Community Comes Together To Make A Plan A Reality
by District 8 Representative Beto O’Rourke

This is the most exciting moment in El Paso in my lifetime.

The community has come together around a bold plan to revitalize our central core – to make it the star attraction in our Border community. This plan, which the City Council adopted recently, sets us on a course for profound positive change and begins to correct a number of longstanding, systemic problems in Downtown El Paso.

To begin with, we can improve the affordability and availability of quality housing. Downtown and South El Paso residents want better housing, and right now they are finding it in other parts of the city. From 1990 to 2000, there was a 27 percent population loss and 35 percent housing loss in this area. Schools are beginning to consolidate as the number of school-age children in the area shrinks. Many of those who are unable to afford to leave Downtown El Paso continue to live in sub-standard housing. The plan proposes up to 3,000 new units of quality housing with 30 percent of that designated affordable – meaning that some residents will actually pay less to live in a better home.

Another highlight of this plan is the hope it offers to young people – the promise of a vibrant Downtown that will be a great location in which to start a new business, to hear a band, to join friends for a meal after work or to move into a loft apartment overlooking the energy and excitement of 24-hour-a-day activity. We need to do everything we can to encourage our best and brightest to stay in and return to El Paso. They are the intellectual and cultural capital that will drive our region to greatness if we can only keep them or return them here.

Something this plan offers for homeowners citywide is the promise of a lighter tax burden. Home values are going through the roof while, over time, Downtown property values have stagnated or, in some cases, declined. You and I are paying more than our fair share of taxes. A reinvigorated Downtown will start to correct this imbalance.

In terms of jobs and economic development, we have an excellent chance at raising employment and income levels in South El Paso. Per capita income in the redevelopment area is under $7,000 per year, and almost 55 percent of those residents are living below the poverty line. Investment in Downtown will lead to a growing number of job opportunities as more businesses arrive.

As a community, we have decided that we are ready to take our place as a leading American city. We want to compete for the investment and intellectual capital that’s flowing to other progressive cities. We are willing to work to improve our central core, which right now is marked by high unemployment, poor living conditions and dilapidated, vacant buildings that are faded reminders of a once-vibrant city. El Paso is already a major city in terms of population, but we are a major city without the economic activity, opportunity and vibrancy that should come with that designation.

The Downtown plan will go a long way towards changing that.

Future Looking Bright For El Paso’s Downtown
by Mayor John F. Cook

Major events this year have finally led to the formation of a viable plan to help revitalize our Downtown area. But let’s back up and recap just how we got to this point on our arduous path.

More than two years ago, the El Paso City Council undertook the task of commencing a process to develop a plan to revitalize Downtown. Granted, this may have seemed like an all-too-familiar case of déjà vu, but the decision was made with the hopes that this new plan the city was setting out to develop would not just end up as another plan collecting dust in the dungeons of City Hall.

The Paso del Norte Group, a local foundation, took the lead to develop the plan with the assistance of the SMWM planning firm, and, on March 31 of this year, a preliminary framework was unveiled to the community. The city of El Paso then initiated an intensive public input process to vet the preliminary framework in the community. Input received at these meetings assisted in forming and revising a more solid framework – one that was approved at the July 10 Special City Council Meeting. This meeting was a milestone within the process, bringing forward guiding values to foster positive progress, a call to local governmental entities to bring their operations Downtown and a resolution to place a one-year moratorium on the use of eminent domain as a tool to assist with the eventual implementation of the plan.

From this point on, the city concentrated efforts on developing the specific land-use recommendations, design guidelines and standards that would be applied to the identified Downtown study area. Once developed, all of the land-use specifications were brought before the City Plan Commission (CPC) and discussed throughout a series of meetings held beginning in late September. The CPC approved moving forward with amending the City’s Comprehensive Master Plan to include the land-use plan for Downtown.

This brings us to recent events – the approval of the Downtown 2015 Land-Use Plan by the City Council (10.31.06). The ray of hope that the city saw glimmering on the horizon at the start of this process seems to be shining brighter now, brighter for the entire El Paso community. But don’t be mistaken. We still have quite a ways to go on this journey.

Work has already begun to develop a three-year strategy that includes the formation of a Downtown Redevelopment Office to oversee the implementation phase of the plan, the creation and implementation of a Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone as a financing mechanism, the development of an incentives program for new and existing business alike, and the rezoning of the identified redevelopment area—all of this being the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

Yes, the future of our Downtown is looking bright, and it seems now that this new plan won’t be gathering dust on a shelf after all. Downtown is the “living room” of our city, and I am committed to making it something of which we can all be proud.