More on Tropicana Low-Income Housing Protest

So here is a follow-up to the piece I did about a protest yesterday in front of Senator Rodriguez's office by constituents who live in an area of East El Paso near Loop 375 and Rojas.

They live in upper middle to upper class area of the east side of town. Tropicana Homes, owned by Bobby Bowling and family, applied for some tax credits with the state and was able to get permission to build a 300 unit low-income housing community in their area.

The reason that the protesters were in front of Senator Rodriguez's office is because he signed a letter of support for the Tropicana project.

The residents indicate that they don't want the development in their area because they believe it will affect their property values, traffice, crime, and the local elementary school. Their primary concern at this point is that they feel there weren't adequately notified that the project was in the works and that robbed them of the ability to expressed opposition before a decision was finalized.

According to an email from Representative Ordaz's office, who represents the area, there may be very little the constituents can do at this point to stop the development.

Another applicant for a tax credit with the state was Ike Monty and he filed a complaint against Tropicana regarding the notification process for residents. Monty's complaint basically says that Bowling's project wasn't in compliance with the state criteria for the tax credits because residents weren't properly notified.

It appears that state didn't agree with Monty's complaint. Here are their findings:

So it appears that the reason that the residents weren't informed is because they weren't formally organized into a recognized neighborhood association. 

They apparently formed after this project and the tax credits were approved. 

Representative Ordaz produced emails that demonstrate her efforts to look into the matter to ascertain what the process was and at what stage the parties were in the process. Representative Ordaz took office in August of this year and so most of it occurred under the previous city representative Eddie Holguin.

Once the tax credits were approved the only other issue was to verify if it met zoning requirements, which it did. 

Representative Ordaz's emails indicate that she would like the city to look into seeing if its possible to work with the state, perhaps requiring legislation, to mirror the city's method of notifying neighbors of a zoning change if they live within a certain amount of feet of the proposed project in order to avoid another situation like this in the future. 

When asked if she was supportive of the neighborhood associations bid to stop the construction of the affordable housing community in their neighborhood Representative Ordaz responded by saying. "I believe they should have been notified, just like any of the City's zoning cases, they go through CPC and have a public hearing at council giving the public an opportunity to speak about it. They didn't know anything about it until they called the city a few weeks ago to see what development was being built in their backyards.

I've made myself accessible and tried to find any information to help answer any questions. There is not a lot I can do at this point. Bowling received funding from the state early last year, it didn't go through the city, but all the zoning looks correct. I'm working with our legal team to work on legislation to see if TDHCA can mirror what the city does in our zoning cases so that the public at least gets notification."

In terms of the next step for the constituents, they have a meeting scheduled next week with Senator Rodriguez's office to discuss his letter of support that was written to support the tax credits for Tropicana. 

Members of the Bowling family frequently contribute to political campaigns and have donated to Senator Rodriguez on multiple occasions.