Flooding Houston with Thoughtless Regulation

Following the massive flooding events of the past three years, we can all agree that meaningful change to flood mitigation practices in some form or fashion is needed here in Houston. It's safe to say Houstonians have been "woke" to the need to make some changes. 

So last month, attempting to do "something" Houston City Council enacted far-reaching regulations that will do very little to mitigate flooding in the next ten years (like say an aggressive plan to replace outdated storm sewer systems and dredge bayous would?), and will quash development and redevelopment for years to come by creating an even more financially unwelcoming environment for homeowners and businesses. I think it's safe to say when it comes to urban flight, you ain't seen nothin' yet. The U.S. Census recently released a report that showed Houston's growth has slowed considerably while the suburbs are growing five times faster. 

To add insult to injury, some of us thought we already had done something to mitigate flooding. Remember the drainage fee that came with the promise Houston would never flood again? That not one single cent of the fee would be used for anything except streets and drainage? I remember. 

Here's an ad that will refresh your memory as to the promises made.

It's estimated that over $1 billion has been collected by the City of Houston in drainage fees, which according to the ads to sell the proposition, could never ever ever be tapped for anything else but streets and drainage. Unfortunately, a lot of those funds have been diverted to parks, bike lanes and salaries for Houston Public Works employees. And no one would really protest much if we had seen some progress on updating drainage and repairing our streets. But we haven't. We haven't seen much progress because the first seven years of the drainage fees were earmarked to pay off existing City debt. You'll note nothing about that was mentioned in the video. 

So there's no progress to be seen for Houstonian's considerable investment via the drainage fee. In fact, you may even have noticed the City's yearly district Capital Improvement Plan (CIP) meetings were renamed to Town Hall Meetings this year. Why? Because there are no new infrastructure capital improvement projects to discuss - none are being considered. Zero. Zilch. Nada. 

It's difficult to sell our beautiful city as a fantastic location for business and quality of life when our worldwide claim to fame is our incredible flooding problem, traffic, and the very poor condition of our streets and roads. One can only hope that our elected leaders will begin to wake up to the fact that Houston is becoming stagnant due to the ever-increasing cost and regulation with no quality of life improvements to show for Houstonian's increased tax burden. #tb