Unincorporated Harris in a bind it thought COH would fix

County/MUDs can’t fix streets

Jay Blazek Crossley, Jan 31, 12.

Unincorporated areas of Harris County that were developed expecting City of Houston to annex them do not have the funding or authority to maintain neighborhood streets, according to Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, as quoted in the Cypress Creek Mirror:

While Harris County has already identified necessary transportation improvement projects, finding funding for those improvements has proven to be tricky, especially in the unincorporated portions, said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett.

“There’s no way to sugarcoat it,” said Emmett. “TxDOT will only have enough to maintain existing facilities. They will not have the money to build anything new.”

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Funding shortages have also taken a toll on neighborhood streets, said Emmett.

Unincorporated Harris County was built with the intention that the area would eventually be annexed, and the City would begin road maintenance, he said. The City does not have plans to annex any more cities [sic] and the County does not have the funds to properly maintain all the side streets.

While the county government system was made for rural areas, unincorporated Harris County is large enough to be the fifth largest United States city, he said.

“The county doesn’t have the money to repair the streets and the MUDs don’t have the authority,” he said.

“We need to find a way to tap into the MUDs money or give the MUDs the authority to repair the streets.”

Emmett said the Texas Department of Transportation is concentrating on getting State Highway 99 built - possibly through a long term comprehensive development agreement:

Since 1991, the state gas tax has been set at 20 cents per gallon, with 25 percent of that revenue going to education and 75 percent going to transportation. Despite the funding shortage, the legislature has not been able to change the funding system, either through adjusting the gas tax for inflation and construction costs or creating a new tax, such as a miles driven tax.

As a result, TxDOT may turn to private companies for funding. To fund the Grand Parkway, the agency is deciding between two options: the traditional build design option and a comprehensive development agreement, Emmett said.

For a build design project, a company would build and design the Grand Parkway for a fixed cost and turn it over to the state.

For the comprehensive design project, taxpayers would save money, but a private company would retain the operation rights.

“The reason for doing the CDA option is someone would come in and pay TxDOT billions of dollars for the right to build and operate the Grand Parkway, particularly the Harris County portion or the Montgomery County portion,” he said. “With that money, TxDOT could go build the segments in Chambers and Liberty County and maybe even some in Fort Bend or Brazoria counties.”

Emmett and others believe the construction of SH99 encourages growth in these unincorporated areas:

Already, the Grand Parkway is credited in Exxon’s decision to build a facility spanning 385 acres near the intersection of I-45 and the Hardy Toll Road to consolidate existing offices.

Without the Grand Parkway, Exxon would have taken those jobs somewhere else, said Emmett. The campus’ location depends on the Grand Parkway.

The facility, expected to hold 4,000 employees by 2015, is scheduled for completion in 2014. The facility could also attract 400,000 people to the area, according to a study by the University of Houston Hobby Center for Public Policy.

When those people arrive, they will want to move to the areas with the nicest streets, said Emmett.

“It’s in the subdivisions best interest to find a way to repair their streets,” he said.