Mayor White outlines initiatives to address urban blight, pollution

07:44 PM CST on Monday, January 24, 2005

By Amy Tortolani / 11 News

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It has been a year since Houston Mayor Bill White took the job and Monday he gave a city progress report.

"As we look back over this past year, I'm here to report to you that a lot of our plans are being implemented," said Mayor Bill White. "And I don't know about you, but I say the state of the city is good and that Houston got moving … didn't it?"

While the mayor looked back, he also looked ahead, announcing two new initiatives to address needs he said have been swept under the rug for too long.

The first is a neighborhood improvement initiative called 'Project Houston Hope.'

On a clear winter day, the sounds of chirping birds are inviting, but you'll get mixed messages if you look at the super-sized weeds and dilapidated homes.

"I wouldn't go in that area. I'm still afraid of stuff like that. It can be pretty scary," said Shamiletha Littleton, Sunnyside resident.

Littleton has lived in the Sunnyside neighborhood for the last year and a half and she admits not all of her neighbors are as meticulous as she is. That is why her neighborhood is one of six Houston areas Mayor Bill White has vowed, in a state of the city address, would get a much-needed makeover.

"They are the area that, we went through the whole city and where you had the largest concentration of abandoned properties," said Mayor White.

Councilwoman Ada Edwards knows about the problems in the Sunnyside neighborhood and she welcomes the help, but she questions at what price it will come at.

"My concern is that whoever goes in has the community at heart. And whatever new properties are going to be brought up, the community that's living there currently will be able to afford to live there," Edwards said.

The mayor said he would enlist the help of community organizations and the private sector to build new, affordable homes.

"I personally am going to spend more time on this than anything else this year," Mayor White said.

A promise to bring new light into an older neighborhood has some residents eager for change.

The idea behind 'Project Houston Hope' is to restore hope to many neighborhoods by taking down old abandoned homes and building new, affordable ones. The mayor said he plans to do this by foreclosing on some 1,500 properties across the city where taxes haven't been paid in years.

Pollution initiative:

Mayor White's second initiative deals with air pollution in the area. The plan would be a three-pronged attack:

First, monitors would be placed outside the gates of the worst offenders and after data is collected, it would be placed on the Internet.

Second, the medical community would come up with a test to analyze all of the toxins in the air.

And finally, the city attorney would begin taking aggressive legal action against any company not doing enough to cut emissions.