Well, good afternoon, everyone.

It is two o'clock.

My name is Julian Ramirez.

I am Houston City Councilmember at large position one and chair of the Quality of Life Committee meeting, and I will call this meeting to order.

We are joined this afternoon by Vice Chair of this committee, Councilmember Vice Mayor Pro Tem Amy Peck, as well as staff from Councilmember Castillo's office, Councilmember Alcorn's office, Councilmember Castex Tatum's office, and Councilmember Martinez's office.

We do not have a quorum, so this will be an informational meeting, if you will.

We will not be taking any votes.

We have a few items on the agenda.

And we're going to jumble the order a little bit due to scheduling considerations, and we're going to allow Deputy Director Kenisha London to jump ahead and begin our presentations this afternoon.

So you can start when you're ready.

Yes, sir.

Good afternoon, everyone.

The City of Houston's Housing and Community Development Department recommends council's approval of an ordinance authorizing an eighth amendment to our community development block grant, disaster recovery 2016 Floods Grant Award that we have with the Texas General Land Office.

The changes to this agreement will do three things.

First, it will extend the term of our sub-recipient agreement from December 31st of 2025 to April 30th of 2026.

In addition, it will align language with the Harvey buyout program closeout, and it will allow time for completion of final salary draws.

Page 13.

The next two slides, you will be able to see the history of the various amendments to this grant award, which brought us to amendment number eight, and that concludes my presentation.

But let me actually make one other statement.

This grant award, it covers uh two buyout projects.

Um one would be the uh Clarewood project and also the Chimney Rock project.

Um those projects are demolished.

And right now we're at the time where we are trying to amend um certain contracts so that we can submit additional payments.

Um and so that's where we are with the two track uh the two projects uh that are tied to this grant award.

Okay, thank you for that uh presentation.

I just have a question.

I noticed we've had some extensions already.

Yes, sir.

And this one would extend um the term through April of next year.

Do do we believe we will uh be able to complete uh the program by then or will we most likely need uh another extension?

Um well to be transparent.

We originally submitted a request to GLO to extend through the end of June.

Um in our discussions with GLO, they were um comfortable with only extending to April at this time.

And so um hopefully um all of the work is done.

Um there will be um the various contracts that are tied to the uh buyout uh activities will be comfortable because they need to add money to them.

So the activity itself um is complete.

This is more of the paperwork, um, you know, updating the contracts, processing the extensions, excuse me, processing the um payment requests, and also uh uh processing the salary draws.

And so if we do need an additional extension past April, it will the activity is done, is just to finalize the uh last compliance related items.

I see, and so we need to get their approval first before we we come to council.

That makes sense.

Okay.

And did you have anything else you wanted to present at this time?

No, sir.

Okay, all right.

Well, thank you for that.

I don't see any um anyone in the queue, so uh we'll let you go.

Thank you.

So if it's okay, well, do you want to go ahead, Roxanne?

All right.

If that's all right, Cassandra will okay.

Thank you for being so understanding.

So now we're on Roman numeral number three operations.

Is that right?

Well, it's number three on the agenda number two in your slide deck.

Very good.

My name is Roxanne Lawson.

I'm the division manager for 2100 Travel for the Housing Department and our facilities manager at 2100 Travis.

This is for rent allocation.

The Housing and Community Development Department recommends council approve an allocation of 4,397,647.

For the payment of rent and other costs associated with the lease for HCD's offices located at 2100 Travis Street for the fourth quarter of calendar year 25 through January 2029.

The lease for our space expires on January 31 of 2029.

There is a breakdown on the slide of what the total looks like based on when we will need it.

So there's Q4 calendar year 25, there's CY26, and then the out years would be the balance.

On February 28th, this is just a little history.

On February 28, 2018, City Council passed ordinance 2018-153, which appropriated 11,170,442 in TURS and CDBG funds, and approved a 10-year lease agreement with Midtown Central Square LLC for approximately 43,846 square feet of office space located on the 9th and 10th floors of 2100 Travis Street.

On September 5, 2018, by ordinance 2018 706, City Council appropriated an additional 2,969 256 in C D BG DR 17 funds and approved a first amendment to the agreement for five-year lease and the build-out of additional office space on the fourth floor at 2100 Travis for use by HCD contractors working on disaster recovery activities.

And on December 19th, 2018, by ordinance 2018-1026, City Council appropriated an additional 213,790 and 40 cents in CDBG funds and approved a second amendment to the agreement to expedite the build out of the additional office space on the fourth floor for early occupancy.

Pursuant to Section 3.6 of the agreement, which requires a six-month notification period, and by letter dated September 26, 2022, HCD exercised its right to terminate the fourth floor disaster recovery space on March 31, 2023.

As a result, HCD incurred additional costs, including for disassembly of cubicle workstations on the fourth floor, reconfiguration and reassembly of cubicle workstations on the 9th and 10th floors to accommodate personnel, and removing and transporting furniture, equipment and materials from the fourth floor to the ARA auction location.

This past September 4th, all tenants of 2100 Travis Street were informed by posted notice in the elevators that the ownership and management of the property had changed effective September 2, 2025, as a result of foreclosure.

The terms of the lease have not been impacted as a result of this change in own in ownership.

And that concludes my presentation.

Thank you for that, Roxanne.

I've got a question.

I know we've been in this building for a bit and we've made uh some improvements.

Uh recently, council approved purchase of another large building at 1600 Smith.

Um do you know if there are any future plans for housing to move into that building eventually when this lease is up or not?

Not to my knowledge.

Okay.

Uh I do know that the housing department, because it is fully federally funded, cannot pay another city department for space because it would be seen as um what is it?

Enriching the city.

Okay.

Double dipping, yeah.

Gotcha.

Okay.

All right.

Thank you for that.

Um anything else that you want to present to us.

No, sir.

Okay.

All right.

I don't see anyone in the queue, so we'll let you go as well.

The chair and his committee or allowing housing to do this.

This was a last minute ask, and we're very appreciative.

Absolutely.

This is uh this is probably the last uh quality of life committee meeting of the year, and you guys are our most frequent customers.

We can always depend on you for some for some items, but we appreciate uh your department bringing matters to council so that you keep us informed.

Thank you very much.

You're very welcome.

And Merry Christmas to everyone.

Merry Christmas.

And we'll go back to our first item.

Cassandra, if you're ready to go.

So this will be something completely different, not from the housing and community development department, but from public works in relation to a municipal setting designation.

And so you can you can proceed when you're ready.

Can you hear me now?

Okay.

Good afternoon, Chairman and respected council members of the committee.

We appreciate your time today as we are re-presenting on the municipal settings designation application 2023-166 GSP for the GoForth property site.

This presentation serves as a required uh public hearing for this project.

Please note that earlier in 2025, this project was previously presented to council, and it was found during our final reviews that the initial public meeting notification was not issued as a bilingual notice in both Spanish and English, which is a requirement.

Um to ensure the Spanish-speaking property owners within the half-mile radius of the site and well owners within a five-mile radius of the site were aware of the proposed designation.

Uh the public meeting was renoted and held on November 20th, 2025, and an additional public hearing is being held today with this meeting to allow for public comment.

Um overall, the proposed project has remained the same, and we have representatives from the applicants team present here today to answer any questions on the project.

Moving forward, um, today's presentation agenda includes the City of Houston programmatic, what the MSD is, who the MSD impacts, steps in the MSD process.

Um the MSD um technical information is 2023-166 GSP 6525 Goldforth Street, 6505 Foster Street, and Zero Foster Street, and that's in Houston, Texas.

And uh the site representative is Trevor Cole.

Trevor is sitting back there, he's the professional geologist just in case anyone has questions at the conclusion of this presentation.

Next slide.

Um if you have an environmental complaint, the uh information for TCEQ contacts is on your screen.

It's 188-877-3186, and the web uh site is on your screen as well.

Um if you have any environmental concerns uh for the city of Houston, you can contact us by phone at 311 or at Houston TX.gov slash 311.

Next slide.

What is an MSD?

An MSD is a voluntary deed restriction to prevent the use of contaminated groundwater.

No water wells on the subject property for drinking water purposes, and it is a legally binding way to ensure the public is not exposed to contaminants by drinking water ingestion.

Next slide.

An MSD certificate applies to the applicant's property only and prohibits the use of shallow groundwater as drinking water by derecordation.

This allows impact of properties to be redeveloped, which benefits the communities in which the MSD is located.

Next slide.

Responsible parties remain liable for any consequences resulting from contaminated groundwater originating from the application site.

Next slide.

Source of contamination has been removed or the source of the contamination has been removed.

A third-party engineer, professional engineer, or geologist, professional geologist must certify the application, and all the documentation of the de-recordation of that site has a seal of the geologist or the professional engineer.

Next slide.

The steps of the process for MSDs are the pre-application meeting.

The applicant submissive application to the city if it's determined eligible to apply.

Then the applicant submits their application to the TCEQ, and then they're open for more comments.

TCEQ approves or denies the application, and if it is approved, MSD ordinance is filed with the county deed records.

Next slide.

Also, you can see the boundaries of the property owners within a half mile radius, and they were given notice via first class mail, and the water well owners within a five-mile radius, they're given notice in both English and Spanish via certified mail.

Next slide.

The privately owned portions of the designated property are currently participating in the TCEQ voluntary cleanup program and have an assigned VCP ID number 3207.

Public drinking water is currently available to the properties located within the one-half mile radius surrounding the designated property by the City of Houston public water supply system.

No domestic or commercial water wells were identified within 500 feet of the designated property.

Some additional site information on February 24th, 2022.

The property was accepted into the VCP after identification of chlorinated solvent constituents in soil and groundwater, and to a lesser extent, petroleum-related compounds associated with historical operations.

No municipalities other than the city of Houston have corporate limits within one half mile of the boundary of the designated property.

And the site includes properties that encompass three parcels in Houston, Harris County, Texas, including 3.1271 acres located at 6525 Goldforth Street, 6505 Foster Street, and Zero Foster Street.

Next slide.

The first representation is the groundwater plume.

Please note that Houston has shallow water groundwater flow.

So there are three different levels of groundwater in the city of Houston.

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As you can see, the groundwater I can't see this.

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So the sampling wells that are installed go down to si about 60 feet.

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City of Houston water is provided through pipelines that are much much deeper.

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So City of Houston water supply is 10 times deeper than shallow groundwater.

So we ensure the um citizens of the city of Houston that their water never touches shallow groundwater.

Next transition.

Next slide.

Okay.

Exposure pathways.

Cleanup programs are based on public exposure to contaminants and reducing public health risks.

Exposure pathways are ways that contaminants can get into the body.

They can be ingested by inhalation, which is through the nasal passages or through the mouth, contact, which is your skin, the soil, groundwater to surface water or ecological.

Next transition.

Next slide.

Next slide.

This is my contact information.

Our offices have moved to 611 Walker on the 18th floor.

My direct email is on the screen.

Also, we have a website which is Houston PublicWorks.org slash municipal settings designation.

Does anybody have any questions?

Any comments?

Cassandra, I don't see anybody in the queue.

However, I do want to thank you for making sure that our Spanish speaking residents were notified and given the opportunity to weigh in on this designation.

So thank you for that.

Thank you.

And uh for your presentations this year.

Thank you guys for your patience and be representing this entire power point.

No, no problem.

Appreciate you all.

Wish you uh great holidays well.

Okay, thank you.

Happy holidays.

I do want to note uh we were joined online by staff from Councilmember Jackson's office, Councilmember Thomas's office, and Councilmember Carter's office.

Our last part of the agenda will be public comment.

We have one person signed up to speak, I believe.

Dominic Mazak, you want to come on up?

Um to Wheeler and 25 to A C there was a meeting I was going to there, did the 25 back to rail back to 85 to here.

Then I'm probably gonna go flying thaw and then take the red line back to 96 home.

So no driving.

Yay.

Traffic bah humbug.

Anyway, I think the person that was talking about number one is very critical.

We do have basically a lot of love canal sites.

If you I think some of us who are older remember they put a housing development right over a uh chemical dump and people were getting cancer and stuff like that, and they had to uh eliminate that uh particular housing development.

And this has already hit us in Houston with the when Metro put in the green line that went out to Magnolia Park.

The big question was if you remember, uh there was tracks to Aldridge, and then near the Union Pacific Crossing, there was nothing, and then they built out to uh the Magnolia Park, and the problem was the city and Metro was building on City Riveway, they didn't know what they knew there were underground tanks from like uh storage tanks for petroleum and other nasty stuff, but they didn't know where the tanks were.

The idea was to go under.

But the thing was if you hit a tank, who's gonna be responsible for it?

Metro, the city, count, whatever.

That is why the Harrisburg on the Harrisburg, instead of going under the Union Pacific, it goes over.

That was the least chance of hitting tanks.

We got plenty of these around Houston.

And again, depending on where the winds blow, what type of chemicals are in this stuff, as usually developing uh this could be a landmine, literally a landmine.

So I do appreciate the fact you're taking this very very seriously.

Uh because another place is a problem, is the old Southern Pacific Thai plant.

I I think a lot of people call it the Creso plant over off Liberty Road.

And unfortunately, that has poisoned an African American community for decades.

I'm afraid the the most equitable thing to do and uh long term is to buy the area out and just bullos it.

I'm sorry for that community to to lose their heritage, but for safety wise, that might be something something to consider.

And I think that's the other thing too with all this.

A lot of these I'll finish my sentence, I'll stop.

Okay.

Um a lot of these uh places where they are these chemicals happen to be in areas where people have no power because they have no money.

Whether it's race or or whatever.

So uh again, I'm glad this is being done.

This could hit us in the future, but with proper planning, uh, some of this could be mitigated.

So hand of comments back to you, Jillian.

Thank you.

All right, thank you for that, Dominic.

We don't have anybody else signed up to speak.

Do we have anybody online?

No sir.

No one online.

If there's anyone here who would like to speak but hasn't had a chance to sign up, you're welcome to come forward.

Seeing no one, um, we'll go ahead and conclude our meeting.

Wish everybody uh happy holiday, and uh we'll see you next year.

Thank you.