TIRZ 10's published plan puts the Northpark overpass at $56.8 million. Officials told Kingwood this week it is $76.8 million.

The capital plan posted on the Lake Houston Redevelopment Authority’s own Northpark overpass project page puts that project’s cumulative total at $56,847,395. At a Kingwood town hall on September 22, officials gave the figure as $76.8 million, per Community Impact. Nothing published on the authority’s site reconciles the two.

Why it matters

TIRZ 10 spends property tax increment collected inside the zone, and the board deciding how is appointed, not elected. The capital plan is the document a resident has.

If the plan on that page is $20 million low, the document is not doing its job. The same plans show the second Northpark phase with $6.5 million of identified funding against $48.4 million of planned expense.

By the numbers

$56,847,395, the cumulative total for T-1013, the Northpark overpass, in the FY22 to FY26 capital plan linked from its project page.
$76.8 million, what Community Impact reports officials gave for that phase on September 22. About $20 million more.
$39,913,340, the cumulative total for the same project in the earlier FY20 to FY24 plan.
$48,369,142, planned expense for T-1014, the Northpark reconstruction, in that same plan. Identified funding: $6.5 million, being $4,533,674 in TIRZ money and $2 million in grants.
$72.7 million, what Community Impact reports for that second phase now. About $24 million more.
$119,641,560, all ten TIRZ 10 projects in the FY20 to FY24 plan. The two Northpark phases are $88,170,297, about 74 percent.
$1,083,060, planned expense for T-1018, the Kingwood Diversion Ditch and related drainage mitigation. That is nine-tenths of one percent of the plan.
90 acre-feet, the detention basin capacity where Bens Branch meets the Kingwood Diversion Ditch.

What the coverage buried

Community Impact printed the current cost of each phase and attached each cost to the right phase, which matters because the two are close in price and very different in status.

Neither it nor Reduce Flooding put those figures next to the authority’s own published capital plans, which sit on the authority’s site and on the city’s District E page and are $20 million and $24 million lower.

Neither gives the detention basin a cost of its own, or says what storm 90 acre-feet is designed to hold. A detention figure with no design storm next to it does not tell a homeowner whether the basin helps their street.

The other side

Capital plans go stale, and a four-year-old plan is not a broken promise. Construction costs rose everywhere between 2022 and 2026, and a project 75 percent built has absorbed real inflation. The authority does publish its plans, which many of these boards do not, and it posts a construction schedule updated September 3. The road is legitimate flood infrastructure, elevated, with drainage and detention in it, and Reduce Flooding says it gives 78,000 people their first all-weather evacuation route.

All of that stands, and the publishing is to the authority’s credit. But the plan on the project page is the document a resident will find, and it is $20 million behind a number an official used this week. Updating a PDF is a smaller job than building a bridge. The line worth asking about is the second phase: $48.4 million planned against $6.5 million identified, now a $72.7 million project with the right-of-way not yet bought.

What to watch

Whether the authority posts an updated plan carrying $76.8 million and $72.7 million. A document labeled FY27 Form A is referenced on the overpass project page.
Right-of-way acquisition for the second phase, starting this fall, and what it costs.
Where the rest of the second phase’s money comes from. The same plan shows Mills Branch Drive reconstruction carried by $18.8 million in grants.
Whether the detention basin gets a published cost and a design storm.
The next two District E town halls, October 8 at Space Center Houston and October 20 at St. Augustine Catholic Church.

Bottom line

TIRZ 10 does the thing most appointed boards do not. It publishes. So the problem is narrower than secrecy and easier to fix: a resident who checks the document gets a figure $20 million below the one officials are using. Post the current plan.

Sources

Editorial