GEIC to incentivize housing development

After receiving legal guidance, the Graham Economic Improvement Corporation will be moving forward with initiatives to incentivize housing development within the city of Graham.

The GEIC is a Type B economic development corporation which collects a portion of sales tax for economic development and ad valorem tax reduction.

During the GEIC Board of Directors meeting held Wednesday, Feb. 28, the board approved a request to allow Assistant City Manager Grant Ingram to seek a legal opinion from an EDC attorney for the purpose of incentivizing housing development. The board met again Thursday, March 7 with the memorandum from Underwood Law Firm.

“The memorandum that he sent essentially is that the GEIC as a Type B EDC, being in a municipality less than 20,000, allows for the GEIC board, with the approval of city council, to make the determination that in order to create jobs and businesses and continue to develop the economy, housing is a requirement,” Ingram said.

Under the legal opinion from attorney John Atkins, it is stated that the GEIC board could make expenditures for multi-family housing due to it being “required or suitable for infrastructure necessary to promote or develop new or expanded business enterprises,” or to “promote new or expanded business development.”

“This approval essentially says that we have every right to incentivize housing developments inside the city limits,” Ingram said. “Again, with all the references to the state statute, Texas legal government code 501.103, there are a lot of ways that we can go about this. I wanted to get this in front of y’all so that we are all under the understanding that we can do more to help bring housing to our community.”

GEIC Board Chairman Jack Graham said the project, similar to any project passed by the GEIC board exceeding $10,000, would be required to go before the Graham City Council and have two readings. He said the attorney’s opinion will give them the flexibility to start working on projects.

“We’ve always known we could do infrastructure stuff, we could work on the streets, we could work on water mains, things like that. ...Every business we’ve talked to has problems with employment, employees. The biggest problem is we can’t get young or entry-level people because we don’t have young or entry-level housing in this town left, it’s all taken up,” he said. “...I think now with this, it gives us the opportunity that maybe we can partner with the GIA (Graham Industrial Association) on their plot over there on Indiana (Street) and really try to incentivize someone to come in and do that, or incentivize someone to come in and maybe help them do it on that Pine Tree (Road) lot.”

Mayor Alex Heartfield said the GEIC board could provide a developer with infrastructure support to start a housing project within the city.

“We would reimburse for the water lines, the sewer lines, the street work, that kind of stuff, to create the development and then the developer would build the houses on the platted lots that they pay to plat… and then they sell the lots and houses,” he said.

Graham City Manager Eric Garretty gave the Graham City Council a base from which to work in regards to budget planning for Fiscal Year 2025 during a budget workshop held Thursday, Jan. 18.

One suggestion from the city manager during the planning was to establish a 5-10 year plan for new housing development within the city.

“Planning for new housing development directly supports the general fund, increasing taxes, taxable properties inside the corporate limits of the city. But right now, we’re really not doing anything directly as a city to incentivize that,” Garretty said in January.

Ingram was tasked with working to establish a plan for the city to support housing development. The assistant city manager said the initiative came after reaching out to developers to build within the city.

“We had some serious conversations with potential developers and the question was always ‘What is the EDC able to do?’ (They wanted us to) just to help get them over that hurdle and the answer was always no,” Ingram said.

The city’s attorney recommended that they receive an opinion on the matter from an attorney who specializes in economic development.

“Economic development in Texas has become so broad in all the laws related to what governors can do (that) there are not just attorneys, but firms of attorneys who specialize in nothing but municipal economic development,” Garretty said. “What you typically see even in cities of our size is there’s a city attorney that handles all the traditional city stuff going back to forever and the EDC has an EDC attorney.”