Good morning.

Rise and shine.

Thank y'all for joining us for the third annual D restriction workshop.

I am Tiffany D.

Thomas.

I'm your Houston City Council member, representing District F on the West Side.

That's right.

That's right.

That's right.

Repetition is important.

I want to thank you for taking the time to join us for the third annual D restriction.

This workshop, this was actually birthed out of a series of emails that we were receiving at the office.

And we were noticing trends.

Leaders like yourself were emailing, asking us about parking, permitting structures that you may not have been aware if they were even approved.

Which alerted me to, you know, as a homeowner myself, hey, we need to offer resource to Houstonians and homeowners, especially so they can understand what the city is obligated to do, what our role is in protecting and preserving your neighborhoods, but then also as a homeowner, the tools that you need to have.

And so I'm so grateful that we have amazing partners in the room to do this, uh, work with us.

And I also want to thank you for uh joining us.

I do before I forget, I want to acknowledge my exceptional team.

Can we put your hands together for my staff?

Sarai in the back.

Jessica greeted you, Monique, who keeps us on TV and information to communities.

Chris, who takes all of our photos and photoshops me on the videos.

Sarai, who helps you with all of your constituent services.

If you have not met her, please meet her.

She's your frontline in terms of your constituent services.

And I want to uh thank y'all for um putting this together.

Um, also just as an aside before I introduce our speaker, uh Suzy Rice.

There are two particular issues we are very well aware of uh illegal dumping and the growing homeless encampments on the west side.

Um, that is something that we have our pulse on, and but we need your help.

And so, with that, those two issues, uh, y'all have been very helpful in helping us identify known encampments on the west side.

We started at six, went to eight.

Now we have 17 identified.

And just yesterday we received an email from the Briar Meadow community about a growing one off of Richmond Hillcroft over in that area.

So we're working on that.

But this is how we um I need your help.

311 is incredibly important.

I know you hear that all the time, but we we need all of that in the system.

Call 311.

We need the service request number, and we want you to use your wonderful expensive smartphone.

Take a photo and send that to the office that allows us to do a couple of things, monitor, um, add that to our conversations with law enforcement and our nonprofit partners who are working with us to canvas those individuals to actually get them the resources that they need so we can start them on a uh different pathway, but we need to know where they're at.

Uh, Joe, where did Joe Walton go?

There goes Joe.

So Joe Walton's on the Huntington Village uh board.

I want to say this in the loving way.

Don't be like Joe.

Joe will walk up on the illegal dumpers and take the photo.

And I'm like, Joe, just take the photo from afar.

Um, just you know, Joe is our warrior.

Um, but we really do need your help in that.

Our exceptional hotspot team, they clear that debris within 72 hours.

Um, and a lot of that work that's happening um is because y'all are notifying us in 311.

So I just want to I need your help on that.

I want to uh I it was important for me to do this.

Um, as I mentioned earlier, we hear a lot of uh issues around permitting parking, land use, blighted homes, and we have all of our city department representatives.

They are partners with us in this.

Uh, we work together for the same goal to make sure that you have an enhanced quality of life in your neighborhood.

So you'll hear from the housing department related to home repair.

A lot of the issues when you call the office.

Um, there may be a senior or home that may not be uh entrusted.

They need support and the resources to repair that home so you don't experience blight.

Um, you'll hear from public works that'll talk about the dangerous buildings.

Many of you call inquiring about homes that have experienced a fire, the structures leaning, even commercial buildings that surround your neighborhood.

They'll provide um of updates and information around that and permitting.

Um, we'll also hear from um Harris County Tax Assessor, right?

That's so important, and they're doing a new thing in that office.

Lots of enhanced technology and information that's gonna be important for you as a homeowner and your neighbors around your taxes, and then also protecting uh us from fraud.

We know technology, as it enhances, so do the criminal behavior.

And everyone's looking for a scheme and a scam.

And we want to make sure that when you're paying your taxes, it's going to the right organization.

And then we're going to, of course, talk about parking.

We know that that's an issue as well.

I'm going to step to the side and I want to introduce Susie Rice.

Um, she's been with us from day one from the beginning.

Um, she's the all-star of uh tech, put your hands together.

That's right.

She's the all-star of Texas property rights.

Um, she has her pulse on what's happening in the state of Texas, and she has been working with several of you, Crown Colony, Troy's here from Crown Colony.

He's a testimony of what can happen.

We have West Hollow in the house as well, Robendale Creek, uh, where they have transformed their community because they've updated their covenants.

I'm gonna, and as let me, this is my last aside.

Um, so we have three neighborhoods that do not have HOAs Tangle Wild, Westmont, and Piney Point, which presents an issue oftentimes because they don't have uh that apparatus for enforcement.

They are led by civic clubs, and although those civic clubs are deeply committed to meeting and staying connected, there are some things that HOAs have the ability to do.

Um, I have been talking with City Legal for probably two years to allow me to use uh council district service funds as a pilot for those neighborhoods to enhance their deed restrictions.

Uh, we uh don't see eye to eye on the interpretation of personal benefit.

I don't believe it will be a personal benefit to the homeowner.

I think it will relieve um expenses on the city because then we won't be deployed to deal with things our um our home, our deep restrictions will be able to cover.

So we're still working on that.

We know neighborhood protection is so important to the work that we do.

Um, and it's one of the five things that I ran on and that we can continue to deploy.

So, introducing Susie, she's gonna uh you know, do her program and be available for some questions.

I'll be available on the back.

HTV is recording this, and all the presentations that you see today will be included in that presentation.

You will receive the video and the presentation next week.

So for your colleagues who are not here, please share.

You can add this to your HOA website, get this to your property management so they can share this as well, and they'll also play it on channel 16 on the city station as content.

So that's really important.

So if you don't want to be in the camera shot, you know, just you know, let Keith know.

Put your hands together for Susie Wright.

I want to thank uh councilwoman Tiffany Thomas.

She's she does a great job for y'all, and uh we enjoy working with her and partnering partnering with her in uh speaking to you and trying to educate you on what's going on with your HOA with deed restrictions with the legislature.

And I brought my favorite sidekick who is Garrett.

He's my son, and Garrett has blessed me with grandchildren.

So Garrett's very important to me.

Um so, ladies and gentlemen, what we're gonna do is I'm just gonna give you a brief overview of what governing documents are very important to homeowner associations, and I'm gonna take your questions because we found that that helps people more than anything to try to answer some of the questions and deal with help you deal with some of the problems you're having.

In your HOA, when they talk about governing documents, they're talking about your restrictive covenants, and they may be called declarations of covenants, conditions and restrictions, or just called restrictive covenants.

Those are your covenants that we call run with the land.

That means whoever owns that property, those covenants run with that land no matter who the owner is.

Then you're gonna have bylaws for your homeowner association, and the bylaws tell you how to run your association, how to have your elections, your annual meetings, your special meetings, how to elect your officers, president, vice president, etc.

And then you have articles of incorporation, and now it's called certificate of formation by the state of Texas, and that basically is what set your corporation up.

That had to be filed with the Secretary of State, set up your nonprofit corporation.

Then what's important also to you is the property code.

We have sections of the property code that apply to single family and town homes, and then we have a section that applies to condominiums.

Condominiums are totally separate from town homes and single family, they have different laws that apply, and that's very important.

When you look at the case law, when you look at the statute, you cannot for example 209 of the property code does not apply to condominiums.

And it's a very important statute, but it does not apply to them, it only applies to single family and townhomes.

So it's very important to keep that differentiation.

And what you want to do is if you're gonna go look at the statute yourself, which I advise you to do that, read this first part of the statute because it will tell you who it applies to and how it applies to you.

The definitions and the description of the statute are very important.

Before you get into the meat of it, look and see who it applies to.

Because if it doesn't apply to you, judges will never apply it to you, and neither will the attorneys.

So pay attention to that.

Now I want to jump into does anybody have any problems or any questions that they want to throw at Garrett and at me that you it's going on in your neighborhoods, and we don't care what they are.

Yes, sir.

Yeah, let's ask another microphone.

Hold on just a minute, we'll bring your mic, sir.

Okay.

Uh I'm I'm with I'm associated with Meadows and with Brookfield East Meadows, the uh the inspectors over there have quit enforcing a lot of the uh the restrictions due to state laws that have been passed, like colors for uh houses, roof colors, and uh deed restrictions in general.

Is this uh is uh what are our restrictions now that the state has legislated against the the uh HOAs?

The state has not passed anything with regard to colors of homes or anything else.

Oh, really?

They have not.

That's just I don't know why they're using that excuse, but that's a pretty flimsy excuse.

It's basically your restrictions still deal with color of homes, ACC restrictions with regard to them getting approval for changing something on the exterior.

This the legislature is not they haven't dived into that that deep, and I don't think they will because every neighborhood is different.

I mean, you have some neighborhoods where they're built on stamps, others they're on five-acre tracks, so they realize that they can't dive that deep and cover everybody and be fair to everybody because neighborhoods are so different.

What statute was that you were talking about a minute ago?

The statute?

Uh, with regard to 209 of the property code, okay.

Look at 209, and with regard to condominiums, it's 81, section 81 of the Texas Property Code applies to everything before January 1, 1994.

82 applies to everything afterwards, but there are sections of 82 that also apply to the ones before 1994.

The eight the the chapter 81 of the condominium act is almost worthless, it really is.

It it it needs to be beefed up and say the same thing as 82, yes, sir.

I'm not advocating for this, but what are y'all thoughts and opinions on neighborhood policy or HOAs and uh this gentleman is basically said there's some people who have who are advocating across the country and maybe across the state of Texas to abolish HOAs?

HOAs serve a purpose.

When I was growing up, we really didn't have HOAs.

We had counties and cities that had taxes, and they would apply, they would keep up the neighborhood pools or the parks and everything else.

HOAs take on that responsibility, they even apply, you know, they'll even spend money on having extra police patrol the neighborhood, so it would be devastating to a neighborhood to lose its HOA.

And I know a lot of people don't like them, but I can tell you right now, you'd start seeing me seeing more uh motors hanging in the front yard and everything else, washing machines on the porch, because we even fight that now with HOAs, they are beneficial to keeping the curb appeal up.

And I can tell y'all years ago I tried a case, and I had a realtor testify, and this realtor basically said that when people come to Houston and there's no zoning, they're like, What?

Because they come from parts of the country where they're zoning, and the HOAs don't have to do what the zoning does.

So they there's like, how do we protect us?

How do we what do we how do we buy a piece of property and not have a stop and go in right next to us?

They said buying an HOA that enforces their restrictions.

So there those property values stay high because they've got good curb appeal and they enforce their restrictions, and that's what people coming from other parts of the country are looking for.

Yes, ma'am.

Sorry.

Oh, this lady quick question.

Um, so our dues have not been raised since the late 70s when our neighborhood was built.

We are struggling.

Sorry.

Not okay.

Our dues have not been raised since the late 70s when our neighborhood was built, and we're starting to struggle with budgeting.

Um we're trying to get people to sign on to paying more so that we can change um you know our documents, our governing documents.

However, it's a struggle.

We do have a lot of renters in the neighborhood, it's hard to reach owners sometimes.

Um, and a lot of people they can't afford to spend 30 more dollars.

Um what would happen if we ran out of money?

Uh I I understand there might be some city stuff that might come into play.

Uh, could you explain that to us?

I I'm not sure.

We'll ask some of the city people what what money is available if that happens, but what y'all may need to do is just buckle down and raise your assessments.

I mean, everything else has gone up.

So you and I know it's hard on people, but still that their house is their biggest expense in their whole life, and so they've got to spend some money to keep the neighborhood up so their value of their home stays up.

So y'all may just have to bite the bullet.

And there's a section of 204, the property code if you're in Harris County that basically allows you to, if you haven't raised your assessments, to accumulate, and and basically you can go back and say, okay, we haven't raised them for four years, so we're gonna raise it up to this amount, even if you've got it in your restrictions that it says you can only raise it 10% every year.

That section of the property code allows you to do it.

So you may just have to bite the bullet.

What if what if all the documents say that two-thirds of the market has to agree to increase right?

That's what increase so they your documents say no matter what kind of increase it is, you need two-thirds.

Well, you you're in a different situation, but you could still I mean you may not get it passed if two-thirds are saying that.

Right.

So we're in a really bad position trying to collect people delivering, and even you know, uh trying to persuade them with um, you know, we'll take off, you know, a late fee, or we'll give you a free pool pass since you didn't come to free registration.

Anything we can do to you know, encourage them to agree to this because we just we're about to become bankrupt at some point.

Right, and what you may want to do, I don't know if your documents require two-thirds to amend it.

I would get that amended to get to give you more power, and so you don't have to go every year banging on doors and begging people for money, right?

Amend it to where you can raise it at least 10%, and then if it says something like that, then you can accumulate it if it hasn't been raised in two or three or four years.

We recently used that um in one of our associations, yes, yes, ma'am.

Yes, ma'am.

We'll get to it.

I am not quite sure how we did it.

Uh, but we had the same problem in our neighborhood, and our documents pay the same thing.

So we went to our legal team, and they uh figure out how we could increase so we have another assessment added for $50, so we didn't actually increase the annual fee.

We added $50 in a separate thing.

Well, under 204, the property code, it says that you can charge for service fees for services, yeah.

Correct.

Like if you have, but you need to be providing a service, otherwise somebody's gonna file a lawsuit.

No, and we did look, we have the pool and we have the community center, so we use those to put up with the other $50.

So in that way, we we didn't get the votes to increase the fees, but then we add the $50, so now we we are kind of balancing a little bit.

So you can use 204 if you're providing policy, yeah.

Yeah, well, you won't be able to find unless your documents say you can find, then you can adopt a fine policy.

Let me get this lady and then I'll get y'all back there.

Yes, ma'am.

Thank you.

Good morning.

Two part question.

When an HOA do a special assessment without a vote, um, and tries to collect on that quote special assessment without a vote.

Can you address the how that works, what the consequences are?

That's part one.

Secondly, what happens when an HOA is doing things that they shouldn't be doing?

What oversight is there?

What what help is there?

What help is there to govern HOAs that are just kind of doing what they want?

Okay, this lady basically said, what if an HOA um starts charging an assessment and didn't do it right?

Well, it's not a valid assessment.

If they try to collect it and file a lawsuit against you, a judge is not going to enforce that because they're gonna all you have to do is show the judge they didn't usually special assessments, you have to have two thirds of the members approve it.

And if they can't prove that to the judge, then they're not gonna be able to collect it.

If the HOA is doing other illegal stuff, there is no governmental oversight.

Essentially, a judge is you file a lawsuit against them, and the judge is essentially the oversight because they will stop them from doing whatever they're doing that's illegal.

If they, for instance, if they haven't had elections in a while, the judge will make them hold an election and a third party will oversee it.

An independent attorney will oversee the election and make sure the election is done.

So there are ways to take care of that problem.

It will cost money to get there, but it'll straighten everything out in the process.

Yes, ma'am.

Good morning.

Um, I'm from the Sunnyside super neighborhood, so we're at a little bit of a different starting point.

There's no HOA, there's no incentives for a pool pass.

Um, so in Sunny side, uh, we're working to develop civic clubs to get everybody up to speed.

Um, our next step in our next meeting is to take what I learned here today about creating deed restrictions and setting those up.

I just want to clarify do we need an HOA in order to do that?

Because what I'm hearing today is HOAs are very powerful, but I think because we're in a different starting point in Sunny side, we're kind of targeting it from a civic club standpoint.

What you need to do is um if your civic club is set up like an HOA, nonprofit corporation, it's referred to in your restrictions, you have mandatory assessments.

Then if you look at 204 and 209 of the property code, then they say no matter what you're called, they're gonna say that you are like an HOA, therefore you are considered under those laws like one.

You need to be set up as a nonprofit corporation, have mandatory assessments, otherwise, those statutes are not gonna apply to you, and you want them to apply to you because they've got some good things in there, good protections for homeowners, good protections for HOAs or property owners associations or even civic clubs.

But so if you I have an association that called a civic club, but it still fits all the legal requirements, so therefore 209 and 204 are applicable.

You have okay.

I have a I have a statement, I guess.

I know some people want to demolish HOAs, but um, some condominiums, the water, they pay for the water, which is part of the assessment.

So that's something you guys should think about.

I guess my question is um when it comes to like foreclosing on homeowners that are not paying and just living there for free.

Why does it take so long for the court system to foreclose it?

Um then versus when the county they don't pay the taxes, they get a judgment fast, and then the HOA loses money if they're doing foreclosure because the county forecloses first, and then the HOA is not able to collect money, and sometimes those are like 20, 30,000, and the HOA has to, you know, deal with that burden because the money is lost because the county took it.

Right.

Um, well, mortgage companies and taxes are always superior to HOAs.

So you could even have a judgment against them and be ready to go foreclose on that condo, and the taxing entity is going to step on your toes because they have superiority over you.

Secondly, in Harris County, we are in the when a taxing entity files a lawsuit, they are basically put in a different court system.

They're still in the district courts, but all the tax cases are moved to like a tax master.

Therefore, they go quicker than we do because our judge in our courts usually have 5,000 or more cases.

And the Supreme Court has recently said to all the judges, get those old cases off the docket.

So if your case is 24, 25, and now 26, they aren't even talking to you.

They're still dealing with 20, 21, 22, and 23.

They're trying to get them off the docket because they've got a report to the Texas Supreme Court at the end of the year.

That's why the taxing entities can fly through their courts, and we don't even have the right to be in there when we file on behalf of HOAs.

Thank you.

So my question is uh recently a homeowner constructed an edifice in their backyard.

And I don't know if it was a very, very, very large shed purchased at Lowell's or Home Depot, but whatever it was, I we saw them putting sort of a full foundation and then they put the thing on top.

But they did it so quickly, like within a week, we just we just didn't think that they had pulled a permit.

So we contacted our city and someone from code enforcement came out and instructed the homeowner to take that thing down.

That was like three weeks ago, maybe four weeks ago, it's still there.

So my question is at this point, isn't it?

Is it is it a matter of our HOA getting involved, or do we just call the city back out and say, look, it's still there?

Since the city was on it, call the city and see if they'll do something about it.

If if they end up not doing something, the HOA has the right to also send letters and say, get rid of that, get rid of that, because you have separate calls of action.

But I'd go back to the city and say, okay, we need to find out when are y'all gonna make these people take this down.

So keep on that avenue.

That's just for you right now.

Susie, uh, this is just Walton.

Uh we uh are an HOA and like many of the people that have spoken before us, uh, all of our covenants and documents were done in the early 70s, like 1971, and we all require the two-thirds uh to change anything.

Is there any possibility if the legislative body at in the Texas to change to make some type of provision for those of us that were made way back, you know, before any of the documents that to lower the rate, say that you know, in order to change your documents, if you were incorporated in in 1971, you need 20%, or is that something that can be done at the state level?

It could.

I mean, what we run into is we're gonna have to get the blessing of the mortgage company lobbyist of the Texas Real Estate Commission, get their blessing.

There's a lot of developers, their lobbyists.

We're gonna have to get a lot of blessings.

So to get it through the first time, that would be a miracle.

But I understand where you're coming from, and I know there's members of the legislature.

Garrett works with Representative Reynolds, um, and they're gonna address some other things in the Texas Business Organization Code that deal with HOAs, but we'll definitely put that out there to them and see what happens.

It'll probably die in committee for you know, three or four legislative sessions, and then it may get some teeth and start going through the process.

But we've got to get the blessings of so many other organizations.

Um, and if one of them says no, then we're dead in the water.

Um, you know, oftentimes we encourage you to come to City Hall on Tuesdays for public session, but this is the next opportunity for engagement at the state level.

A lot of uh the things that you know bind us happen during the legislative session, it happens every odd year.

And so if we're able to get a piece of legislation, if a state rep or state senator is willing to champion that, then that means we need to get to Austin in committee and testify.

We need to send written correspondence to those state reps.

So that's a good opportunity for us to familiarize ourselves with our state reps, introduce to them the issues that we're having.

So when they get ready to go in 2027, they have our priorities.

And I think that's something that we need to roll out, regardless if you're in district F or not, but that is the next step of advocacy and civic engagement.

Yes, and and Councilwoman Thomas made a good point.

If you're if something is written up and it goes to committee, we can send black email blasts.

And let me tell y'all, the more people show up to testify, they will listen to you and they take everybody's testimony.

I've been there till three and four in the morning while they're still taking testimony from everybody.

And they listen more to people who are not professionals, people who are living in those neighborhoods, trying to keep their neighborhoods up, more so than they listen to attorneys and lobbyists and everything else.

So the more people show up, the more people send emails and call, go to the hearings, they will know that it matters to y'all.

If you don't, then they're like, eh, doesn't matter to anybody.

Yes, sir.

Back when uh we were forced to uh write policies for payment plans for people who are behind on their assessments.

Um we were uh allowed to charge interest rates and uh interest and and late fees only to find out that none of our documents had that in there.

So then we had to go back and write a collection policy uh to so we could charge interest and late fees, and then we uh and in reviewing that policy, uh our attorney said, yeah, but there's a lawsuit pending in believe it was Fort Worth.

You cannot charge the maximum of 10%, you can only charge six percent.

Uh so we finally got around that.

So we have it, we have a good collection policy and we have a good um payment plan policy.

So uh that is one way that you can go and uh uh make make your HOA can make money because uh some property owners get it uh in their habit of not paying their uh assessments.

Well, once they're uh you get a past due letter with eight to ten years of $30 a year late fees and 10% interest compounded, it's several thousand dollars.

And so that wakes them up, especially when you file a lien against it, because if they have a uh say a second mortgage or something, uh the the people that hold the second mortgage look at the the liens on the property that they have and stuff, right?

So that's one way of getting it.

Uh also the uh HCAD.

Uh we um other states have got uh essentially property codes that requires the property owners to uh register uh when they the the property is sold, they have to register it with the uh uh like HCAT or the tax authority thing things like that.

We have no such requirement uh in the state of Texas.

So when is our legislature going to add that to the property code?

So if you do a private sale and you go file the warranty deed, then whoever files that warranty deed has got a specific amount of time, like 60 or 90 days to uh to report it to HCAT or or HC Tax.net, you know, something like that.

So I think that's a very good idea because a lot of times you'll check HCAD and they're still listing two owners back, right?

And you look at the warranty deed.

So because of that, I don't rely on HCAD.

I look I go and look at the warranty deed.

So I wish the legislature would because not only do we find that problem in Harris County, it's everywhere in every county.

You run into the slowness of HCAT or anything else catching up with what's been where that property is transferred to.

Okay, thank you.

And I'm sorry, but this will be our last question right here.

Let me grab this lady real quick.

Um, yeah, my question is I live in a um uh four house enclave.

There's no HOA, and we have a tenant, well, a homeowner who has tenants and he's renting rooms, and he's actually there's a common area, a compensatory area that's owned by all the four um owners, but he has built a structure kind of like the lady was saying that her neighbor built a structure in his backyard.

So he's taken the common area and built a structure there, and and he's also parking his cars or his tenants are parking his car or their cars on the grass, and we've sent um demand letters.

We've actually hired a lawyer um to send demand letters and he continues to do it.

So my question is Um, as one of four owners, do I have the right to sue him?

Um, and also do I do it in the district court or a justice court?

Um, and do I do an injunction uh declaratory judgment or both?

And um the is it enforced as a contempt?

Um, and if he if I do win, am I able to enforce it?

Like if if they do continue to park there, um, am I able to tow them?

And if he doesn't take down the structure after I win, um am I able to take down the structure and like how do I enforce it if I win?

Yeah, I have that all right.

Uh well, basically, what this lady can do is yes, you have an interest in it, therefore you have what we call standing, which means you can bring a lawsuit against that particular individual.

You would file it, I would file it in district court, and you can ask you may not need a declaratory judgment.

You've got a contract, therefore, since you've got restrictions, so you can recover your attorney's fees for breach of contract.

Um, and that's under 38.001 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code, and then 5.006, the property code allows for recovery of attorney's fees when it's a deed restriction violation, and you would get an injunction.

Your injunction needs to be very specific with regard to what these people need to do with deadlines for them to do it, because otherwise the court of appeals is going to say, when you if they don't take that structure down, that judgment needs to say this structure needs to come down by April 30th, 2026, removed completely and never come back.

If they don't remove it, you can go back to the judge, do a motion for contempt.

And but a court of appeals will not uphold a contempt order unless that judgment was very specific.

So that person knew exactly what they needed to do, and if they didn't do it, they could go to jail.

But and you can ask the judge, and I've I've done this before, to where we had a guy that put up, you know, lewd big lewd pictures at the entrance of a subdivision on his property.

He refused to take them down, even though the order said to take them down.

So we went back to the judge.

I said, put him in jail.

The judge put him in jail, and I said, now sign an order that we can go on there and take them down.

And the judge did, said y'all can go.

You'll need the judge saying that you can because you don't want them filing trespass charges against you or anything else.

So yeah, you follow those procedures and you can get it cleaned out, you can stop them from parking the cars and everything.

All righty.

One of the challenges for our homeowners association, excuse me, is getting enough people a quorum to uh attend the meeting, and for years and years, it's never been enough.

So, you know, we can't really change anything.

So uh I just want to make sure I understand what's been exchanged here this morning.

So, really in a case like that where you can't get enough people to attend a quorum, votes, whatever, your only options then would be a HOA violation sent out or a city violation, or as everybody was talking about earlier, escalating it to a higher uh government authority to change some rules.

Is that about it?

Well, do you mean a quorum like for a meeting?

Yeah, like a quorum for a meeting so that you can talk about changing things.

So if you don't have enough people there at the annual meeting, you can't really do anything.

What kind of quorum do you do you need?

Like 10%?

I believe it's 10%.

Y'all go out and get proxies beforehand.

So in other words, you have to be willing to go knock on doors and take your proxy and say, hey, would you give me your proxy so that we can hold a meeting and maybe do some elections and try to make some changes, good changes?

And then if um, you know, we as individual homeowners are hesitant to go knock on strangers' doors, and maybe if the property management that we pay a lot of money to isn't doing that as well, they probably won't do it.

Yeah, exactly.

Okay, I think I have the answer.

But do email blast calls, see if you can call and get them stirred up that way and do emails to them.

Thank you.

Yes.

Um, I'm elaborated on this lady's question in the back when she was asking about foreclosures.

Um, so two things you want to check for um to protect your interests as an HOA is that one, make sure that you file a notice or lien on whoever has been passed due in assessments in order to protect your interest.

And whenever, say the taxing entity or the mortgage lender forecloses on the home, your interest is unprotected as an HOA, you can recoup whatever money is left over to pay to pay back the HOA for those past due assessments that that owner never paid.

You can recoup whatever money is left over to pay to pay back the HOA for those past due assessments that that owner never paid.

Secondly, you want to check your documents for power of sale language.

And so, in order for foreclosure lawsuits to move more expeditiously through the court system, you want to be able to have the authority to file applications for expedited foreclosure.

Those move so much faster than a normal lawsuit to collect past due assessments.

And with the application for expedited foreclosure, they get served by certified mail and it moves real quickly, and you can foreclose on the house just like uh like a mortgage lender can.

And um, yeah, that was it.

I just wanted to expound.

Can we put our hands together for rice and rice?

Great information, great advice.

They'll hang there, they'll hang in the back for a little bit.

I want to encourage you to make sure you follow up at your seat.

You should have their contact information, a folder with some inserts.

If you do not have one, I think we have some extras in the back.

Um, duly noted.

So clearly, there's some shared experiences here, and there's some unique experiences related to our covenant.

Do we have HOAs?

Do we just do a civic club?

Um, right?

All that's up for interpretation for you and your neighborhood.

Uh, and next I want to bring up city legal.

There was a question uh that allows us to go right into that conversation.

Paul Barn Barnes, excuse me, Paul Barnes with City Legal will join us and talk about the five issues, five areas that the city of Houston is obligated to enforce.

Hi, y'all.

I brought a PowerPoint.

I'm gonna try to rush through it because there's gonna be some overlap, but I want to go through it because it might fill in gaps for some of y'all and put us all on the same page.

Um, so I'm Paul Barnes.

I'm with I'm an attorney with the city of Houston.

Um, and you know, Susie kind of talked about this deed restrictions, they're covenants, it's a contract, it's between property owners.

Um, and it affects the use of the property.

You can go to the next slide.

There, where are they?

They're in your deed, possibly.

They might be in the plat, which is just a map that's created when land is subdivided.

Um, it might be in a separate instrument, it's all in the property records.

So the city does not maintain the property records in Harris County, the county clerk maintains them.

So if you want to see your property records, you go to the county clerk.

Um sometimes civic associations distribute unofficial copies of them, but I've seen where that gets people in trouble because I've seen where civic associations paraphrase things, and that um can lead people to think they have restrictions that say one thing when they don't.

So be careful with that.

You want to see what your actual deed restrictions say in the property record.

You can go to the next slide.

Um, so they're created by developers.

When you own a lot of land and you want to subdivide it, create a subdivision, you can create deed restrictions.

Um it used to be that was the only way that they could be created.

You had to own all the land or have permission of everyone who owned the entire subdivision.

Uh later, I think it was in the 80s.

Uh, we passed chapter 201 and later 204 of the Texas property code.

That these are alternative means by which you can create or change your your deed restrictions if you don't have the agreement of 100% of the people.

Um, and it it all depends.

It gets very, it gets very technical about what do your deed restrictions say currently, if you have any or not.

Um, so you know, if if you're trying to go down this path of changing your deed restrictions or making new deed restrictions, I highly encourage you to speak to an attorney about it.

Um, I've seen neighborhoods that try to do it on their own and they don't do it correctly and it really messes them up.

You can go to the next slide.

Who can enforce them?

So it they're created for neighbors to be able to enforce them against each other because it's to protect the land.

Um, civic associations, homeowners' associations can usually enforce them as well.

Um, the city can enforce some deed restrictions.

We were given authority to enforce some deed restrictions, not all.

I'm gonna talk more about that in a moment.

Um right now.

So the so basically, um, you know, Houston, as we've said, doesn't have zoning.

You know, we tried to get zoning, I think, in the 20s and the 60s, most recently in the 90s, we couldn't get it passed by referendum.

So the state legislature gave us a consolation prize, which is the ability to enforce some deed restrictions.

Uh, you can go to the next slide.

Uh, we we've kind of talked about this.

What kind of things are in deed restrictions?

I think a lot of you have seen some of them, things like setbacks, use you know, is it commercial or residential, structural things, you know, height of a house cannot be more than two stories, or a house can't be more than 40 feet, what have you.

Um there can be a lot of things.

There's deed restrictions about, you know, you can't have any noxious or lewd activity on the property.

I've seen old ones that say you can't have more than two horses on the property.

I mean, it can be very specific, it can be very odd sometimes.

You can go to the next one.

The city cannot enforce all kinds of deed restrictions.

There's five kinds that we can enforce.

Um, so for example, if you have a deed restriction that says all houses have to have a brick facade, um that that's fine, you can have that in your deed restrictions, but the city can't enforce that.

It would be up to either you privately or your civic association.

The ones that the city can enforce are use.

So again, commercial versus residential use, setbacks, structural stuff like the size of the building, the size of the lot, the types of structures that can be on a lot.

We get into this sometimes where neighborhoods have deed restrictions that require you to have a garage or allow you to have a garage, but don't require you to have a garage, that confuses some people.

There's it gets a little technical orientation of a structure.

Not all neighborhoods have this, but some say the house has to face a certain direction.

Um, and we I've seen fights about that.

Fences are weird.

So the city can enforce deed restrictions that have to do with fences, but only if that fence is tall enough to require a permit.

So what happens a lot is let's say a property owner builds a fence right up to the edge of their property line, and that violates deed restrictions.

So I get a call, I send a letter to them.

I say you have to move this fence because it violates seed restrictions.

Instead of moving it, they just cut it to below right below eight feet, and now I can't do anything about it because eight feet is the line above that requires a permit.

If it's masonry, it's four feet.

So concrete brick, it's four feet, but anything else is eight feet.

We can't enforce restrictions about the material that the fence is made of, however.

So, you know, I'll I'll have people call me and say they're making a fence out of um sheet metal and they can't do that under our deed restrictions, and I have to tell them the city can't enforce the material of the fence, just where it is if it's tall enough.

Um now permitting is a different story.

Obviously, if a fence does require a permit and it doesn't have one, HPW gets involved.

That's not me, that's an ordinance thing, a building code thing.

You can go to the next slide.

Um commercial activity can get nuanced.

So it's not just running a business on the property, it might be storing commercial vehicles on the property.

I I had a case where a guy was storing a fleet, I mean three vans for his AC repair business.

He wasn't repairing AC in his home, but his employees were coming there and being dispatched from there.

So that was commercial use.

Um if a trailer is over 20 feet, uh go to the next slide.

If a trailer is over 20 feet, actually you can hit next as well.

Um that can be commercial use per se.

So someone can't say, oh, I use this trailer just for personal reasons if it's over 20 feet.

So uh we can't do both though.

Um use can get really specific.

So there's residential use or there's single family residential use.

And this this gets confusing too because the building code says uh having two units like a duplex or a home with a garage apartment is single family, but the building code and and your deed restrictions are different.

So your deed restrictions can have a separate definition of single family, or maybe they were written in the 1920s and they didn't think they needed to define single family.

So that would not include a duplex generally.

Um, so um some people try to build in neighborhoods a duplex where they're not allowed to because they think the building code lets them, they don't realize the deed restrictions are separate, and our building code can't change what's in your deed restrictions.

The most restrictive thing applies.

So let's say um the building code says you have to have a five-foot side setback, but your deed restrictions say 10 feet, 10 feet controls, not the building code.

You can go to the next slide.

Um I I kind of talked about this.

We there's things we can't enforce from a deed restriction standpoint, but we can as a city enforce them with ordinances.

But we can as a city enforce them with ordinances.

So parking uh cars on grass, there's a parking on grass ordinance.

I don't enforce that.

I I'm just on the deed restriction side of things, but someone in the city does.

That's another story, right?

Um high high weeds.

So if if if the grass or weeds on a property have become overgrown past a certain point, I believe HPW goes out there, or they they don't go themselves.

They contract someone to go out there and mow it, and the cost of that mowing is then placed as a lien on that property.

So again, that's not me, that's not deed restriction enforcement, but we have other ordinances that do other things.

You can go to the next slide.

Um we when we enforce deed restrictions, we don't represent the HOA or the civic club.

We we represent the city.

So uh some people get um confused about this, they'll say, Oh, we don't we actually don't have a civic club, we don't have an hoa.

That doesn't matter for the city's purposes, as long as you have valid deed restrictions, we can enforce them.

We don't need you to have anything, anything else.

Um, you can go to the next slide.

So the the way you make complaints about deed restrictions is not through 311.

Um, everything else is through 311 mostly, but um, we have a deed restriction hotline.

This is the number here.

Um I'm told this will be provided to y'all.

But there's a there's a number and there's also an email address.

And if if for whatever reason you um you don't get this later, if you just Google Houston deed restriction enforcement, I think it's the first page that comes up is a city page with all this information.

Call us.

You'll talk to one of our lawyers or one of our paralegals first, possibly, and we'll talk to you about you know what it is we can do for you or not.

We'll do an investigation, and if we can enforce, we will um go to the next slide.

These right now, these are the lawyers that enforce deed restrictions.

It's by council districts.

So you know, district F is LaShawn Watts.

She couldn't be here today, but I have her business cards that I'm gonna make sure all of y'all who want one get one.

You can reach out to her directly at that number and it'll be on the card and that email address.

So she'll be the one that that um leads the investigation and and files the lawsuit if necessary to enforce your deed restrictions.

You can go to the next slide.

I mentioned this, we do an investigation, we have a legal investigator.

If um, you can go to the next slide.

If if we find that there is a violation and we can enforce your deed restrictions, we'll first we'll send a warning letter just telling the property owner to fix it or stop, whatever it is.

Often that's enough.

Often that gets them going.

If that's not enough, uh we we usually send a second one just to be safe to let them know we're serious, and then we file a lawsuit.

Now, the lawsuit can take time.

Um, it's not gonna be an immediate fix.

I've had one, uh I had one about a duplex that lasted over a year, but uh because they were really fighting it, they really wanted to build the duplex, but finally they realized that they couldn't, and and we won and and it's not a duplex anymore.

You can go to the next slide.

Um, and I mentioned this too, you can go to the next slide.

So, what you need to do as property owners is you know know what your deed restrictions say and enforce them regularly because if um enough properties in a neighborhood have the same kind of violation, a court might determine that that neighborhood has waived that restriction.

So I've seen that where you know it's a small neighborhood and they have I don't know, 10 duplexes, and there isn't a an exact percentage.

The courts um different courts have given different percentages, but you run the risk of a judge saying, Look, you guys have allowed too many duplexes, new builders can't be expected to think you don't allow them now, you've waived it.

So you want to be regularly regular in enforcement.

Um if you think your deed restrictions are need to be changed, please talk to a lawyer.

Um the city attorney's office.

We can't provide you guys legal advice.

My only client is the city, and I can only give legal advice to the city, but um there are uh legal aid organizations if you don't think you can afford an attorney.

I I would not assume that.

I mean, talk to an attorney first, maybe you'll find out you can, but um, there are legal aid organizations, and I think there's more listed uh later.

Um this is just some contact information for other organizations within the city, like parking, um bandit signs, animals as bark.

Yeah, you can go to the next slide.

So I yeah, I wanted to get of course, and again, you guys will get this.

So yeah, I I that's what I'm told is you guys are gonna get all these slides sent to you.

So um so yeah, if if there's any questions, yeah, go ahead.

Oh, I'm gonna lie.

I think this other mic is important for audio for this nice like HDB or the simple follow-up.

Sure, sure.

Okay, you can hear me now, by golly.

Okay, Tangle Wild.

Tangle Wild is a different beast, as we all know, it has a civic club, it's a voluntary civic club.

No HOA, we are coveted to buy deed restrictions.

You mentioned that if we had allowed all these things to happen, like the bed and breakfast, the uh boarding houses, the multiple, you know, duplexes being changed, you know, houses construction being changed.

We didn't allow it, it just kind of happens, and we've always come to the city trying to you know get help to keep it from happening, but we feel like we are getting just pushed aside since Arva Howard.

I have had a hard time trying to get anybody to even address anything in the neighborhood.

Sure.

So I've spoken to you, uh aside from you because I know you personally because I remember that name.

I and yes, ma'am.

We we have had good conversations about trying to get businesses closed, but what do we do about that?

We don't want that to happen to where they the judge would have the capability of saying, Well, you've allowed it to happen.

Well, no, we didn't.

Right, right.

And I've seen that before, where um there are neighborhoods I've dealt with where they haven't had a civic club for a long time, no one's been enforcing anything, and now they're trying to be more proactive, they're trying to create a new civic club.

Um it might be that some things it's just too late for them, but or it might be that it there needs to be a change in the deed restrictions to address what's already happened and and but make something new to go forward.

I I can't get into specifics because again I can't give you legal advice, but but there might be a solution.

So definitely talk to a lawyer.

Um, Lone Star Legal Aid is has something.

I think some of the law schools now have deed restriction clinics where they can help people for free.

Yes, and and there's three in Houston, you know, there's Thurgood Marshall uh U of H has a law school and South Texas College of Law.

Yeah, let me just add here as an example of what's been happening in Tangle Wild, Tangle Wild on the corner of Gessner and Richmond.

There was a home, and they have split the home, they're renting rooms to students, right?

And they were parking all the cars on the lawn.

Now, in the deed restrictions, there was nothing in the language that restricted where to park your car, right?

So there was a cure for that, as he mentioned the ordinance, prohibited yard parking ordinance.

We have nine neighborhoods in District F that have applied for that.

So we were able to restrict parking on the front yards with the ordinance.

However, there was a pivot last year.

Uh the functionality that it lived with HPD.

Now it's with is it department of neighborhoods or public works?

It's with public works now, right?

So part of the enforcement change, and it was attractive as an ordinance because law enforcement, you know, unfortunately, tensions can be high between neighbors.

And oftentimes we don't want to confront our neighbors that we've been you know, talking to them about can you move your car?

Can you, you know, can you move your trash?

Can all those things?

So that has transitioned um to public works, which has many neighborhoods have not decided to move forward with that because it's no longer attractive for that.

But they were able to install um uh we were able to approve that at council.

There were the most recent neighborhood, Tangle Wild, to get that authorized and it uh address the issue in the neighborhood.

Yes, John.

Citation with the ticket, not the property owner, right?

Okay, so who gets the summons?

Well, uh the uh HPW is here, and so we're gonna hold that question when they get here.

They're here.

Yeah, they're here.

We're gonna hear from uh public works.

We're gonna hear from but that's just an example of when your deed restrictions uh don't um have the language that explicitly restricts use of the property or doesn't define we have ordinances for that now.

Here's a challenge on our end the enforcement of the ordinance.

We have a lot of ordinances on the books.

I was looking at the trailers and I was thinking of Park Glenn.

They're out in the the driveway, you know, it prohibits solid waste from coming in, picking up trash, you name it.

So some of those photos are very familiar with what we see.

So those are the things that we're working on.

So anything related to those ordinances will have our department representatives give up talk to us about that.

Yes, ma'am.

I'll repeat the question.

So yes, um, last year we to address that.

Thank you for bringing that up.

A city council approved an ordinance to address short-term rentals, Airbnbs.

Uh, we live at a different age when people are renting out their homes.

Houston's a convention city, we're getting ready for FIFA.

You can anticipate some activity in your neighborhood all the way on the west side, south side, all of that.

So what uh many HO many D restrictions do not address short-term rentals.

So what our ordinance does, it creates um uh a directory of sorts where they there's essentially a permit for them to do that.

We do, I think the last number we had of those that were documented in district F were around 600.

Um we were probably the lowest on the line when you look at all of our 11 council districts, but there's a way for us to report out and we know where they're at.

Uh, that is information we've shared once or twice.

We can do that routinely.

Um, I would encourage if you have excessive short-term rentals to the point of like their party houses, then we can engage law enforcement.

There's a trigger for that.

But also when you're thinking about the language you need to add to your D restrictions, I would highly encourage something about restricting the use of those homes.

We have a couple questions in the back.

For me or City League.

My question is to the gentleman regarding the warning letter that you referenced.

Yes, yeah.

Can you tell me what your procedure is for who you're directing that warning to?

Is it just the uh address in question?

No, ma'am.

So we will look up who owns the property.

Um if there's a situation where there's a different owner and a tenant will get it to both.

I'm glad to hear that because I think years ago perhaps the procedure was different.

And we have a rental property, and all of a sudden we get a letter, notice of arraignment.

Uh, you know, pay or die or go to the you know thing.

And long story short, when I called because there was no information uh about what it specifically was for.

And I guess one of our tenants had put out uh uh lawn bag of cuttings a few days too early.

Sure.

And we never got the letter.

So I'm glad to hear that uh you have it in place now that you're sending to the city.

Oh, yes, absolutely.

And I'll tell you that person.

From from a deed restriction standpoint, um our a letter from me will never be about lawn clippings, but but um, but yes, if if you have a tenant that violates a deed restriction and you get a letter from us, we're happy to give you time to to take some action to cure it yourself.

I mean, if it's eviction or whatever it needs to be, you know, we we're we're happy to work with you if you want to if you want time and you want to work with us.

It it only goes further for people who don't want to work with us who want to fight about it, then it goes further.

Next question right here.

I'm sorry we have to follow the order.

Hello, um if it meets I have a question.

It says in there, like before before that slide, it says nuisance and parking as the uh I guess the police department, but when you call the police department, you wait like they're for the non-emergency line, and there's been a continuum issue where you have these cars that park in the city streets for months and months and months and months, and police officers drive through through the same street and they they don't do anything.

So no, that's what was my question.

Who will you advise to contact?

311.

So park well, 311 closes the cases.

I call them it's 311.

So all they do is close the case.

We're gonna start with 311.

You're gonna get a service request number that goes to Park Houston, not HPD.

Park Houston.

And here's the here's the context around that.

You have dilapidated cars, cars with expired break tags, all that.

You see that all the time.

Take a photo.

There's explicit information that Park Houston needs in order to do that.

They're gonna dispatch their investigator, they're gonna mark the tire, they're gonna come back.

If that tire has moved, the clock has started over.

If the if the car has not moved, they will come and tow it immediately.

What uh we have neighborhoods that we put on pilot programs, Piney Point's the latest one, because they're surrounded by mechanic shops.

Uh Bel Air West is Imperial is, I mean, inundated, uh, those are on our pilot list, and they have swept those areas.

We've had over 300 citations of parking.

So it's not HPD, it's Park Houston, and then send that to the district office so then we can escalate that.

But there are particular details you need in order to report um a car that's parked, and then to park on the city street, it's allowable to park on the city of Houston Street for 24 hours.

Yeah, but those cars have been there for it.

So, how did you get on the pilot program?

Because I call the city of Houston.

We need open report first, and then the next day it's closed.

So let's so let me educate on what 311 uh the language means.

So you'll often see closed, close does not mean resolve.

Close means they sent that ticket to the appropriate department.

If you have contacted 311, you have all the information we get to see on the back end.

You can routinely check that service request and you'll see all of the updates that you email the office and we push back out.

Now, within the protocol, because there's a particular time frame, we have to let the protocol work.

If the if they are outside that protocol, for instance, like a water leak, 10 to 14 days minimum on a regular leak.

That's a regular easy leak.

If you see flags out there, that means public works has been there.

And they have to order, they have to do the work order.

Sometimes there's a supply chain with the parts, you got to give them grace.

If it falls out of the protocol, it's a month.

It's you know, it's 45 days.

We can escalate to get that done.

But it's we but there's a responsibility also as residents to understand how to document the exact information and as a follow-up, we'll make sure that the explicit details you need in order to do that will be in the follow-up uh information here.

Uh Sarai, who does uh our constituent services consistently monitors the uh parking violations and gets that back to Park Houston, and they are diligently addressing that.

But they'll mark the tire if it moves, it starts back over.

That's what it is.

Right, it starts right over.

So, this is how we need your help.

Take photos, they need license plates, then all those types of things, put it in 311, give them the exact model of the car, get that to the office.

We will route that up.

I've been working with Park Houston to try to use some of my council district service funds for us to have our own tow service.

HPD's the only one, and they won't allow me to do that.

But that has been in conversation for over a year and a half for us to move quickly to sweep these cars that we know are dilapidated.

When I go walk in the morning to get my steps, I'm always taking pictures of people's cars and saying, Okay, you've been here, it's your break tag is from 2019.

This car has not moved.

Let's take that photo.

And Park Houston handles and does that, and we've seen successes with that, but we need your help.

It's not just a simple you need more information in order to get that done.

Okay.

We have one more.

How many more questions?

Two more, and then we're gonna get to department of neighborhoods.

Okay, earlier, earlier you mentioned uh about uh short-term rentals and Airbnbs that they have to have a permit.

How do we find out if the person has a permit?

There's a list and we can send that out.

Okay, yeah.

I already wanted to know that out there.

I don't know if this has been addressed, but um, okay.

So in my neighborhood, I've noticed a large amount of chickens, and how about a non-domesticated animals?

And then um, in some places, some uh one time someone had a pig, and I'm thinking, what do we do to stop that?

So chickens are allowable, they are allowable.

That's still a 311.

Um but I'm thinking like when they have like certain diseases that could be passed on to like the domesticated animal.

The health department will come out, but it needs to be reported.

I I want to say an Imperial.

No, in Catalina Square and Catalina, someone had chicken, they have birds and shit, someone had chickens too, and they're allowable.

They have to be caged a particular way.

There's guidance, yeah, there's guidance around that.

So let's get that reported in so that can be investigated.

So if there's certain guidance that that resident needs that can be provided, and then we can share that with the HOA.

But yeah, chickens, it's allowed, they're allowable.

Roosters, I believe a roosters are allowable too.

Yeah, yeah.

So um, and you know, you could designate your lawn to you could be like an arborist and dedicate your lawn to grow.

I mean, there's some things you could do at the city that perhaps your neighbors may not be in violation, it just may be an annoyance.

You're right, yes, John.

Okay.

Yes, sir.

Yes, sir.

Thank you.

Yeah, also punch the bottom of it up.

Okay.

Uh had a renter who subdivided the bedrooms and created a boarding house.

Yes, right.

Many complaints came into the HOA.

And we called our city council person at the time.

It wasn't this lady, it was someone else, okay.

And uh we got to sit that that council person got the city attorney involved, and uh that city attorney used the hotel tax, right?

Okay, and uh uh from the time that the present owner bought the property, uh, even though it was a renter, but it was rental property, uh and the address of record on HCAD was the address of the of the property.

So all of the things from the city of Houston trying to collect hotel tax went in the trash can, right?

It was only when the city filed a lien against the property and uh uh his uh financial institution sent him a uh an inquiry what's going on?

Why are you running uh a hotel and in uh and a residential area that he that the owner actually got involved?

Uh so uh that's one way the lady that has lived in a quadrangle, okay.

Uh you if you're in the city of Houston, there's your man there to try to get the whole uh hotel tax from every person in that's it's in there except the the owner stuff.

And and a question for you, Mr.

Barnes.

Uh lot plats, yes, sir.

Okay, our subdivision, at least part of it was created in 1966, and the last section, section five was probably 1972, okay.

Where can where can property owners get correct copies of their platform cost?

So um all the all the original plats are maintained in the county map records, which is the district clerk, excuse me, the county clerk, county clerk, county clerk, uh Harris County Clerk.

Exactly.

Um there, however, you can see uh how the plat looks now.

If you just go to it's called HCAD parcel viewer, it's a website.

HCAD maintains it, it has the whole city on there.

You can zoom in on your house and see your lot and all the lots around it and the plat like borders, and it's really great.

Um there's something before I'm done.

There's some two things I I really want you guys to know.

Um that's kind of unrelated to that.

But number one is um when people we're complaint-based.

So when people build, if they get a building permit, let's say a building permit to build a duplex, the fact that they got a permit doesn't necessarily mean they're in compliance with the deed restrictions.

The permitting people are looking at the building code, and they don't necessarily know what the deed restrictions are in that area.

We we're we rely on complaints.

So if you see someone building something, if you suspect it violates the restrictions, make a complaint, and that's how we'll know and we'll investigate and take action.

We all know what easements are, okay?

Yes, sir.

The term of our class is building lines and setbacks.

Yes.

Are those terms from the 1960s still valid today?

Yes, sir, those are separate things.

So a building line, a property line, an easement.

Um, these are all separate things.

I don't as this a city attorney who enforces deed restrictions.

I'm not enforcing easements, but I am enforcing setbacks or building lines.

Those are building lines from property lines, right?

Exactly.

That's what I mean.

We enforce those.

You do, okay.

Yes, sir.

But uh another thing I want you guys to know before I go is um I you know I mentioned waiver.

So like if you've allowed too many duplexes, let's say another thing is is in one instance, if you've sat on it too long, like let's say there's only one duplex in your neighborhood, but they built it five years ago, the judge will probably say you waited too long.

Um there's actually a four-year statute of limitations on enforcing deed restrictions.

So if if it's been sitting there too long, it's it might be too late to do anything about.

And then I think it's important to note that there's a difference between a group home and a boarding home.

Uh those definitions and the functions are different.

ARA, that department manages the permit application process for that, and we have a running list of the authorized ones in District F.

I think the list was 28, but you and I both know we have more than 28 of those.

Right?

So as I was sharing with Lynn this morning, I need your help on that as well.

We are consistently monitoring those locations.

But if you're on the team that drives the neighborhood, you know, and issues the citations or the warnings, we need you, we need the addresses of the uh perceived locations or group uh or boarding homes, so then we can check against the master list, so then we can initiate with the appropriate departments, otherwise we won't know.

We've had, I think in Park Glenn West, there was a fire uh two years ago.

Um disabled individuals, some animals caught and it was a group home, but it wasn't on the list, right?

And someone lost their life.

So, you know, there are um those instances happen if we don't know who's in the home, if they have smoke detectors, if they're in compliance, all of that is important, right?

Because that fire can catch on to your house.

Uh, but we need your help on that.

So if you can just make a note if there's some issues to get that to us.

John, I gotta get to department of neighborhoods, but uh Mr.

Paul's gonna be here.

Thank you.

I'm gonna make sure you all get on the yes, yeah.

And she's with she was with us last year, and we make her contact information available.

All the slides that you see um will work.

We're gonna flip this back over to everyone who registered via email.

So if you did on site and we have your email, you'll get this as well.

It'll also be in the uh uh uh video with Houston TV.

Wonderful.

All right, uh Department of Neighborhoods is next.

Veronica Hernandez, she is a familiar face, all right.

So all of us and to all of our neighborhoods, and she's gonna talk about the department of neighborhoods.

Welcome.

Thank you, council member.

Good morning, everyone.

I want to applaud council member Thomas for her leadership and for uh we have a full house.

Thank you for your engagement with the community and being out there for us.

So uh department neighborhoods.

A lot of of the community, the civic clubs, HOAs are familiar with us.

There have been some recent changes to our department.

So our department's mission is to work with residents and community partners to enhance the quality of life for Histonians, fostering strong, inclusive and empowered communities through outreach, strategic partnerships, response uh to service requests, we address community needs through our division.

So we have different divisions within our department.

Uh we do not have the code enforcement uh division no longer with our department.

So that was a big division.

So now uh mayor's assistance office, which I represent, which is now the uh the largest division of the department, Office of Gang Prevention and Intervention, Office of Neighborhood Engagement, Office of New Americans and Language Access, Office of Veterans and Military Affairs, Office for People with Disabilities, Office of Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence.

So our commitments to lead positive change in our community through partnerships, uh advocacy, education to ensure all Houstonians has a have the opportunity to thrive in safe, supportive and connected community.

Uh our goals.

The next slide, please.

Um, to make it easier for residents to participate in government and engage on neighborhood and citywide level.

Uh create positive change through collaboration to connect residents to programs and services which solve problems, remove obstacles to help residents participate in civic life and improve their quality of life.

Make a government services more accessible, especially through the use of technology and data-riven outreach.

So uh Mayor's Assistance Office, our office has been in place since uh uh Mayor Hoffines.

Uh we've been through a lot of changes, but now we're part of the department neighborhoods.

So we create uh coordinate with city departments to follow up on service requests and support civic participation by partnering up with uh community groups.

So we oversee this the neighbor super neighborhood initiative program uh with the city of Houston.

We collaborate with community stakeholders of all types, follow-up requests with cities services for residents, help coordinate neighborhood cleanups and informational sweeps.

So we do uh work with HOA civic clubs and different neighborhoods to go out there and do informational uh sweeps and also cleanups to inform the community of we have a lot of the neighborhoods allowed tenants who are not familiar with some of the city's um requirements for them to take care of.

So super neighborhood initiative program.

Uh it's a group of resident stakeholders from super neighborhood areas that were designated by the uh city of Houston, and they were formed to serve as a forum to discuss issues, they've developed super neighborhood action plans, uh identify priority projects with city staff.

How many of y'all are acting in the super neighborhood?

But we do have some super neighborhood 20 folks in the room.

We have Tango Wow, uh Piney Point is Westmont in the house, Westmont here.

Who else is in the 41?

Right, but in District F, right?

We have Super Neighborhood 17, that's our Eldridge, West Oaks, Ashton Village, that portion, and then we have Super Neighborhood 25, which is A Leaf.

There was one formerly of West Chase that can be reactivated.

Um, but I would encourage you if your super neighborhood has been deactivated, there's an opportunity to reactivate that because we really do lean on our super neighborhoods to disseminate information that's coming from City Hall, and then we partner for other neighborhood activities.

And Veronica can talk more about that.

Yes, so as council members stating uh reactivation, we have been working with reactivating some of the super neighborhoods.

So if there's any interest in any of the super neighborhoods that are not active to reactivate, uh reach out to us and we'll try to help you to uh gather some of the stakeholders in the in the neighborhoods that can uh bring back that super neighborhood because it's very important, like council member was saying, uh many of the services or programs that come into play.

Uh you know, the city reaches out to all the super neighborhoods first to get their opinion, to get their feedback to outreach to the uh neighborhood neighbors uh in that community.

Um now can I go to the next video in this code?

But they're coming to the super neighborhoods first, is what I'm saying.

So report that's the Supreme Board when we think about um ordinances when we look at initiative, they go to the super neighborhoods for first because the super neighborhood is almost like the only city recognized entity, third-party entity that works in collaboration to inform projects.

We've had street repair, we've had sidewalk projects because the super neighborhood organized and said, Hey, we documented this, we want to wrap this up because it's there the complaints was coming to the super neighborhood.

So if your community has not met or has been on hiatus, I would I would I would encourage you to and no one needs another meeting, trust me.

I get it, but I would strongly encourage to participate in your super neighborhood.

Um we try our best to share civic neighbor um civic clubs and hoa meetings with the city department so they can attend those, but in you know, large foot, they're gonna go to the super neighborhood because that's the official partner of the city.

Yes.

That's the large challenge.

Yes.

So now uh Office of Gang Prevention Intervention.

So they promote mentoring and case management to teens at risk of joining gangs as well as educational workshops and out-of-school activities.

So this office has been around for several years too.

Uh it used to be mayor's office of anti-gang.

Um, so their key program is to gang and delinquency information intervention case management, food bolito in the city, and ladies' choice girls program, young fathers program, and peace on the streets.

So there's another program that can assist some of our youth.

Office of neighborhood engagement, the next one.

So uh they create community partnerships that provide information, engage engages with the residents in civic activities with the goal of increasing civic participation.

So they do our our different forums for the department, they also do the uh free legal services, the will services estates, and they do that throughout the throughout the city, yes, ma'am.

Do you also type of resolution for properties that's been put in the neighborhood?

Uh we do work with the different uh they used to do the graffiti abatement, but it's no longer through uh the uh anti-gang office, so it's now through uh the different uh management districts, and the city of Houston also has you know all that is documented on on the graffiti, yeah.

And and um y'all don't have a um management, they're on the border of West Chase.

Um, but if you don't have a uh a management district like Piney Point doesn't have one, y'all are on the backside, yeah.

Y'all don't have uh management district, our hotspot team addresses that, so that's still like illegal dumping, but our international management district, we have West Chase Management District, and we have the Southwest Management District in District F.

So if you fall within that footprint, they have a contract with SMC, and then they deploy of that.

But please definitely document it, and our hot team takes that.

But we do encourage you to take pictures because we can send that over to HPD so they can document the gang activity.

Umice of Neighborhood Engagement.

So that's the office that I was talking about.

They do the volunteer initiative program, Houston Employees uh response team.

So uh recently we have been assigned to work uh directly with the OEM Office of Emergency Management to handle when there is a freeze, where there's any uh hurricanes.

So we're gonna be helping at the different centers.

We've worked with uh during the uh you know, when the it was really cold, we were out there and helping the homeless.

Uh also the mayor's youth council, uh, a month of service, Wales Clinics, referrals matching grant program, and city hall tours.

So matching grant uh program opens up and there's uh opportunities for civic clubs and HOA to uh apply for money that's available to do different projects in your community, beautifications and different things.

Uh, I think there's already an opening, so I can provide information after the meeting.

I'll come up with safe.

Yeah, so they're authorized.

So that's a matching.

And the other thing about super neighborhoods, we also have uh funding for super neighborhoods, so that uh they don't have to do a matching for those.

Um, and then Office of New Americans and Immigrant Communities, uh, which is a big uh uh right now with all the different things that are happening.

Uh they welcome immigrants, refugees to Houston through partnerships to help them become citizens, uh, informs of their rights and resources and promotes cultural sharing across our city.

So, what they do, they have the language access initiative.

Next slide.

Uh they have the citizenship assistance where they do for different forums throughout the city to assist those to become citizens of the United States, immigration legal consultations, world refugee day, citizenship month.

And they have an office at the A-Lif Community Center.

So if you want to come out and uh and use their services, they also have legal services uh available on there at the A Lee Community Center, Office of Human Trafficking, they have legal services at the A-Lif Community Center, which is out here on Belair.

And then Office of Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence.

Uh, they were part of an office themselves, but they're now part of the department neighborhoods.

So to prevent human trafficking and domestic violence through coordination outreach, victim centered services, and public awareness campaigns.

So that's their uh role in the community.

Uh their key functions is direct victim advocacy and case management, uh, interagency coordination with law enforcement, social service agencies and nonprofits, community education, training and awareness programs, data collection and reporting for 10 analysis and resource allocation.

Um then we have the office for people with disabilities.

Uh so uh ensure equitable access, advocacy and support services for all historians with disabilities, and they do uh accessibility assessments, ADA compliance consulting, uh community liaison stakeholder engagement program development for assistive services and resources, public communications outreach campaigns, and they also do the uh where you can apply for the sidewalks programs through this office.

And I know uh uh Mr.

G has worked a lot with them.

Yeah, and just as an aside, if there's someone that has that needs that meets the ADA compliance, um, their application, if they complete that application, it's it's essentially prioritized.

The funding comes through the general fund.

Oftentimes in the last two fiscal years, district F, we have um paid for those sidewalks.

So um most of our sidewalks are three feet wide, we expand to five feet and we add the ramps.

So we'll notice with our new sidewalks, you'll have the entrance ramp um for the sidewalks.

We've done a series of those replacements.

We have one on West Timer and Fondren coming up, one in Ash off of Ashland Park coming up soon.

What about yes?

Not for the ADA, yeah, just for the application process.

And so if you have a neighbor that meets this qualification, talk to them about applying.

We'll make sure that this is a part of the follow-up protocol as well, so y'all can keep that in your communications with residents.

So y'all can keep that in your communications with residents.

And then our last uh division is Office of Veterans and Military Affairs.

So Dr.

Jones is one person, and she does so much for for the veterans.

And I really applaud her.

So they honor and serve veterans, active duties, military and their families by providing seamlings access to benefits, resources, and community support.

Benefits, navigating navigation, referral services, outreach and engagement at veteran focused events, partnership development with the VA and veteran services organization, training and uh capacity building for staff on military culture and resources.

So that's a uh a great office that they're working out with the community.

So we have different divisions, a lot of different resources and programs, and a lot of uh our community are not familiar with.

So I'm here if you have any questions.

Uh I know I used to get a lot of questions about enforcement, but no longer enforcement's part of us.

We still have access to their system where the inspector goes has an inspect and so we're able to view uh when they do their inspections uh and follow up on the different processes.

Thank you, council member.

Sure.

Are there any questions for department of neighborhoods?

Come on.

Public works, public works, public works.

Yeah, they're coming.

Yes, and they changed their name, they're not in uh inspections public services anymore.

They're the uh community uh code enforcement now.

But they're not set up to handle the public.

Oh no, they do it.

Yes, they do you hear for them soon and they'll talk about the transition.

Any particular questions related to the content that was provided?

I think there's anything.

Hold on, Dr.

Lindett.

Yes, I just mine's really quick.

I just want to know is it neighborhood traffic management program part of neighborhood or does different the neighborhood matching uh grant neighborhood traffic management program that's Bumps.

Okay, so that's not neighborhood.

Okay, I just want to thank you for the clarification.

It used to be that we could when we filed a 311 complaint, send it to Department of Neighborhoods if it was stubborn and with, of course, the intake number.

Are you guys still allowing that?

Yes, yes, okay.

And we work closely with our council office to make sure that we're both on the same yes.

This will be our last question.

Another quick question.

You mentioned about the neighborhood matching grant program.

Do you know if there is gonna be one for 26 and if so, what if there is those deadlines?

Uh what the dates are.

Yes, let me uh look it up and I'll give you the information.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

Yes, thank you.

Yeah, for all that, yeah, and all funding is in the spring there.

So I think the most y'all can do is 5,000.

Yes, and you have to the most you can do is 5,000.

Super neighborhood 25 consistently would apply for that um for tree planting and other beautification projects.

So I want to encourage you to move quickly because we already have projects slated for fiscal 27 that are significant.

Bracewood estates, they have street panel replacements coming, Brays Village East.

We're doing sidewalks and streets, so that's like a quarter million each pop.

So five thousand dollars comes hard.

Richmond is a long thoroughfare, Richmond and Wood.

Um it is, it's on the CIP.

Yeah, well, no, let me back up.

There's an um it's on the CIP.

We requested for them to escalate that.

They're doing an engineer study to let us know our options, but it has been it's in the queue.

So we're just waiting on the results of the of that study, but that has nothing to do with a matching grant.

That's not that.

Um, the CD, that's a capital, a big capital project.

We're talking about uh, you know, sidewalks, things that we can do, you know, 60,000 here, 100,000 here, concrete replacement of your street in your neighborhood.

That comes out of the council office.

What if we wanted to do fixed repairs with that?

No, ma'am.

No, ma'am.

That's a private property situation.

And and we'll make sure that we take the guidelines and it'll tell you what qualifies because you have to have quotes and provide that to city legal, and they'll tell you what's authorized, and then you have to spend the money, and then you get reimbursed.

So just take your time working with the city, it may take a while.

So if you beaten for 5,000, you're right, right.

You beaten for 5,000, it may not.

Uh Ms.

Veronica will be with us in the back, and we'll make sure that you have these slides.

Can we put our hands together for Ms.

Veronica?

Okay.

Um, I don't, oh, yes, I do.

I see you.

Miss Onica Porter with the housing and community development department.

She's gonna talk to you about their home repair program, which is really important.

As many of us uh decide to age in place, it's so important that you take advantage of repairs to your home that you qualify for.

Um and we know that the application process can be daunting, but the housing department has done a phenomenal job of making sure that the application process is seamless.

And if you have not seen uh we were in West Park Village in December, um a constituent will had a home that was impacted by Harvey, she was living in poor conditions.

Uh, she qualified for the home reconstruction program.

It was it was a it was a beauty of a site, definitely elevated the neighborhood, uh, and up to 300,000 for home reconstruction.

Um, and up to repair varies depending on that.

So, welcome the housing and community development department.

Good morning, everyone.

Good morning.

Thank you for having us.

Good morning, thank you for having us.

So we're gonna give you a little bit of information about the programs that we're currently offering.

Um, one is uh, well, this is our director, his name is Mr.

Michael Nichols, and um that's our assistant director, Miss Mr.

Cedric Lisane, and that's myself, Onika Porter, and this is Latasha Smith.

Um, so we're gonna go over the program.

So we're gonna go over our winter storm um URI 2021.

Um, if you guys remember that was that was something that impacted the entire city.

And so we have a program which is a home repair for winter storm Uri.

If you received any damages during that storm, um, so the purpose of this um the winter storm year is is to it is to help the people that were affected during that storm.

I I know this by heart, so I'm just not gonna read it.

So it's to help the people that were affected by that storm.

And you're if you were affected, we have two pathways for to assist you.

For example, the first pathway is if you did repair your home already, and you we are giving a reimbursement up to 10,000.

So if you've already done the repairs or you're in the middle of doing repairs, and sometimes it may take a little longer.

We can't say, oh, the repairs had to be done by a certain time, because sometimes we know you know, finances you may still be working on it.

If you can provide receipts, letting us know that you are working on it.

This worst damages during winter storm Uri, we are providing a reimbursement for up to 10,000.

So that's our first pathway.

Our second pathway.

Yes, it's a water pipe first and your firewall is damage.

Yes, if you have any of that, you're like, oh, I took care of that, I don't need to do it.

You qualify for this.

My daddy's whole ceiling came down because the power came off to qualify for this.

Yes, and it's so important to keep the receipt, keep this paperwork, you take photos because uh once we receive the money, this is a 50 million dollar allocation.

We are on a we are on a clock to spend this.

These are your tax dollars returning back to you.

So make sure you take advantage if you qualify.

Don't don't don't let don't pass this up.

No, I I guess again, this is extremely important that you take advantage of this because it's not gonna be here forever.

And we have the money, we have to spend it.

We can't we don't want to keep the money.

So we and we do have a spending deadline that we need to meet.

So we encourage you guys to apply to to get this funding out in the neighborhoods.

So the second pathway is if you have not, if you did have damages and you have not completed any of the repairs.

So we we give up to a hundred thousand dollars in re rehabilitation on homes.

And if the home, if the if the repairs are over a certain amount, eighty thousand dollars in repairs.

If it's if that exceeds that amount, we give up to three hundred thousand dollars in rehab and re um reconstruction.

So that's when you remember Councilmember Thomas was talking about the home that we reconstructed, which became a gorgeous home.

So that's what we're doing.

We're we're reconstructing a home if it's over a certain amount, and that's $80,000 in home repairs.

So if you have any damages to your home, please don't hesitate to reach out to us because again, the money is there, and we just want to get the money spent.

So if you may know someone, if you didn't have damages and you know someone, send them our way because we want to assist them.

And if and like she said, the application is extremely long.

So we do have people in place that will come out and even assist them with the application, walk them through it because a lot of times the stuff in the application is repetitive and and it can be confusing.

So we have people that'll help them complete the application.

I'm the person who I'm the designee on his application.

Um, so the department works with me to get because he's not gonna answer the phone.

Um, he had resistance in providing bank statements.

He had resistance in providing idea passport.

So if you know, if you have a caretaker, if you are a caretaker, take the time to walk through the application because it is slightly intrusive.

But what I like to say is that daddy, they just want to make sure that it's you that no one is applying for federal funds in your name on your deed, and there's fraud.

So, and we know that there's deed theft happening all throughout the county, and we want to make sure those, particularly our seniors and those with limited income are not taken advantage of.

So the housing department will drop the application off.

They will come pick it up.

You can do virtual um office hours, but it is long.

Then you need to provide a lot of information, but it's definitely worth it because these are your dollars.

Absolutely.

I'm I'm gonna pick it back off of what you said.

It's important, like if they can't come to us, they can or if they can, yes, we offer virtual open hour, and we also have someone every day that will come down and they they are assigned to assist walk-ins.

So even if you got there during the virtual open hours, we have someone assigned every day to assist walking.

So please take note of that.

And if you have neighbors, let them know that as well.

All right.

Also, in addition to um what Ms.

Porter stated, um, we do come to um different the super neighborhood meetings.

We also come to civic um associations and talk to them personally one-on-one about the program.

So if you want that for your association or your super neighborhood, please get with us.

Our information is on the back, so you could definitely give us a call and we can arrange that.

So we're gonna keep moving on.

The next program that we're gonna talk about is our home buyer's assistance program.

Our home buyer's assistance program is to help those that are low to moderate income to obtain that home ownership dream.

And this particular program, you can get up to $50,000 to purchase your first home, or if you have not had a home in the last three years.

We also, each program that we have, they do have an income requirement.

Um, also, what I did bring, I brought a few of our flyers, everything that we're talking about today, it is in this packet.

And you can pick it up on the side over there if the young lady, the assistant right over there with all the merchandise, she's waving her hand.

She um, if you want to go over there and get the information, you're more than welcome to do so.

And our number is in the packet as well.

But um, to check your eligibility, we're just gonna go over a few of the requirements for the program.

You must be a U.S.

student or a citizen or a um permanent resident.

Also, as I stated before, you um to qualify for this particular program, you um have to have never had a home or have not had a home in the last three years.

Also, there is an income requirement.

What I stated before, it is based on 80% and um AMI.

The chart is within the packet that I have provided for you all.

Um, also you must be able to qualify for an eligible fixed rate mortgage.

You can find your own lender.

However, we try to assist.

We have lenders that have been through our program, they have experience with our program on our website.

We have a list of those lenders.

Um, and also you must obtain an eight-hour hood approved agency um housing course.

You have to go through a hood approved agency.

Um we also have a list of those agencies that offer that class.

Um, some of them offer it in person, some of them offer it virtual.

Um Spanish speaking um for those individuals that need that assistance, but there's a variety of different agencies that offer that class.

Also, moving on, um, you must contribute at least 350 to the transaction.

That means that the money does not come to the city of Houston, our department.

This can be in the um form of an appraisal, uh inspection, but the money will not go directly to us.

Okay, also you must select an eligible property.

This can be a single family home, a town home, a condominium, but also it can be a manufactured home on a permanent foundation.

And like I stated before, you pick your own home wherever in the city of Houston, but it has to be in the city of Houston.

Um moving on.

We also ask that um when you participate in the program, um, because our goal is for you to stay in the home.

Um, we put a second lien on the home, which we will ask you to stay in the home for at least five years for this particular program.

Um, and once you finish with those five years, then that home belongs to you.

It has no more attachment to the city, it will be considered a grant versus a loan.

Um, also you cannot be a registered sex offender, and also the last one requirement for this particular program is that you must be current on your child support payment.

If you're if you are not current, we ask that you get on a payment a payment plan and begin do making those payments.

Moving on, just to go over the steps so you have an idea of how the application process works.

We're just gonna go over the beginning steps.

There's three steps that we ask of you before you make that initial call to our office stating that you want to apply.

Number one, we ask that you get a realtor.

Why do I need a realtor?

It's because this process is very tedious at times, and it can be discouraging.

Um, however, you can make it through it, especially with someone that has experience that went through it already.

So that we so we ask that you get a realtor, like I stated before, we ask that you take that eight-hour course.

You will receive a certificate.

You have to have that certificate in hand when applying.

Last but not least, get a pre-approval from a lender of your choice.

Once you have completed those three steps, now it is time to give us a call and tell us that you're ready to become a homeowner, and then you make that initial call to our office.

So just some information if you need to contact us.

This is our website.

You're more than welcome to um go to our website.

We have a lot of great information on our website, and especially for events that we are having that if you haven't made up in your mind or you know someone that potentially they're not just there yet with that decision.

They can definitely um be a part of the different workshops that we offer to help them make the best decision for them and their family.

We have our phone number here, which is 832-393-0550.

They can call this number at any time after they apply to get chat um status updates as well as if they have general questions about any of our program.

But last but not least, they can also send us an email to single family eligibility at Houston TX.gov, and we will answer them within 24 to 48 hours.

And that is it.

That's that's all that we have.

But like I stated before, we have information about all the programs that we spoke of today, as well as some good merch for you.

So you could take one share.

So um, and we thank you so much for the opportunity for um being able to come and talk to you.

So I'm gonna give this back over to Ms.

Porter to close us out.

Again, again, if you guys have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

Um, and this is another number that you can call 832-394-6200.

Please don't hesitate to reach out to us.

Tasha and I are typically available to speak to people on a regular basis, and we're always out in the communities and talking to people.

So, and if you know someone that wants us to come out, an organization, look at them out because we want to get the word out of the programs that we we offer because we want to spend the money.

Okay, thank you.

Okay, and next up, it's time to talk property taxes.

All right.

Okay.

The room said.

We have from Harris County Tax Assessor Office, Mailing Lynn and Freddie Gomez.

Come on up.

Next.

And this will be the topic, but today, uh, since I only have 20 minutes.

So I'm gonna just briefly uh briefly some of the uh slides I will I will just pass by.

Uh today I would like to focus on major league currently uh the hot topic of protest.

Okay, as well as all right.

I feel we are all just receiving our appraisal value notice.

All right, uh, we are not happy about that.

Let's go with uh negotiator with educate.

Uh also I want to talk about a little bit more about over 65 exemption, as I can see.

Uh, I think I got good information for this specific area.

Um this is just an uh brief introduction about uh how the tax office is serving for the community, uh not just uh uh property tax today.

Uh we are going to talk about we also uh maintain our voter registration role, uh, your voter registration, you come to text office.

Also some of the auto service, uh, our annual registration sticker, that one you come to text office, or if you need any like a temporary or permanent, hopefully not permanent, no temporary, like uh handicap product card, you come to text office too.

All right.

Uh and this is just our um, okay.

Currently, uh just announcements, and many people might already know, but some of them might not uh be because we still see the people come to our office on Wednesday.

So this for specifically for the branch office, uh for the auto service.

Um we are actually uh closed so far until further notice.

Uh every Wednesday we are closed.

Uh we close to the public, but our employee, we are still working inside the building.

Okay.

Um next one, just a little bit introduce.

Uh H County, almost two million uh tax accounts and the tax office we collect 8.2 annually, and um within Harris County, uh H County Tax Office, we own well 82 is the tax jurisdiction we collect, but with Harris County, there's more than 600 tax, yes, yeah, tax jurisdiction.

So you might wonder what about those out of this 82.

So the homeowner, you will receive the extra bill from the specific uh tax jurisdiction.

I receive two because my mud, uh they didn't uh well, tax office didn't cover me with that one.

So I receive two.

Some of the homeowner I know they receive three or even four.

Okay.

Uh next one.

So actually, you how much you pay for your property tax has nothing to do with tax office act.

Okay, we just responsible to collect the bill.

All right, but have everything with edge cat.

So I'm going to take uh a little bit of time to talking about the responsibility for edge cat.

So edge cat they actually responsible for gets back.

Uh appraisal protest, and they are also the one manage the exemption.

So for the appraisal value, uh we just receive it.

All right.

So appraisal value have everything to do how much we are gonna pay with our property tax.

So if we don't like it, we don't think it's justified.

Uh we actually, as a homeowner, we are able to file a protest time and uh late later on.

Uh there is uh deadlines.

Remember to apply with your protest by the deadline.

Okay.

And uh I don't know, at this time we actually have two different ways.

One is by electronical file, the other is by traditional, you can mail in or in person going to their office.

How many people already file with electronically before?

Okay.

So any one of you try ISATO, this feature.

No?

Okay.

All right.

So I'm going to take a little bit of time talking about the protest.

Now there are two ways.

You can file electronically, also, just like I told you, uh, it is a traditional one.

But I highly recommend everybody you can file electronically into the what they call the i file system.

All right.

On your appraisal notice, there is an I file number that you can just file electronically, create your account.

When you get into the iFile system, if you file electronically, homeowner got a chance to use what we call the feature called ISETO.

So this ISIL is a lot of homeowner.

We can just name our price price price tag.

All right.

And you can just uh put your number over there, submit to the educate.

Educat will just review your number based on their evidence material.

If they accept, congratulations.

I really actually run into several homeowners.

Their first try, educate just accept it.

Done with your protest.

That's a nice one.

Easy breathing.

If educator doesn't agree, they will counter back with another number.

So now the boards come back to the homeowner.

We are the one to see, all right, now it's really getting into a negotiation phase.

If I agree with that, done with your protest.

But if we don't agree, I still feel this is too high.

I stick with the number I want at this point.

The whole process will move into informal hearing.

At this time, informal hearing, you are talking to one of the appraisers from educate, talking to them.

All right.

And at this point, if it's nobody uh agreed with this number, then it will move into formal hearing.

Through the home or formal hearing, you are going to add another what we call the ARB board.

Yeah, ARB board will be become like more like a judge to determine the disagreement between you and appraiser.

All right, okay.

So for this ARB, uh you can choose either one person or three members of the panel.

Uh, we always recommend to do three.

Okay, so you got a different opinion rather than one person dictate the uh the final result.

So at this point, uh, well, hopefully, most of the time, uh, every case is supposed to stop right here, settle right here.

Uh if homeowners still not happy with that, uh, rarely, then this can escalate to the state level.

Uh, barely, uh, but that's what we call the arbitration.

All right, but we will just skip that one.

All right, so uh, can we go back a little bit?

Yes.

So for for the protest, all right.

Uh and for the protest, the the for the traditional way it's immediately go into the informal hearing and then formal hearing.

Okay, so uh everyone here, I I highly recommend you try it maybe this year.

We will we'll see how how it goes.

Uh I would say uh give give yourself a little bit uh like uh wiggle room to name your price tag, that will be uh very good experience if you can just uh pass with the first try.

And also uh educate also the one um to do the exemption.

So later on, all the exemption homeowner will apply to educate for their approval.

Yes, next one.

Thank you.

And another one is the uh property text database.

This is a database that's website actually.

Uh, this one will start from August after most of uh uh the protest file uh case has already settled.

This will be the text jurisdiction to recur uh record it post any kind of uh tax rate status during August through October.

Okay, I personally find find this this website is really uh responsive.

Uh the all the different status uh very much updated very quickly.

So in this one, it will have all the text jurisdictions that charge on your property.

They will have a listed all the proposed rate, tax rates, uh, or it has been passed, it's also updated.

They also have the hearing date.

So you know, if you want to go in person, talk to your text jurisdiction authority.

This is a good website to take advantage of.

Okay, next.

All right, so this is just a small little uh formula as you can see.

On the text uh on the right side, is that the final text field, but you know, from the very beginning, you can see the text full value is the first element, and this textbook values is equal to appraisal value minus the exemption.

What does that mean?

We want our appraisal value as low as possible and our exemption as high as possible, right?

Okay, and for this part, it's go to tech uh in here, educate from January through July.

The second part that I was talking about the tax rate and August through October at the very end.

Yes, go ahead.

I want to do a pop a pop quiz.

How many how many of you know the city of Houston's tax rate?

Pop quiz.

It's what?

Oh wow.

It's eight and a quarter.

That's the sales tax.

That's your state sales tax.

1.13, okay.

Yes.

4%.

Um if this was the price is right, I will call you down.

Yes your city of Houston tax rate is 0.519.

So look at 0.519.

And you can look up your entire tax bill and see every entity.

The city of Houston has the lowest tax rate.

We did not increase your tax rate this past fall, October 2026 is when we make that vote.

So you pay uh 0.519290 per every hundred dollar.

That's how we calculate your tax rate.

So it's 0.519.

And we have a cap, so we can only go up so much.

Yes, sir.

Every year it goes up.

Every government taxing entity approves their tax rate.

The rate goes up 100% every year.

I think that's a great question to bring to the HCC trustees that you elect.

Yeah, I think that's a when they when their tax rate is on the ballot and there's public session.

I want to encourage you to get there to ask those questions.

And then you have elected HCC trustees who should be available to you to explain when and how they calculate that.

But as for the city of Houston, we are 0.519.

So if anyone pop quizzes, y'all again, we are not 825.

8.25 is your sales tax.

Uh, when you swipe your card for Amazon, when you go to Chili's to dinner, when you do all of those things, you'll see an 8.25 sales tax.

That's the senior's discount.

Um I know.

I know.

I I can't speak on that, but uh I want you to keep your eyes on our tax rate, and then in the fall, and we normally inform you of when this comes up to vote um in the newsletter, so we can have you to participate.

And so when you think of all of your your public school entities, so if you're an HISD, all dean, KDISD, HCC, Harris County, Harris County flood control, hospital district, there's a taxing entity.

So I want to encourage you in order, you know, we have to master our money, and although the city of Houston's um services are more public-facing in terms of that.

Um everyone's contributing to all of the uh taxing entities, and so it's really important as you understand your taxes, you understand your rates and how they're calculated.

Okay.

Okay, so uh just one information for the gentleman.

Every tax jurisdiction, they are allowed to raise up to 3.5% every year.

If it's more than this threshold, then uh an election is supposed to uh raise for the voter approval.

So yes, they they can keep increasing the rates.

Yes, yes, it's it's also one of the individual tax jurisdictions.

Not I don't think it's go up 100%, yeah.

Okay, all right, but you know, all the tax tax rate you actually can go found on the educate website.

If you have a phone right now, you go to educate.org.

They have a tab called jurisdiction, and you put it into tax jurisdiction name, you can see the tax rate.

So same as the city of Houston.

All right, so uh this is just from last year, and uh this increase with the uh homestead exemption has already factored in as well as over 65.

So a homeowner who is over 65, start from last year is already uh already enjoyed for the school tax for 200,000 exemption.

All right, that's way to go.

Next, um, this is just a layout of uh uh educated our tax jurisdiction.

Taxing jurisdiction.

Okay, on your bill.

So when you get your bill, they'll say taxing jurisdiction, and then it'll say your exemptions, how much you they're gonna exempt you, then the value of what's exempted, and then per 100.

So as an example, Houston ISD is 0.86, Harris County, 0.38.

Now, as a caveat, when there's a natural disaster, Derecho, barrel, there's a state you statute in the state to allow us to uh accommodate that up to 8%, I believe.

I believe it's up to 8%.

Um Harris County flood control, the port of Houston.

I meant I didn't mention that one.

Here's Harris County Hospital District is 0.16 port authority 0.006, Harris County Department of Education, 0.004, HCC 0.096, City of Houston 0.519, and then that's the total.

That's what you would ultimately pay.

5688.72.

If this is your calculation, and if you're not a senior, right?

See, I I really can't see your council member really care how much you get you know get charged, you know.

Well, they call me my my my daddy when I was elected to the school board uh like over 10 years ago.

Um my my daddy said your number one job is make sure I don't pay no more taxes.

I don't have no kids in school, and I was like, no, daddy, that's not how that works.

Right.

I'm like, daddy, no, no, no.

We need to fund all right.

So this is just the lower part of the bill.

And uh for this one, yes, is it a question?

Yeah, yes.

So I'm totally so I I don't want to seem like I'm disorganized, but I have several properties, and I don't always get my tax bill, so of course I'm not always protesting my taxes.

So the site that you gave us on one of the slides.

Can I go to that site to just get all my tax bills so I can just protest everything?

Or is there a site that I can go to to pull up all my tax bills?

Um, so I can just go and protest all of them.

Uh well, that side is just uh list the order tax jurisdiction.

You know, uh, can you go back to earlier?

Uh I was talking about actually those tax jurisdictions is only covered by tax office, right?

So this might not necessarily all your property tax bill occluded because you might you might also receive the other tax jurisdictions bill, right?

Uh but for that site earlier I was talking about one more.

Yes.

This is the one.

It will list all of them.

Okay, but this site only gets uh very activated.

Uh start from June, end of July, you know.

Yes, it's it's already passed.

This one is only good for the tax rate.

All right.

Right.

But if you want to see the whole uh tax jurisdiction on the property on a specific property, you can go to educate.org.

When you do search property, you pull the either your address or homeowner's name.

Uh for that specific one, it will list all of them.

Same as this one.

Yeah, it's just a tax office.

We only can cover 82 out of more than 600.

We didn't cover all of them.

So if you want to a full list, go to educate.org or uh this this tax rate website will also help.

Okay.

And then smelling, we have a question back here.

All right.

Uh, yes.

Can we go back to where she was explaining all these different entities and what they different entity uh one more right there?

Okay, right there.

So when you add all those up, is that where we get the 5.19?

Does all that equal?

No, no, no.

Okay.

That's just the city of Houston tax rate.

Okay.

So it's gonna show you each jurisdiction.

Some of you may live in MUDs, right?

So you may have a MUD that shows up.

Right.

So this is gonna show you each entity that that your home and what they charge.

And what they charge, the rate, the value of what they can do, and the rate per 100, and then the total.

So at the 56, six 5688 at the bottom is the total tax bill.

So when you pay your total tax bill, it's a culmination of all of your taxing uh jurisdictions.

Does it show the total tax rate?

Yes, on each one.

Ex the total, not the individual, but the total.

Yes.

So right, you'll have to talk, but it's your it'll give you your total taxes.

I know it'll give you that.

I want to know what the total tax rate.

Right.

So then two slides before she talked about how to calculate your tax rate, right?

It should show it there, showing all the individuals.

You just add them together.

Just total it.

You just add it.

It's just 0.51.

It's just we can talk about that after the section, not a problem.

Okay, let's let's keep going on.

Okay, so uh homestead.

I believe everybody's supposed to have that at least one for your homestead.

All right, I was talking about for the school tax.

Now it's from last year, it's already increased to 140,000.

Uh, another perk about the homestead, if you have this, is the second one is 10% appraisal in increase cap.

What does that mean?

That means okay, on our appraisal notice, we can see there are two numbers: market value and appraisal value.

And most likely you might see there's a gap in between.

Have you and anyone understand what's this two difference on the price?

Okay, so the market value.

Market value is the number that's around your area, all the recent transactions in your neighborhood from last year.

Okay, so if you are going to sell your house, the market value pretty much that's what you can refer to.

As for the appraisal value, that's specifically for the property tax calculation.

A lot of people say, Oh, I don't want to uh protest my uh appraisal notice to the educate because I don't want my appraisal value lower, and then when I sell the house, then I have a lower market value.

No, this is two different numbers.

If you want to sell the house, that's based on your market value.

But when you pay the tax, it's it's based on the appraisal value.

All right, so homeowner, uh, I'm a homeowner, I protest every year.

Okay, all right.

So this 10%, can we go back?

Uh 10%.

So as we all know, uh market value can go increase, you know, especially like a crazy during COVID, 20-30% every year.

However, with the homestead, this 10% that means educate can only appraise your value, no more 10% from previous year.

So that's how the homeowner can be protected by this skyrocketing housing market.

Okay, so this is a very important one.

If the homeowner has this uh 10% cap.

And that's the reason.

Every year, homeown uh educator can only increase 10%, but market value can go 20, 30, 50 over years.

That's the reason why the gap is getting get bigger and bigger.

Yes, insurance insurance more than what the market or price value is the taxes with price taxes of the whole house.

Okay, so I will I will talk about a lot uh a little bit about if you are doing your remodels.

If if it's increase, you are your insurance insurance insurance.

You mean the homeowner insurance?

Insurance homeowner insurance.

Okay, so I have more insurance.

Right.

So you need to you need to you need to talk to your insurance company, how how they based on, you know, because they are private.

I I didn't know they might they might refer to educate information, or maybe they have assets about what's the current market value.

You need to call your insurance company how they based on that.

Okay, yeah, so so this is uh goes to your insurance company for your homeowner insurance.

Okay, and this is just an example uh how much exemption can save a homeowner.

Um three scenario.

Oh, this is just based on the 400,000 dollars.

Okay, but this is not like I mean, this is 400,000, they might still get a different bill based on the location.

But this is just uh the whole side just give everybody how much exemption can save homeowner money on the left hand side when there is no exemption, 8500.

When in the in the middle, when the homestead kick in, immediately save you almost 3,000.

In addition to on the homestead, if a homeowner also qualifies for five or disability, you can say almost 7,000 and the final bill is only 1500.

It's it's less than one fourth of the original one.

Okay, and so it's homestead is an exception only for USA residents or USA citizens or undocumented people that also have property that pay taxes.

Are they allowed to get homestead exempt?

Okay, so so for the homestead, there are two criteria.

The homeowner needs to have the ownership.

The second one is the homeowner should stay physically live in that specific property.

Okay, it's it's a major these two.

Uh it doesn't matter if you are citizenship or or you are a green caller.

It requests you to have a Texas ID or driver's license.

And yes, you know, yes.

If that's if you did and they don't have that.

That's the part.

Yes, that's the tricky part.

It has to escalate to the states.

You know, this is the state regulation.

And can they apply or they cannot apply?

You need to.

So no, uh, the question is no.

I mean, I mean the answer is no.

Yes, if you don't have a driver license with that property, you want to claim as a homestead.

No, you cannot do that.

You cannot apply for that specific one.

Okay.

Uh all right.

Over over 65.

So this is one uh I will take a little bit time.

So the first one.

Homeowner, if you are turning 65 for this year, uh, you can start to apply.

You don't have to wait until you fully turn uh 65.

For example, if if a homeowner uh turn over turn 65 off officially in December 1st, uh this homeowner actually can start to apply this over 65 exemption, start from January, because this exemption is applied to the whole entire year.

All right, so it doesn't matter when you bong in which month you can start to apply.

All right.

The second one uh is for the disability, of course, the people uh is already under the federal uh disability program.

You you can have that.

Also, another much more uh detail if you need doctor's prescription.

I advise everyone, you can visit edge.org.

They have all the criteria, you know, information, application form, very detailed.

I would say just go by with the instruction, you will be fine.

Uh, the most important thing for the over 65 and disability from yet uh from last year, or uh school tax already increased to $60,000.

The second one uh I want to talk about is for the next one, tax ceiling and the tax deferral.

Can we get that?

Yes.

So this is tax ceiling tax deferral, or what we see right here, tax limitation, they are talking about the same thing.

All right, how does that work?

For example, the homeowner gets approved with over 65 this year.

If she or he uh pay school tax, say 1,000 this year.

Going forward, this homeowner's school tax will never ever go above 1,000.

It can go lower, but it won't go higher.

However, many homeowners accidentally break this ceiling by accident, just like I say.

If the homeowner uh have a big remodel, adding a swimming pool, adding uh tennis scores that substantially increase your property value.

Educator will come to reset this ceiling.

The next one I want to talk about is tax deferral.

Specifically, again, uh, not everybody qualified, but over 65 disability or disabled veterans.

This is the ones uh we will encourage our homeowner if you qualify, take this one as an insurance policy, because for this tax deferral, if you get approve it, you are legally allowed to postpone your tax at 5% price for the whole entire year.

And therefore, since if you do have a difficulty to pay your property, this is the one can prevent uh for the foreclosure since you are legally to delay to postpone your payments.

And uh how many minutes I have?

I can take a one or two.

Zero, okay.

You know what?

I will stay.

So if you have a question, one one question.

Okay, one question.

Here's my question.

It's regarding the freeze.

Okay.

So let's say one of the spouses is over 65 and they have the uh exemption in place, right?

And let's just say the freeze is for a hundred thousand dollars.

Okay.

So then let's say that spouse passes away.

Okay, and the second spouse is over 65.

So my question is number one, would the new spouse now surviving spouse, would they have to file for another over 65 exemption?

And the second question is with that freeze amount change.

You see what I'm saying?

Yes.

Okay, so there are different situations for the surviving spouse, you know, at the Texas, we take a married couple as a one.

So if the homeowner, uh one of the spouse passes away, and the you know, he or she already have over 65.

The surviving spouse, if over 65, not sorry, over 55, they are allowed to continue with that one.

Okay, so that's a protection for the surviving spouse.

Yes.

All right.

So over 55.

Okay.

If one of the spouses passed away, and uh he or she already have over 65 exemption, the other spouse, the surviving spouse, if they are over 55, 55, they are allowed to continue with this exemption.

Okay, yeah.

And I will stay on the back.

You know, after that, if you do have a question, I'm happy to answer your question later on.

All right.

Okay, everyone.

So at this time we're gonna have Arturo Bazan from Houston from Houston Public Works.

Um, and he's gonna be going over the code enforcement process.

So let's go ahead and give a round of applause for him.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Um thank you so much for waiting for us.

Um joined here by my uh esteemed colleague.

Um can you hear me now?

Okay, I'll speak a little louder.

I'm trying to use my indoor voice.

I'm so sorry.

Um, I normally work out in the field.

Um, my associate here, um, Mr.

Almer, David Almer, he's uh uh assistant director.

He he works on also um at our office in public works, and um today we're uh tasked with uh informing you with um what we do.

I think a lot of you already are familiar with what what we do and in a certain capacity that we tend to uh show up and uh inspect properties that are um um in violation of city ordinance, and um particularly chapter 10 is what we mainly handle.

That's our our wheelhouse that we handle.

And uh one of our main things that we uh enforce is uh dangerous buildings, dangerous buildings or can be any building that's uh in any condition that's unsecure from unlawful entry.

It can be a new construction that was abandoned that's you know not fenced in properly, that sort of thing is what we do, and we try to you know uh keep these buildings secure because um whether they're uh big or small, commercial residential, it doesn't matter.

We we we rely on the public's uh complaints to come in and and uh we go out and investigate them and notify the owners and and uh hopefully get them secured uh without you know um uh assessing any fines.

So in some cases, we'll we'll do an emergency abatement if it calls for it, you know, if it's in you know directly impacting uh senior citizens, for example, or right next to an elementary school, that sort of thing that's you know a major hazard.

And so we um you know look forward to your complaints on that.

Um along with um our bread and butter, I call it our nuisance inspections is what we handle the majority of the time.

Uh we get calls from uh 311.

We're complaint driven just like everybody else.

We can't go door to door, we go where they send us, and we show up to assess whether or not there's any kind of unsafe conditions, you know, to the uh you do the next slide for me.

Yeah, the um the soil or the ground, you know, if there's any contaminated water, polluted air, unsafe spoiled food.

You know, what does that all that mean?

You know, I was just at a vacant lot over in uh third warden yesterday that smelled like uh somebody dumped off their uh post callfish boil leftovers.

Oh yes, I love that smell in the morning.

It's not my favorite, but it's part of my job.

But yeah, it's uh you know, it's it'll uh it'll spoil your lunch if you let it, but we're there to assess it and make sure that the owner knows what's going on with their property, and in most cases, if they're totally abandoned, we will step in and do uh an abatement.

And that's why I was there completing a survey to measure it out and make sure that it's you know, uh ready for contractor abatement.

And so we look also um, yes, and we also handle uh rubbish.

Rubbish is pretty much basically any bit of material that doesn't necessarily break down so easy.

Um anything uh, you know, usually household items that are scattered about.

Um scrap tires are one of my favorites because those hardly ever decompose their they tend to stay around forever, and those are heavily regulated by the state.

So that's why we tend to find them, you know, on the side of the road, because not everybody wants to uh dispose of them properly.

And so we you know, we we tend to deal with with that along with certain properties, like for example, up in fifth ward, there's a lot of rentals.

Um vacates happen, you know, landlord says, hey, don't put this stuff from your previous tenant on the curb in front of my house.

I don't want to get a ticket from solid waste.

Just put it on in front of that lot across the street.

My neighbor won't mind.

Let the city get it.

That's just seems like the be the uh ongoing uh you know attitude that I get over the years that I've been doing this is you know, just put it on the curb, let the city get it.

So it's just looks awful, and that's just not the proper way of disposing things, you know.

We have a lot of resources available and a lot of options, uh disposing of of um rubbish in this city.

And uh, you know, anybody can call 311 and and uh access those whenever possible.

Um our favorite thing to do, especially when uh summertime hits, rain gets the uh weeds to sprouting, as we will or aware of, along with all the allergies that come with it.

Um I call it mosquito season.

I don't really enjoy it.

It's uh you know uh one of the main things we do is we try to tackle all a lot of these uh weeded lots, especially uh uh near you know elementary schools, um, also um, you know, impacting any uh senior citizens.

That's we try to look out for them as much as possible.

And um, you know, we we tend to go after you know whoever um is not maintaining the property, and that also includes um you know, keeping the grass, you know, less than nine inches, you know, anything taller than nine inches in violation city ordinance.

And uh it also includes you notice the uh trimming the shrubs, which is kind of a strange one because not everybody pays attention to shrubbery.

I do because it tends to create these hiding spots for uh you know, unsavory people to hide in and do all sorts of things.

So I try to encourage the owner of the property to you know um cultivate is the word we like to use because when we write her on the plaque, we say um, you know, please uh you know take care of the uncultivated um uh shrubs in your property, and that way you can you know kind of create some visibility, which is important um for a lot of reasons.

Safety being the main thing is uh you want to be able to create a lot of visibility, you know, for you and your neighbors to keep an eye on each other, you know, whether you're in town or not, you know, you want to be able to see what's going on out there, and uh a lot of times I discourage people from building you know privacy fences.

I know it creates privacy for a lot of folks, but it tends to take away their visibility and make them more susceptible to getting dumped on in front of their property, which is still the responsibility to maintain.

Also, you know, some you know uh aspiring graffiti artists may decide, hey, that fence looks like it's ready, it looks like a blank canvas.

Let's go ahead and tag that fence up.

And guess who gets written up for it?

You do because you're the owner of the fence.

So anyway, so it's just you know, everybody to each his own, but you know, I try to kind of point these uh things out to you know to uh inform the public of what they can do to sort of uh deter uh nuisance violations in the future.

Uh so next slide.

This is one of our least favorite uh violations because this one is can be very complicated, you know, it can take a while, you know, sort of like the dangerous buildings, but junk motor vehicles are regulated by the state of Texas, and we enforce it through city ordinance.

Now, uh junk motor vehicle is you know, it has a certain definition.

You know, for most of us, you know, we see a car, it's got a flat tire, you know, it's got an expired tag.

More than likely it's you know, either an abandoned vehicle on the street, or if it's on private property, it's inoperable.

But let us figure out whether or not it's uh in violation of city ordinance.

So call it in, we'll check it out for you.

Now, whether it's in our wheelhouse, meaning that if it's on private property, it's um has these defects, whether it's inoperable, doesn't have a battery, it's missing parts, that sort of thing that's been sitting there.

We can assess as code enforcement officers whether or not that vehicle is in violation of city ordinance.

Well, then our job is to notify the property owner.

And if it's an occupied property, sometimes we'll we'll ask them permission to go ahead and tag that vehicle.

When we do get permission to tag the vehicle, what we're doing is we're actually going a step further.

So we're not only notifying the property owner for allowing that violation to happen on their property as open storage, we're also notifying the registered owner of that vehicle, whoever that may be.

It might be the previous owner, who knows.

But we're still doing the the we're going through the process.

Sometimes there'll be lien holders involved, what you know, whichever interested party they're gonna get their notice.

So when it comes time for towing, which we are doing, um it will have already gone through its process, it's due process, we call it, and we can rightfully tow, remove that vehicle, and uh dispose of it, which means they're not getting it back.

It's going to kind of difference between gallery.

Right.

And that's what I'm I'm glad you asked that question because it's part of the same law is what we cover is the nuisance part, which is on private property.

The abandoned vehicles, the other half of that, the other edge of that sword, which is covered by Park Houston.

Park Houston usually handles the vehicles that are on the street.

That means that that they're you know, out there with some defects longer than usually 24 hours is when they start really, really looking at it.

They'll come out, chalk up the tires, see if they've moved after 24 hours, they come back, sight it, and then after the second citation, they call in HPD to come and tow it, and they impound the vehicle, meaning they get to go bail it out of the uh impound lot.

Now, there's a certain gray area that no one really pays attention to until we get called out.

Is these savvy uh people who are trying to avoid citations for parking out on the street, they're trying to avoid the vehicle being tagged on the private property by us.

They'll get smart and decide, well, let's just park it on the easement.

I don't care if I'm blocking the sidewalk, let's just park it in this gray area because we know that you know this is kind of a safe spot.

Whether they know this or not, we can still enforce it as open storage.

We may not be able to tow it, but we get HPD involved, and they will help them or encourage them to make up their mind.

Either they're gonna park it on the street, park it somewhere else, or park it back on the property, hopefully within you know, an enclosed garage, hopefully, or out of you know, the public's view.

So there's different ways of regulating vehicles in the city, but we have to be involved to kind of assess where it needs to go to, you know.

Uh park Houston, very helpful.

You know, they they do their part, they have their hands full, and so do we, and HPD, they really don't like to be bothered unless it's like something really serious, and I usually don't lean on them unless I have to.

So I try my best to do um our enforcement with our notices and try to you know get some movement, you know, from the uh property owner.

So when we have a question, I'll question and they are uh they're neither one have tags on them.

We we've been trying to get them towed, they backed off and we turned in through 311, and they said they couldn't do anything because they were in his driveway.

And with them being in his driveway, is that storage?

Is that where I need to call you?

Am I calling the wrong people?

Is what I'm asking.

No, sir.

You you're doing the right thing.

Um 311.

Keep in mind they're they're doing their job as far as creating service requests for, and our job is to to see you, your department rather than uh rather than uh uh it's not HPD, it was uh parks uh park, yeah, park using parks now, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So just to answer the question that you're asking specifically about working on cars in your driveway, that is not a community code enforcement uh enforceable, it's a it's a building code violation, so that requires them to obtain a certificate of occupy to run a business from their home.

Right, and he also said that they're working on them, so the working on them part now aren't you HPD that has nothing to do with any building code enforcement?

So the part that I'm addressing with him is is I can get them on a totally different violation, which is under the building code that says they need a certificate of oxygen to run that business out of that home, and I'll make them move their cars either way.

That's the easiest way to do it.

So, what part of you need me to repeat?

Oh, so what when the building code they have to have a certificate of occupancy to run a business from their house.

Now that is provided that there is no deed restrictions, too, right?

So there's a bunch of key factors that play into that.

If there's deed restrictions, but as the building department, if they come in and apply for that certificate of our thing, we don't go in and look at their D restrictions because they're gonna sign a paper with us that an affidavit that states that they're agreeing that there's no deed restrictions against this property.

Now, this is where they're gonna get it, they're gonna get that certificate of occupy.

I'm not saying they will, but if they do get it, we're not gonna go into their D districtes and look at it.

The deed restriction is gonna have to get file a claim against them to try to argue that fact.

Hold on one second, hold on one second.

Okay, had an individual operating um an auto repair shop from his home.

You could clearly see it.

Um in the driveway, some cars parked on the street, etc.

HPD is called numerous times, auto dealers, uh the people that I think they're housed on Washington.

If I'm not sure, yeah, they're at 1002, yeah.

Uh okay.

So I don't work in that building.

I'm just gonna tell everybody right now.

I know I know the drill.

Called on them numerous numerous times, sent pictures, emails to the HOA.

It was a nuisance, etc.

HPD, all they said was, well, I gotta see him actually doing it.

So well, you don't come out when I call you, so no, we it's a long process.

We will come out, not you all.

No, no, even HPD.

HPD has so they have to be witness first hand witness to the violation.

They have to.

That that's the only way that they can they can act.

The only way the building code enforcement team can act on what you're saying is we have to have visual signage.

There has to be something that says, or I can go on if I can find them online, which I find you'd be surprised how many people I find advertised online.

I mean, I have I have social media things that a guy as old as me shouldn't even have.

I only do it to track these companies and these businesses and these nightclubs and all these things.

That's the only reason why I even have them.

But if they're advertising, I can get them.

If they're not advertising and we walk up there and there's nobody out there working, it's it's it's the homeowner's word against the complaint's word.

That's where it gets kind of unbalanced.

But you have documentation, pitches, etc.

of it, and nothing was ever resolved until one person on the horse came and put him in check from HPD because he knew a sergeant, I won't call his name.

He did.

He came out and put him in check and told him to stop operating the business.

But that's good.

I mean, if he can catch them and he and he has to do it, I'm gonna tell you uh HPD definitely has more authority on that side of things than the building code enforcement teams do.

It's just the way that it is, unfortunately.

But I want the homeowners to be aware that the person operating the shop can also come against person reporting him, and uh it's dangerous.

Okay.

Retaliation is real.

I mean, there's no doubt about it.

I personally know that.

I mean, I agree.

I I I hear people come to my office all the time, they want to tell me the stories.

I hear a lot of stories about this is why you know we don't really do anything because the person at this address is gonna flatten my tires or bust out of my window.

I've I hear a lot of things about a lot of I mean it ranges from their cars to their houses to break-ins to their hacking my phones.

I mean, I hear I hear a lot of things that happen that people do to people for retaliation efforts.

Yeah, we'll talk about right now.

Let me uh give me give me one second.

I'm I'm just gonna one, let me start with hi, I'm David Almer.

I am the assistant chief for building code enforcement.

Um I have a team of 12 people.

I'm down five.

Uh just so straight out the gate, I just like to be honest with people.

We're doing the best job that we can.

The community cook code enforcement team is doing the best job that they can.

I am also over the junk motor vehicle team.

I am also over the prohibited yard parking team, and I am also over the up and coming graffiti team.

I said up and coming, so don't hit me too hard.

It's coming, it's not out yet.

But um, so but I would I will say that if you have questions for me specifically in lieu of time, because my time manager is back in the backpack there, and he likes to make sure that I stay on time.

So if you have a question for me, please just meet me in the back so you can get my business card.

I'll answer your question to the best of my ability.

And if I don't have a an answer for you right now, I promise you, if you give me an email address or you email me, I will get you the answer to your question.

Deal?

All right.

Thank you, Mr.

Almer.

Appreciate your time.

All right.

So that hopefully uh satisfies the uh junk motor vehicle portion of this uh presentation.

Let's move on to graffiti, uh, which is pretty basic.

Um we're in the uh process of revamping the uh the abatement procedure.

We're we're trying to uh include a hearing as long as uh the uh owners willing to show up, of course, but also wanted to point out that murals are um exempt from you know the graffiti ordinance because they tend to look a lot nicer and they discourage these uh these taggers.

So that's one thing that that we um you know that's helpful.

Um next slide please.

Okay, so there's uh a limited tool that we use is you know a citation.

Now a lot of times we we generally don't get uh signature from the recipient, which makes it a little harder to enforce, but it at least gets their attention because it's another form of notice to get them to go talk to a judge about their violation on their property that they're responsible for.

And uh a lot of times, you know, uh if they want to fight the ticket, then they invite us to come into court, and then we get to present our evidence of what we found on the property and compare it with the uh what's being presented and whether or not it needs to go to trial.

Uh a lot of times these citations are resolved in a municipal court.

Um uh with the prosecutor.

Um we tend to uh resolve it, you know, with um some kind of uh plea agreement sometimes or we'll do a uh dismissal because by the time this gets to uh that point the owners decided to go ahead and correct the violation, which is you know it's a win-win for all of us.

So uh but this you know type of citation is just a uh it's a classy misdemeanor.

It's it's you know basically a traffic ticket.

It's it's not as um, it doesn't carry jail time.

I mean, so we we tend to uh you know use it sparingly, but we do use it and it gets people's attention.

So on the uh reporting side to the 311, like uh we were talking about you know, you can use the 311.

You can also um uh reporting system.

There um I know we were talking about fence lines earlier.

I think the legal department mentioned something about the eight-foot rule.

Uh it's the limit, you know, that's uh regulated.

It's mainly, you know, because of the the wind, you know, if it's anything taller than that.

We enforce um on the community code, we enforce fences that are in disrepair um or in danger of falling on someone.

So we will write them up for it.

Is we call it a uh minimum standard code, and we will get them to either repair it or remove it.

So get it out of the way.

And we also um I wanted to mention that we we do enforce open storage of refuse materials.

So if your neighbors got a bunch of paint buckets or scrap, you know, leftover material from a job or whatever, we will get them to you know store it properly, preferably off the ground or inside a garage or something like that out of plain view.

Um wanted to touch a little bit on uh the whole overcrowding.

I think we kind of already um sort of address that with the legal department that you know is happening all over town.

You got multi-generational people living in one home.

We've got all these extra vehicles, they're all in the way and causing a whole lot of uh headaches for everyone.

And so, you know, just yeah, all you can do is just you know keep calling it in.

And if you've got a direct line to your city council member, you can always get in touch with them and like always tell them, you know, get on a first name basis with them.

And uh that way they know that you're calling again and and let them know what's happening, that way they can help you um accordingly.

Um so you know the um reporting systems pretty basic.

I mean, you can call it in, or you can use if you're tech savvy, you can use the uh the the app in 311.

Um I do want to give you this one pointer is to hang on to your service request number, you know, whether they give it to you verbally or they send it to you on an email, keep track of it.

Um because that number will stay in a system, you know, for as long as possible.

I mean, preferably not too long that you can give resolution, but what you can do is call back after a month and say, hey, I need to escalate this complaint, and their job is to have a supervisor call you within 24 or 48 hours and and give you direct response why something hasn't been done or what they have done, which is always good.

So I just wanted to point that out.

And that you know, the the whole process, you know, you know, takes a while, you know, to get it through the system, but it's there for a reason is to keep track of it so we can have a record of it.

And uh I think the next slide is this is our form of notice.

We do uh yellow placard, which yellow placards, and uh we also do a mail uh mail-in form of um notice to the uh owner of record with HCAD, whoever they may be, whether it's up to date or not, where it's part of our process.

We we keep records of all these, so we we uh we have a photographic evidence or of the yellow placards in the yard, and so it doesn't matter if they get removed by the you know, whoever um and then you know the the uh the notice that they receive in the mail.

That's all we need to proceed forward with our legal actions is what our next um remedy is.

So that's what you're seeing there.

And so, you know, we use different tools.

You'll see us out there either measuring or taking photos, you know.

Um for brief time, we were doing a lot of uh what we called emergency cuts.

legal actions is what our next um remedy is so that's what you're seeing there and so you know we use different tools you'll see us out there either measuring or taking photos you know um uh for a brief time we were doing a lot of uh what we called emergency cuts and um we would use this measuring scale to measure anything over 48 inches to um to do the media cut um to a lot that and just skip the whole notice process and uh we're allowed to do that by state law all right well um we're located at 601 Sawyer if you ever feel like you want to drop by and and uh ask us more questions feel free to contact us uh our phone numbers there is at 832 3940600 um you can um also uh contact us through our um um through our um I guess social media platforms if you feel so and um I thank you so much for waiting for me and thank you for your time um I guess I'll take no we're gonna uh close the program and then allow them to come to y'all directly you can come to me directly and ask us some questions in the back wonderful thank you put your hands together for public works they're not leaving they're gonna be right there in the back we just wanted to close the program so y'all can network with each other and then talk to the additional resources the tax assessor um I think housing lesson information you have the information from Rice and Rice Pop Quiz what's the only department um that you do not report 311 to no city legal city legal city legal city legal this is my faculty hat coming on I'm gonna put my tenure professor on pop quiz so anything related to legal compliance of your deeds the legal department has their particular email that information has been left any other constituent concerned it's 311 for district F residents roll that baby up to us use your smartphone take a photo um and then next week we'll make sure that we roll out the uh video all the present PowerPoint presentations and the contact information of our speakers agreed I want to conclude the program I want to appreciate my staff rice and rice coovies that y'all enjoy the breakfast that is a district F business right there off the Eldridge and West timer I cater th use them for catering for Chris's breakfast also please patronize local business network with each other many of y'all are resources to each other so please share your contact information because we are better and stronger as neighbors thank you so much