City Incorporating Near NW Houston Examined

[mrfootball]

Link to Article

City-incorporating near Northwest Houston examined

Several residents near northwest Houston city limits have expressed interest in city incorporation.

Some said incorporation would be a good idea to impede any Houston annexation attempts. Some said it would be good because taxpayers would have more control over their local affairs.

Edited October 2, 2010 by editor
Copyright

[GettaClue]

Thanks for posting this!

So what exactly happens to the MUD's if the area incorporates?

I wonder too who the "Several residents" cited are? And what exactly prompted the article? And what happens next?

[Original Timmy Chan's]

Thanks for posting this!

So what exactly happens to the MUD's if the area incorporates?

Usually the city would assume the debt and responsibilities of the MUD and MUD would be dissolved. That said, there are "in-city" MUDs, so it's possible they could coexist.

[TheNiche]

Usually the city would assume the debt and responsibilities of the MUD and MUD would be dissolved. That said, there are "in-city" MUDs, so it's possible they could coexist.

Yep, if a new municipality took in multiple MUDs of different financial characteristics, then residents in some MUDs would likely end up subsidizing others. That's a real stumbling block.

It's probably better just to set up a new management district which could tax everyone across multiple dissimilar MUDs at the same percentage rate. The City of Houston would almost certainly encourage it and would likely allow it to overlap with the City's boundaries (meaning that it could tax commercial properties that the City has annexed). A management district would not be subject to the County withdrawing services, and its authority to make expenditures on various services could be fairly sweeping if that's how it gets set up. Management districts are fantastic at tackling specific areas of concern, for instance the amount and quality of law enforcement services or the provision of a new fire station. If it's a problem that can be fixed with money, this is the way to go.

What a management district cannot do, however, is tell its constituents what they cannot do. For instance, ordinances governing issues related to planning (zoning, signage, setbacks, code enforcement, locations of bars or SOBs) could not be enacted. And the management of such a district is fairly low-profile, making the politics less flamboyant.

[LTAWACS]

We should just annex them.