State Representative Kristi Thibaut—Texas State Representative from District 133, representing Houston.

Residents and elected officials in Alief are adamant that their community doesn’t need another apartment complex, especially one with reduced rents.

The situation is frustrating for Brian Cogburn and Bert Magill, who have applied to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs for housing tax credits for The Park Lane Apartments, a 144-unit affordable housing complex they want to build at 7515 Cook Road.

Located on a new road served by a Metropolitan Transportation Authority bus line, the site has just over eight acres. Cogburn and Magill want to build seven, three-story buildings – six with 20 units each and one with 24 units – and a one-story community and leasing center.

The apartments would be marketed to families with incomes around $30,000, about half the current median income in the Houston area. Rents would range from $687 to $825, including a utility allowance.

Building the apartments, though, hinges on the award of housing tax credits through a federal program designed to provide high-quality affordable housing.

The application process for housing tax credits is competitive. The state has an allocation of about $74 million for the 2009 program, and by mid-April the state housing department had 133 active applications requesting $161 million worth of tax credits.

The department’s board will make a decision on the 2009 credit allocation, including the Park Lane application, in July.

While applications are scored based a long list of criteria, letters of opposition from state elected officials and recognized neighborhood organizations will count against Park Lane.

Opponents on record so far include Alief Independent School District officials, members of the Alief Super Neighborhood Council, Harris County Precinct 3 Commissioner Steve Radack, District F Houston City Councilman M.J. Khan and District 133 State Rep. Kristi Thibaut, D-Houston.

They cite the property’s location in the 100-year flood plain and the area’s population density, which is considered among the highest in Houston because of its large inventory of multifamily housing.

In his letter to TDHCA, Louis Stoerner, AISD superintendent, said 80 percent of 12,000 apartment units within two miles of the property are unoccupied, many with rents comparable to those proposed for Park Lane.

The school district would support tax credits used to refurbish existing apartments, Stoerner said, but the local schools don’t have the capacity to handle another new apartment community.

Cogburn, a real estate broker who owns three similar properties in Harris and Montgomery counties. said: “It’s a real frustration, because our experience is the communities have always been really great to work with.”

Magill said: “A lot of communities enjoy having them because it gives them an improvement that is a lot better quality than the residents can afford.”

“Everybody is very protective of their community, small or large,” Cogburn said. “But when you think about the federal dollars being put into the community and the jobs that are created during construction, it’s huge.”

Cogburn said his Cricket Hollow development in Willis, which opened in 2005, was named January 2008 Business of the Month by the Willis Economic Development Corp. He and Magill also are partners in Kensington Place, 711 FM 1959.

Both understand residents’ resistance to new apartment homes when some older complexes are in bad condition and considered trouble spots in the community.

“We don’t like to fight the neighborhoods, but this is part of the affordable housing stigma we have to deal with. Individuals need housing in the neighborhoods where they live, and we need to upgrade the housing stock,” Magill said.

“Those (troubled) properties are not what we’re developing. They’re 25- to 30-year-old properties,” Cogburn said. “One of the things we’re asked is what about rehabbing? You have to own it, to control it, to do that. Just because a property is older, it doesn’t necessarily qualify, and that’s the nuance people don’t understand. We’re just trying to bring nice, quality housing to the area and give people an option.”