When anger turns to job losses and higher taxes

Our friend Max Grossman and some of his friends went down to the County Commissioner Court today to cheer on a move to declare all of El Paso a historic district only to be used for wild west reenactments.  

JUST KIDDING!

They'd like to make most all of the property downtown and adjacent to downtown untouchable by declaring all of it "historic."  Apparently certain members of the commissioners court are cool with this.  Why?  Because they think this will be a big "f*ck you" to people they see as political adversaries.  It's not because they care at all about history.  History serves only as the bat being applied to their enemy's knee caps.  

Granted, the fight isn't over with this one vote, but El Paso will be closer to making yet another awful decision that will raise your taxes and kill growth.  Putting a freeze on all those properties - literally hundreds of rundown buildings and older homes in severe disrepair - will kill their area that is already almost dead economically and their tax burden will be shifted to those who own homes outside of the world's largest historical district that is clearly not historic.   We're talking about not only removing these properties from the tax rolls, but keeping higher value properties from being developed in their place that could have relieved the burden on YOU.  

But, hey... Max and his friends have a political score to settle and YOU are just going to have to pay for it whether you like it or not.  

Don't get me wrong - I like history.  I think there are some neat things that should be saved so we can physically stand near them and reflect on their meaning.  However, the bar for that level of "historic" in my opinion is pretty high.  John Wesley Hardin lived in El Paso for like five minutes before he met his maker... Pancho Villa murdered Chinese people for sport...  El Paso can do better than that. And clearly 99 percent of the buildings downtown are not historically significant - they're just old.  Old does not equal important.  Just watch that show Pawn Stars where they have to educate people on that concept every episode.  

I know exactly what Grossman and friends are going to say "but, but, but, but there will be tax incentives!  grants! free money!" Which is technically true - if you were to restore an old building.  The people with the kind of money to buy these buildings aren't the type of people who want to spend twice the amount the building is worth to restore it so they can get a one-time $5,000 tax break.  Believe me, I've talked to the people who do these things and they tell me it's a "labor of love" and pure money loser.  

What is likely to happen is what happened to that 57' Chevy your uncle swore he was going to fix up.  After 20 years it's still sitting there in the garage rotting away.  He never had the money nor the time to fix it up.  You can see all the properties downtown today that have rotted during the decades when there were no restrictions on what you could do with them.  More stringent architectural requirements etc.. et al is only going to ensure downtown stays rundown. 

And for God's sake don't believe any of them when they claim they know someone who will buy those properties and take care of them.  The entire stock of historical sites, buildings and houses in Texas are in crisis.  They can't even get someone to keep the Alamo in good shape, what makes you think there's money to fix up a nondescript house in Segundo built in 1925?  The Texas Historical Association went broke because nobody cared to pay for all the great things they did.    

It's one thing to go through and have a few building saved.  It's another to throw a blanket over an entire area and basically shut down any development or needed repairs on existing buildings.  Oh, and don't forget that utility upgrades will be twice as expensive in the area because you can't just dig up the street and fix water and sewer pipes.  You have to jump through a whole bunch of hoops before you can do any of that.  Poor people of Segundo can't get anything nice -not even new water pipes!

Again, Max wins another battle against his political foes... and he'll be bitching about his taxes in a week not realizing he's the reason they are going up. 

Comments

[Who Cares]

What Max doesn't tell you about getting tax credits for historical building renovations is the huge amount of time involved getting through the approval process from whatever agency(ies); finding the exact same windows that were in the house/building; including the crank to open them; or being required to leave windows in the building that are not energy efficient; hell they may require the old rotting wood paneling be left up and the wallpaper. It is not as easy as he thinks it is. As the director of the Downtown Management District said you will need to hire accountants, lawyers, architects to make sure the tax credit is done properly. Grants can be taken away if not carried out exactly to the letter (or paid back if you spent the money).

I think it's best to go building by building to determine any historical significance and putting a condition on the building.

I agree with DavidK - this is to screw over Margo and everyone else that didn't support certain county commissioners in their last run for office.

[question]

" raise your taxes and kill growth " What ? A fucking Arena that will lose us money no matter where it is built ? That location will kill growth ?

[JerryK]

Bulldoze DTEP and save all of us money.

[question]

we cant Jerry. We already subsidized another bank building we don't need, but hey, that slow ass trolley goes right by it and I'm sure the 10 people who ride the trolley bank there !

[its micro. and we all know it. no wonder she divorced max]

Sad little max finally got a win. All this helps is his large ego and tiny little.... hands..

[Rich Wright]

David,

You need to change the name of this blog to DrinktheKoolaid.

Rich

[El Paso loses]

Samaniego is the dumbest m*****er I’ve seen in a long time. How he is Judge boggles my mind.

[Joel]

Gonna agree with Rich Wright on this one. I'm sure you've noticed that Austin - where I've heard you live - has done a much better job of taking care of its historic buildings than we have. And many of the most desirable, expensive neighborhoods are also the most historic.

Before you say anything about El Paso being too poor to do the same thing - hear me out. I recently sold two houses in central El Paso that I completely restored and came away with a nice profit from both of them. And you don't need a job at Google to be able to afford these types of houses eithers. One of the buyers were a couple that work in government and another was a small business owner.

Yes - I know that projects like the Mills Building might be money losers. But that project was an absolute beast that involved combining two buildings and attaching a monstrosity of a parking garage to them. Almost none of the buildings in this area would need or could even accommodate that scale of a project.

I'm not arguing that every old building should always be saved. If someone wants to tear down a non-historic old building to put something better in its place, I'm not necessarily opposed. But in El Paso we've seen too many old buildings torn down and replaced by vacant lots or parking garages. And the more we can do to prevent that from happening in the future, the better.

[Who Cares]

Kudos to Joel for renovating older homes in central El Paso. That place is a mess with really rundown homes. Hope more people will do that. The old dilapidated buildings in DT El Paso that have been torn down and left as dirt lots or parking lots are probably done because there just wasn’t a cost effective way to renovate them, and a pro forma that showed it could be rented or sold for a profit. Fixing up old buildings or houses is always, always about money. It’s very expensive and there has to be a return on investment unless you are so wealthy you just don’t care about breaking even or making a profit.

Yes, Austin has protected and restored older houses and buildings, but Austin has a shortage of affordable housing. House prices and rents in the city limits are extremely high. There is always a price to pay for these type of actions.

[Max G.]

David,
It is becoming increasing obvious to me and quite a few others that not only do you have a political and/or financial agenda on this blog, but you also have zero idea what you are talking about. There is not a single fact in this post. I have you on my email list and have already provided you with the basic information on this topic. A National Register district, like those in the downtowns of all other major Texas cities, does not "freeze" anything. It confers no legal protection. It imposes not one regulation on property owners, unless (1) the property owner wants to take advantage of fed and state tax credits that can pay for up to 45% of renovation costs, or (2) the property is federally owned or funded. Thus, more than 99% of the property owners have all the liberty in the world to decide what to do with their private property. That is why these districts are popular in deep-red Texas. They are revenue positive! In El Paso, the new district will not stop the "arena" or any other mass demo project, but it will make historic properties inherently more valuable. Foster, Gaddy, and Meyers have used the same credits to restore the Mills Bldg, Bassett Tower, and the Hotel Paso del Norte. Now the credits will be available for 968 buildings. Please consider educating yourself before you bloviate about issues you know little or nothing about. Btw, you have a couple of super creepy trolls on this page, including at least one Nazi and an apparent sex offender fascinated with childrens’ hands.

[David K]

Max,

Wrong! And your actions with Duranguito are proof that no owner has any control over their property once it's even "thought" to be historic. Do the former owners of Duranguito or the city currently "have all the liberty in the world to decide what to do with their private property." It would appear that they do not have any liberty to do anything with the property at all. Your power over those nearly 1,000 properties is limitless once you get your designation. You didn't even need the designation to shut down Duranguito progress.

Foster, Gaddy and Meyers did it out of the goodness of their hearts. They are rich, they have that option. I'm thankful for their leadership and efforts to make El Paso better.

I have no financial gains in my future with anything going on in South El Paso. It's not what my parents do and the people doing it already have their teams picked out and I ain't involved. In fact, they all wish I'd stop blogging about it. This is a matter of private property rights and protecting our most vulnerable citizens.

Funny - the anti-semite is on the same side of all these issues as you. You might reevaluate your stances on them.

Love

David K

[JerryK]

Gentrification is frequently just another way to say, "I don't want poor people in the neighborhood." Yet, it is great when people fix up old homes and buildings to create a trendy ambiance, but this raises property values and taxes and landlords seek out tenants who can pay the higher prices. No more boyz in the hood.

I don't have a solution unless we follow David's desire and sprawl out subdivisions to the horizon, which doesn't seem like a good idea either.

When I ran the HFC, we provided special incentives in the form of additional down payment for mortgages on homes in these designated areas, Like Rio Grand. We also worked with Wells Fargo that back then had a special mortgage program to assist rennovation of these type of homes. In three years, I am only aware of one such loan we made to a owner to restore their newly-purchased old home. And this out of hundreds of mortgages made.

The bottom line of it was that anyone who could afford to buy a home wanted a new/newer one near good schools, not in Central, South or Rio Grand.