INTIMIDATION, DISCRIMINATION & PROPERTY TAKING BY CITY OF HOUSTON
       
Is there collusion between the City of Houston and the local Appraisal District to collect bogus taxes?

Houston, Texas -- October 4, 2007 -- A Houston homeowner who resides in the newly designated floodway has been unfairly targeted by the City of Houston for being vocal in their objections to the new Ordinance 19-43, which has halted all new construction in the floodway along 1,300 miles of Houston waterways.  The homeowner, who had been vocal against the ordinance, had their property pictured in a flood and drainage public report, showing the owners auto license plate numbers and the neighbors address, while attempting to display home yard impacts.  This owner’s property was approved by the city, 6 months prior to the ordinance change.  Yet, the City has used tactics of intimidation against this homeowner, by using this picture. This is disingenuous, and invasion of privacy.

There are 9,920 affected properties in the floodway.  These properties are currently losing their values (some lost as much as 93%) because of the “new no build restrictions and the 50% substantial damage clause” imposed by Ordinance 19-43, since October 1, 2006.  Older folks living in these areas 60+ years can’t sell their homes to take out their rightful equity.  Property deterioration and homelessness in the floodway areas have begun.  Land and building values have dropped, but not floodway tax assessments.  

HCAD (Harris County Appraisal District) determines and sets the assessment property values for the City of Houston.  HCAD has turned a deaf ear towards some property owners in the floodway (which is part to the flood plain).  Some property owners have gotten a response in the final HCAD appeals process “that you shouldn’t have bought or built there – so it’s just too bad”. Yet the Mayor of Houston, Bill White received a $1,000,000 reduction for just being in the flood plain.  Is there a “nexus” (connection) between HCAD and the City of Houston to set improper tax assessments and levy unfair tax amounts on the city’s behalf?  Is their collusion between the City of Houston and HCAD by not recognizing the affect of this ordinance?  So, are some Houstonians being overcharged with unfair taxes; bogus taxes?  Does “taxation without representation” sound familiar?  This is “un-American”!

Ordinance 19-43 will create a loss in property values, maybe as much as $900,000,000.  Flood way property owners have definitely lost their life savings in their land investments through the inability to sell or develop their property with the same normal expectations that the rest of Houstinians have the right to expect.  This in itself is “discrimination”.  This is “property taking” by the City of Houston.  Citizens of Houston and property owners in other American cities should not be tricked by government leaders using FEMA flood maps creating other agendas.

Houston Mayor Bill White does not see citizen loss of value or use as a “land taking by the city”, yet it appears these “NO build” goals will continue to deteriorate and eventually drive these landowners out of the floodway.  Will the city eventually fix the flooding problems and all the bayous, and reclaim the stolen floodway lands, to build parks and high rises along the bayous? So this “flood easement” without compensation to the property owners, is really an abduction of their property “for the use and good of all”.  Yet this in reality is “inverse condemnation” and it violates “individual rights” as proclaimed by the Texas State Constitution as well as the U.S Constitution.  Is the City of Houston following the old Soviet East German techniques of property confiscation?  The City of Houston has a flooding problem, as 65% of flooding occurs outside of the flood plains and not in the floodways. Taking land use away from landowners in the floodways is not a solution and it certainly does not solve the flooding problem.  This has become a “constitutional issue” … other U.S. citizens must beware!