(The Center Square) – A new filing in the legal fight over Texas’ affordable housing overhaul shows that a company tied to the lawmaker who sponsored the legislation is attempting to intervene in the case.
Concerned Property Tax Payers of Texas filed a petition in intervention in Cameron County District Court. The group argues that House Bill 21, enacted earlier this year, was needed to stop what it describes as improper tax-exempt arrangements used by housing finance corporations.
The filing states that one of the group’s members is APTBP, LLC, an apartment operator based in Baytown. State records list Rep. Gary Gates, R-Richmond, as the company’s registered agent, director, and owner. The company uses the assumed name Bay Pointe Apartments.
Gates was a leading supporter of HB 21, which limited the ability of housing finance corporations to operate outside the jurisdictions that created them.
The underlying lawsuit, filed by the Texas Workforce Housing Coalition and Post WB Apartments, argues that HB 21 is unconstitutional and disrupts longstanding affordable housing agreements made under Chapter 394. The plaintiffs say appraisal districts have already started withdrawing exemptions, even though the law does not apply to current projects until 2027.
“The State of Texas lured billions of dollars worth of investments from real estate developers to build affordable housing for working class Texans with the promise of favorable tax treatment only to now pull the rug out from under those developers,” Trey Cox, a partner at Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and lead attorney in the case, previously said in a news release. “The unconstitutional implementation of HB21 is nothing less than the breakdown of the rule of law in Texas. Worse yet, the teachers, nurses, first responders, and other essential workers who currently benefit from affordable housing will be the ones hurt most as they will likely be forced to move from their homes when affordable housing units across the State begin to evaporate.”
Concerned Property Tax Payers of Texas argues that APTBP has a direct financial stake in the dispute because it pays full property taxes, unlike projects developed through housing finance corporations that receive full exemptions. The group says those exemptions shrink local tax bases and shift costs onto taxable property owners.
The petition asks the court to declare that housing finance corporations never had authority to develop property outside the boundaries of the counties or cities that created them, and that properties located outside those boundaries were not entitled to full tax exemptions. It also seeks a ruling that the property involved in the lawsuit should be considered taxable.
A hearing on the intervention request has not yet been scheduled.
