it to you for whatever reason is completely legal.
thank you for simplifying this into a discernible paragraph! Makes complete sense!
Let us be clear. Subsidized housing only works when the property has a five to seven year minimum ownership plan and doe NOT NEED any tax benefit at all or if there is a tax benefit it only needs to fix the tax base for 5-7 years and then raise taxes under a reduced formula for a while longer.
Cities can work with developers such as Habitat for Humanity instead of a “for profit” group. They can obtain excellent lending rates through banks because the city can guaranty the loans for five to seven years and take back the property and resell to another low income buyer without risk. During the five to seven year time line the buyer can not sell at all, or they loose all equity and it must be sold to another low income buyer under the same terms.
The idea that the people need to forgo all income as well as subsidize the purchase I insane.
Stealing from the community to give to others is not part of government rights at all. Finding ways to help people IS acceptable.
I say that this entire ideology, especially for 75 years is theft and conversion of public money to the benefit of the private developer. Someone need to sue to end this.
“Narvaez said the City “desperately needs” to continue developing mixed-income residential housing.”
Well, we can certainly see why Dallas county has been ridiculously raising property values so that they have tons of money to blow on crap like this. So basically , the people who work to earn what they have, their neighbors will be stealing everything they have that isn’t nailed down.
As usual, city council fools think folks that live in affordable housing are going to Pappasitos and Pappdeaux’s and other nice restaurants. 5 years after this is built all the restaurants will close and move North. Its a proven fact affordable housing brings crime and lower property values, but hey, lets get more “Free” stuff. THIS is EXACTLY why people are moving away from Dallas! WAKE UP!
Time to vote these council members out, leave Cara and Adam as they seem to get it. The rest need to be voted out. Get out and vote against these incumbents who are stealing from us
Adam McGough is term limited this year. Don’t get confused and vote for the other Adam incumbent.
Look out folks….it’s the first step towards making Big D a “15 minute city”. Part of the world elite plan to shove everybody into urban cesspools. Good luck.
Terrible location. Why would anyone want to live there? The neighborhood is full of topless bars, liquor stores, drug sales and homeless on just about every single corner. Oh, and it’s in DALLAS.
One political persuasion thrives on buying votes with your tax dollars. It begins with a “D” and that is the political persuasion that runs this city. In order for anyone to receive affordable housing benefits, one of three elements must be met. 1. Consistent earned income; 2. receiving a pension or retirement; or 3. receiving disability benefits that does not allow the resident to work. Employment eligible people sitting on their tail and doing nothing should not qualify for affordable housing. Selling drugs is unreported income, thus not earned.