To facilitate Mayor Turner’s emphasis on building Complete Communities in the City, and to inform the Housing and Community Development Department (HCDD) community revitalization effort, HCDD recommends City Council appropriate and allocate TIRZ Affordable Housing funds for a contract, not to exceed $113,140, for an Affordable Housing and Investment Analysis. This analysis will be conducted by Reinvestment Fund, which has previously done a market value analysis of Houston.
Reinvestment Fund will provide an updated analysis of the City of Houston to help understand the strengths and weaknesses of Houston’s neighborhoods. The analysis will create a data-driven analytical tool and framework for restoring market viability and wealth in specific areas within distressed neighborhoods. HCDD will receive a high-level of information and data on identifiable and specific areas that readily lend themselves to redevelopment and affordable housing investment, thus enabling the City to target funds and prioritize actions in ways that can leverage resources for affordable housing and more effectively achieve neighborhood revitalization. After the analysis is completed, HCDD will have ongoing access to use the data for future redevelopment activities.
Reinvestment Fund will also update Houston’s 2013 Commercial Corridor Analysis, which includes business data and analyses of commercial activity and the presentation of business data that reflects the relationship between commercial corridor conditions and the strength of local real estate markets. This tool can be used to facilitate economic development.
Multiple factors are utilized in Reinvestment Fund’s model to rate the health of neighborhoods at the census block group level. Factors include home sales price, percent owner-occupied, percent vacant, percent new construction, percent commercial, foreclosures as a percent of sales, percent public housing, population, and number of housing units.
Founded in 1985, Reinvestment Fund is a national leader in community finance, development and policy. Since 2001, the organization has completed over 30 market value analyses of numerous cities, including San Antonio, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Milwaukee, Indianapolis and Detroit. Reinvestment Fund has also invested in low- to moderate-income neighborhoods across the country, resulting in the creation, renovation or preservation of more than:
· 18,000 housing units
· 8,400,000 square feet of commercial space
· 550 businesses
Houston 2013 Commercial Corridor Analysis & Market Value Analysis