The Westside Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone (TIRZ) on Tuesday approved a total of $875,000 in funding for two groups focused on improving the historic Cattleman Square District which could bring more housing to the West Side.
The TIRZ board authorized an agreement with the Housing Trust Public Facility Corporation (PFC) and $250,000 in funding to support the organization’s efforts to learn what the community wants for the neighborhood west of downtown.
The board also approved funds for Corazon Ministries, a nonprofit that serves the homeless from its base at Grace Lutheran Church near Travis Park downtown, a space it has outgrown, according to a TIRZ meeting memo.
Corazon plans to partner with the Housing Trust and use $125,000 in TIRZ funding to “grow all existing services” to care for the homeless.
Another nonprofit on the West Side, House of Neighborly Service, will receive $500,000 in TIRZ funding for a project to enclose its outdoor basketball pavilion and create a space for programming and events for children, families and seniors.
The distribution of funds comes as a proposal to reduce the Westside TIRZ boundary is set to be deliberated by city council as part of a deal to support a new Missions baseball stadium in downtown San Antonio.
The San Antonio Housing Trust PFC has begun assembling several tracts of land on the West Side, including property once owned by the Alamo Community Group for an affordable housing project that fell through.
The planned Cattleman Square Lofts project is just one of many examples of projects that started and stopped in the district in recent years leaving the area blighted and underdeveloped.
Some of those projects didn’t have monetary support, but others also lacked community support, said Pedro Alanis, executive director of the San Antonio Housing Trust.
“We keep chasing our tail on figuring out how to do one parcel when, because of the issues that we’ve seen — the blighted buildings [and] unhoused individuals … — we really have to look at an opportunity to gain critical mass on publicly-owned properties in this area, so we can do a very thorough community-based process to re-envision Cattleman Square,” Alanis said.
For instance, the Housing Trust parcels are not necessarily destined to become affordable housing, he said. “It could be anything, but we need the community to agree on what that vision is, and how do we approach that for the long-term.”
The Housing Trust is negotiating the purchase of several properties on the West Side as it looks to buy and preserve land for affordable housing and community development projects ahead of VIA’s plan for rapid bus transit.
Properties eyed by the Housing Trust include two parcels in the 1600 block of Buena Vista, property north and west of the paused Scobey development and properties south of VIA Metropolitan Transit’s Centro Plaza, including the Rich Book Building.
The only structure the Housing Trust plans to demolish is a former office building at 811 W. Houston, which Alanis said is endangering a historic structure.
The community engagement process will start next year.
On Tuesday, the board also heard more details about a proposal to remove 17 parcels of land from the Westside TIRZ boundaries that would be reassigned to the Houston Street TIRZ.
That shift would also come with a change in the city’s participation rate in the Westside TIRZ — from 90% of the city’s available tax increment to 100% of the city’s available tax increment. The plan also calls for a 28-year extension of the Westside TIRZ, extending its termination date from 2033 to 2060.
Adding to the Houston Street TIRZ boundary would boost the funds available to support building a new stadium for the Missions baseball team and is one of several funding mechanisms built into the city’s agreement with the team’s owners.
City council is expected to consider the proposal on Dec. 19, said Assistant City Manager Lori Houston, who gave the briefing.
But District 5 Councilwoman Teri Castillo, who heads up the Westside TIRZ, called the plan a “redlining” tactic, a discriminatory practice that denies or limits financial services to people in certain neighborhoods.
“That is divestment from an already underfunded community,” Castillo said. “It is a disservice. I think it is similar to redlining. I think through the facilitation of these actions [it is] how we see discrimination and divestment continue to manifest and play out well into 2024.”
