“As you can see, these Houston Housing Authority stories are especially preposterous.”
Texas Insider Report: AUSTIN, Texas – “It’s time recognize the not-so-obvious. At best most of these Public Finance Corporation deals are being done in egregiously opaque settings, and the practice of unelected Housing & Taxing Authority bureaucrats taking BILLIONS of dollars in Property Tax Value off the tax rolls – for not only their own taxing units but also ISDs, Cities, Counties & Special Taxing Districts – has got to end,' said Sen. Paul Bettencourt, as he filed Senate Bill 805 to repeal these entity's ability to use Public Finance Corporations to take exorbitant amounts of multifamily property dollars off the tax rolls by approving leasehold deals.
“I’m appalled that Housing Authorities and taxing authorities have completely abused the statutory authority to create PFCs in a totally nontransparent manner,” said Senator Bettencourt.
"Therefore, I filed a bill to end the practice immediately as PFC abuse, in the supposed name of traditional public housing, has exploded since the last attempts to reform this process in 2021."
More and more Texans are becoming aware of the egregious & unsubstantiated practices of PFCs around the state.
According to Statute, if a housing authority does not set aside at least 20% of a property’s units for public housing units.
Then developers must designate half of the units for persons who earn less than 80% of the area median income (AMI). These newly created PFCs are failing to do this.
For example, in a recent story reported, “Lakeside Place PFC received a tax exemption valued at $48 million, but records showed that in December 2021, about 66% of the property had been leased at market rates, not reduced rates.”
“The Houston Housing Authority has taken 5.1 billion dollars of property value off the Harris County tax rolls. Tax rolls in more than one city in Texas are seeing Billions taken off the rolls as well,” added Sen. Bettencourt.
“As you can see, these Houston Housing Authority stories are especially preposterous.”
Senator Bettencourt expects to work with Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick’s Office, his Senate colleagues, as well as his legislative colleagues in the House to put an end to these PFC abuses.
State Representative Jacey Jetton (R-Houston) also filed an important PFC Reform Bill yesterday, HB 2071.
"This process completely bypasses Elected Officials and that has to change!" concluded Bettencourt.
