By Juan Montoya
The Border Wall isn't even finished yet, but already its effects on the local economy have made themselves only too painfully obvious.
The fence has made the city's dream of a Brownsville-Matamoros Riverwalk wash down stream like storm flotsam, and, combined with the new Homeland Security requirements for border residents to cross into the United States (and into Mexico), both have negatively affected commerce of the border.
Last month City Manager Charlie Cabler went before the Brownsville Public Utility Board saying that income from the international bridges was down 32 percent and that sales taxes were also down to the tune of 5 percent. Translation: Less people and vehicles were crossing into Mexico, and vice-versa.
The latest casualty of the border paranoia has been the development plan that would have revitalized the Amigoland area. That development, known as University Park, would have utilized a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone.
Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZs) are special districts created by cities to attract new investment to an area. TIRZs help finance the cost of redeveloping or encouraging infill development in an area that would otherwise not attract sufficient market development. Taxes attributable to new improvements (tax increment) are set-aside in a fund to finance public improvements in the zone.
In Houston, 22 such TIRZs exist. In Brownsville, University Park, a multimillion-dollar residential and commercial 421-acre development along the Rio Grande near Amigoland, was to be the second.
Developers said the fence going up along the U.S.-Mexico border is to blame, and the city commission was asked Tuesday to suspend the activities of the TIRZ No. 2.
The investors in the deal were Rollins M. Koppel, of Harlingen, Abraham Galonsky (Casa del Nylon), of Brownsville, Alter Holand, of McAllen, and Jenard Gross, of Houston. The agreement between investors and the city called for the city’s purchase of nearly 80 acres of land from the developers for the construction of a park.
However, because of the fence, city staff and developers presented the city a resolution for the suspension of the plan to use the TIRZ.
Apparently, the fence greatly increased the economic risks of any successful development on the property and they didn't think it was economically feasible any longer.
So, poof! Planning that had been going on for five years fell through as the steel posts of the fence go up. But all of us feel a lot safer, don't we?
The Border Wall isn't even finished yet, but already its effects on the local economy have made themselves only too painfully obvious.
The fence has made the city's dream of a Brownsville-Matamoros Riverwalk wash down stream like storm flotsam, and, combined with the new Homeland Security requirements for border residents to cross into the United States (and into Mexico), both have negatively affected commerce of the border.
Last month City Manager Charlie Cabler went before the Brownsville Public Utility Board saying that income from the international bridges was down 32 percent and that sales taxes were also down to the tune of 5 percent. Translation: Less people and vehicles were crossing into Mexico, and vice-versa.
The latest casualty of the border paranoia has been the development plan that would have revitalized the Amigoland area. That development, known as University Park, would have utilized a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone.
Tax Increment Reinvestment Zones (TIRZs) are special districts created by cities to attract new investment to an area. TIRZs help finance the cost of redeveloping or encouraging infill development in an area that would otherwise not attract sufficient market development. Taxes attributable to new improvements (tax increment) are set-aside in a fund to finance public improvements in the zone.
In Houston, 22 such TIRZs exist. In Brownsville, University Park, a multimillion-dollar residential and commercial 421-acre development along the Rio Grande near Amigoland, was to be the second.
Developers said the fence going up along the U.S.-Mexico border is to blame, and the city commission was asked Tuesday to suspend the activities of the TIRZ No. 2.
The investors in the deal were Rollins M. Koppel, of Harlingen, Abraham Galonsky (Casa del Nylon), of Brownsville, Alter Holand, of McAllen, and Jenard Gross, of Houston. The agreement between investors and the city called for the city’s purchase of nearly 80 acres of land from the developers for the construction of a park.
However, because of the fence, city staff and developers presented the city a resolution for the suspension of the plan to use the TIRZ.
Apparently, the fence greatly increased the economic risks of any successful development on the property and they didn't think it was economically feasible any longer.
So, poof! Planning that had been going on for five years fell through as the steel posts of the fence go up. But all of us feel a lot safer, don't we?
No comments:
Post a Comment