In an act that borders on serendipity, KHOU-TV's Jeremy Diesel ran a story the day before tax day on the City of Houston's Floodway Ordinance. Diesel's story can be read here.
Amongst the property rights disasters include the loss of $38 - $70 million per year in tax revenues. O'Connor and Associates pegs the City's property regulatory takings at $1.9 - $3.5 billion. Diesel says that the loss to Houston could be bigger than the entire tax base of any city in Harris County except Pasadena.
The Wizard first told this story back in June 2007. It only took Houston's paper of note four months to catch up on the story.
The Wizard spoke to Pat O'Connor and told him that information in real estate markets on the effects of the Floodway Ordinance changes were not well known because the City of Houston made this ordinance change in secret. And one wonders why - pray tell - would the City do that? This is alluded to in the report published by KHOU-TV and which can be read here.
Look for the Floodway Coalition's Nancy Wilcox to speak at the upcoming American Dream Coalition conference on May 17, 2008. The Wizard knows that lawsuits are pending...
Wizard
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at April 14, 2008 10:15 PM