We’ve blogged previously about the city’s heavy-handed floodway ordinance. Last week, the Chron’s Kim Jackson wrote an informative story on the topic:
McKee, a Hedwig Village resident, said about a year ago he and his brother, David McKee, were offered $3.5 million for the commercial property their family has owned off Shepherd Drive and Interstate 10 near White Oak Bayou since 1967.
The deal fell through, he said, when the buyer said he could not purchase the property because most of it was in the floodway, and a city of Houston ordinance prohibited any new construction on vacant floodway property.
Rick McKee said he and his brother did not know their property was in the floodway and were not aware City Council revised the ordinance in August 2006.
“The city wants me to continue paying taxes on land I can’t sell because of the city’s ordinance,” McKee said. “It is against the Constitution of the United States to take property without compensation and this is inverse condemnation. We get to keep our property, but they have taken away our property rights by telling us what we can and cannot do with it.
[snip]
Norcini said the ordinance affects about 3,500 vacant properties and a total of 109,000 properties within the city.
He said the city gave almost no notice to the public before making the changes.
“They did this in the dark. They posted notice on a 3-by-5 card on a board in city hall,” Norcini said. “They ought to be ashamed of themselves.”
Last year we highlighted Councilman Adrian Garcia’s reaction to the ordinance:
Councilman Adrian Garcia, whose district includes Shady Acres, said during the Sept. 20 committee meeting that council members didn’t get enough information about the measure’s impact before they voted on it.
“Why didn’t we let folks know in advance that we were going to be going down this track?” Garcia asked. “Everybody has reared up because a lot of people were caught by surprise. At council, we had almost no discussion on this.”
Mayor White doesn’t like surprises or dissent, and he has shown a tendency to push the most punitive actions as a first resort. Couple that with the fact that local governments don’t post public notices in a citizen-friendly manner*, and hold meetings when most folks are at work, and you have a recipe for a government that operates as if the people work for it, instead of the other way around.
*Wouldn’t it be nice if the City Council agenda included links within each item so interested folks could learn more information on each topic up for discussion?
