Future of Houston's Annexation Plans (Sugar Land, Richmond: 2015, neighborhood, taxi)

[NTexas2010]

Do you foresee Houston annexing any large part of its ETJs within the foreseeable future? I know following Kingwood in the '90s the city hasn't utilized full annexation as aggressively, but rather an eager application of limited purpose annexation to benefit from taxing commercial areas. With the recent trend of re-urbanization/ infill / gentrification / reverse white-flight or whatever other buzzword you may be partial to within the CoH, I wonder if the city is less interested in the far-out burbs than it was during times of heightened white flight and expansion.

I'm probably over-romanticizing the idea of Houston releasing some of its outlying ETJ to its neighboring cities of closer proximity - chances are these areas will remain outside of any active city jurisdiction for quite some time to come. It's just a thought I have every time I look at a map of Houston and/or Fort Bend County.

[H'ton]

No

[NTexas2010]

Originally Posted by H'ton

No

Quite succinct. Care to elaborate?

(If the answer is "no", fair enough - thanks for the bump).

[chris_ut]

Seems like after the Kingwood fiasco the legislature passed a law making it more difficult to do annexations like that.

[crono_clone]

That's a good question. The city website has a nice little slideshow about the history of Houston's annexations, and it's quite interesting: Annexation Plan

Their annexation plan for 2013-2015 mentions the annexation of two industrial districts on the east side outside of Beltway 8 along the ship channel, which makes sense. They don't seem to have any other plans outside of that.

Personally, I'd prefer it if the city de-annexed several jurisdictions since it always seems like city services are spread too thin. I don't know if Clear Lake would ever be released because of NASA, or Kingwood because of the water supply in Lake Houston. Most of the undeveloped jurisdictions on the east side will probably need to stay with the city for for the foreseeable future, but it would be nice if the city could shrink down to inside the loop so it could concentrate on developing the core while the suburbs and exurbs do their own thing.

[cla]

Houston has limited purpose annexation agreements with almost every community out there within its ETJ. In a general purpose annexation (what you usually think about when hearing the word annexation) the city has to provide services to the annexed area. In a limited purpose annexation, Houston can collect tax from a small area within a particular district (sales tax in retail pockets of a neighborhood) without having to provide municipal services to the area.

Here is a good explanation of the difference between general and limited purpose annexations and why Houston won't exercise its right to general purpose annexation....

muds-and-houston-profit-from-annexation-system - Community Impact Newspaper

[AK123]

I really wish Houston would release some of its ETJ in the Sugar Land and Richmond areas. Seriously, that's obviously too far out for Houston to manage properly (case in point, Cullinan Park), and the residents want out of "no man's land" and into one of these smaller cities. Houston needs to concentrate on more central areas and let go of the far westward sprawl.

[crone]

The CoH entered into limited purpose annexation agreements with most of the water districts that had any sign of retail. They have what they want, the tax revenue with no responsibility to provide any kind service. They split the tax revenue with the water district.

[War Beagle]

Originally Posted by AK123

I really wish Houston would release some of its ETJ in the Sugar Land and Richmond areas. Seriously, that's obviously too far out for Houston to manage properly (case in point, Cullinan Park), and the residents want out of "no man's land" and into one of these smaller cities. Houston needs to concentrate on more central areas and let go of the far westward sprawl.

Sugar Land apparently hates that park. Someone who used to work for the city of SL told me that due to its remoteness from Houston, there is a lot of gay cruising that occurs and that there is a "confirmed gloryhole" there.

However, this could simply be a case of Sugar Land trying to badmouth Houston. I asked how Sugar Land went about "confirming" these claims but I didn't get a good answer and I didn't have any interest in confirming for myself.

[Schumacher713]

I don't think there are any annexation plans right now. I think those days are over.