The Vote That Changes the Math for Southwest Houston…
For years, the tax dollars generated in Hiram Clarke and Fort Bend Houston have flowed into the City of Houston’s general fund — and the infrastructure improvements this community needs have been deferred time and again. Roads patched instead of rebuilt. Sidewalks crumbling. Commercial development that could transform this area bypassing it entirely for Pearland, Sugar Land and other suburban communities to the south.
Today, Houston City Council changed that equation.
Ordinance No. 2013-708 officially designates the Hiram Clarke and Fort Bend Houston area as Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone Number Twenty-Five — a 30-year financing mechanism that will redirect the growth in local property tax revenue directly into public improvements within the zone. The projected impact: Millions in dedicated investment through December 31, 2042.
The ordinance doesn’t just create a zone. It creates a commitment.
Review the ordinance here:
District K Council Member Larry Green — who grew up in Hiram Clarke and has spent years pushing for this community to receive the investment it generates — championed the legislation from its earliest planning stages. He has worked alongside Fort Bend County Commissioner Grady Prestage to lay the groundwork for an interlocal agreement that would enable the zone to collect tax increment across two counties — a cross-jurisdictional structure essential to the zone’s full potential.
Green framed the need in direct terms: “This area has been neglected in regard to infrastructure improvements. We’ve gotten a lot of residential development, but our commercial is slow coming. If we incentivize it, they would come.”
The ordinance also establishes the framework for a tri-party collaboration between TIRZ 25, TIRZ 9 (South Post Oak) and the 5 Corners Improvement District. The intent is to align three entities — each with its own governance and funding streams — around a shared geography and a shared goal: reverse decades of disinvestment through coordinated, publicly accountable action.
The next steps are significant. City Council will confirm a board of directors to govern the zone. An operating budget and the Fort Bend County interlocal agreement will need formal approval. And ultimately, a redevelopment authority — an independent corporate entity with the power to issue bonds, enter contracts and manage projects directly — will need to be established to put these dollars to work.
The infrastructure needs are well documented: roadway and sidewalk reconstruction, drainage improvements, public utility upgrades, parks and recreational facilities, economic development incentives and blight removal. The TIRZ mechanism ensures these projects are funded not by new taxes, but by the natural growth in property values that this community is already producing.
For the first time, that growth stays here.
Council Member Green has been clear from the start: the goal isn’t just to create a financing tool. It’s to build an institution — transparent, publicly governed and accountable to the residents of southwest Houston — that can deliver the improvements this community has waited decades to see.
Today’s vote is the foundation. What gets built on it is up to all of us.