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House Bill 1742 |
House Author: Giddings |
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Effective: 9-1-07 |
Senate Sponsor: West, Royce |
The Texas Legislature in 2003 enacted an urban land bank demonstration program for a municipality with a population of 1.8 million or more located mostly in a county with a total area of less than 1,000 square miles, and in 2005, it enacted an urban land bank program for a municipality with a population of 1.9 million or more. Both measures authorize an eligible municipality to adopt an urban land bank program, allowing the private sale of tax-foreclosed property to a municipally created land bank for the purpose of affordable housing development. House Bill 1742 amends the Local Government Code to enact a new urban land bank program for municipalities not covered by the previous legislation that have never adopted a homestead land bank program. Similar to the previously enacted programs in its purpose and administrative provisions, the urban land bank program enacted by House Bill 1742 requires a municipality that adopts an urban land bank program to establish or approve a land bank to acquire, hold, and transfer unimproved real property according to a mandatory urban land bank plan.
The bill also amends provisions relating to the other urban land bank programs, including raising the cap on gross household income for a low-income household to qualify for affordable housing developed by a land bank, revising requirements for property that may be sold privately to a land bank and for deed restrictions on land bank property to be sold for development and subsequent sale to low income households, shortening the period for the right of first refusal for qualified community housing development organizations, and, under certain circumstances, limiting the ability of third parties to bring a cause of action to set aside or otherwise challenge the sale of property to a land bank.
The bill makes Local Government Code provisions relating to the creation of homestead preservation districts and reinvestment zones applicable to a city that adopted an urban land bank demonstration program under the 2003 legislation, and it amends Health and Safety Code provisions relating to the Solid Waste Disposal Act to exempt an urban land bank, under certain conditions, from responsibility for the release or threatened release of solid waste from a land bank-owned facility or at a land bank-owned site and from the consequent responsibility either for certain enforcement actions or for the reimbursement cost for site remediation.
The bill amends the Tax Code to recognize an organization created to acquire, hold, and transfer real property under the 2003 or 2007 legislation as, or on behalf of, a land bank as a tax‑exempt charitable organization.