By Gustavo Reveles Acosta, El Paso Times, Texas
Oct. 27--EL PASO -- Few of the 8,000 apartments Fort Bliss officials say are needed for new soldiers have been built, putting El Paso in what a city planner called "a state of urgency" for military housing.
The city announced last spring that the apartments were necessary to help accommodate the 22,000 soldiers already stationed at Fort Bliss and 12,000 others who will arrive by 2013.
Mathew McElroy, the city's director of planning, said the figure on needed apartments or duplexes now stands at between 7,000 and 8,000.
"It hasn't moved very much, but I wouldn't call it a housing crisis for Fort Bliss," he said. "I would qualify it as relatively urgent."
McElroy said only a handful of new complexes are under construction, although companies in El Paso and from other cities have expressed interest in building apartments on the East Side. He said the city is hoping more developers see apartment construction as a good business opportunity.
"We're trying to attract out-of-town builders and, of course, local builders to come and see what the need is," he said.
Hundreds of builders and lenders met Monday with city officials and toured potential sites for apartment complexes as part of a forum on housing.
City officials said El Paso actually could need more than 13,000 apartments, given the population growth of the city.
A demographic study shows the city will approach 1 million residents by 2025 -- much faster than was expected before the announcement that about 34,000
soldiers and their families would eventually be assigned to Fort Bliss.
The City Council last spring responded to the impending need by creating an incentive package that would forgive tens of thousands of dollars in environmental, stormwater, subdivision, rezoning, demolition and application fees for developers that build complexes of at least 250 apartments outside the gates of Fort Bliss.
McElroy said few developers have taken advantage of the package.
That came as no surprise to Ray Adauto, executive vice president of the El Paso Association of Builders, who said the economic and political climate has made it hard for developers to invest.
"The city sells El Paso as a gold mine, and the reality is that when you look at it closer, it can sometimes be pyrite," he said. "It's sad, but the bottom line is that there's some things that aren't working and those are things that are making it hard for the private sector to take such a huge risk."
Adauto said the incentives created for apartment builders were a good start. But he pointed out that in the past year the council also adopted "impact fees" that require developers to pay part of the cost of building libraries, police stations and other city services.
Developers also complain that there is not enough affordable land available for them to build complexes, and that building on expensive land means rents for soldiers would surpass $700 a month.
"That's the situation in El Paso and there's no one asking how it will affect not just the soldiers but the rest of the city," Adauto said.
"Think about it. If there aren't enough apartments, rents will go up."
But the construction outlook is not as bleak at it may sound, said Tom Bohannon, the president of Bohannon Development Crop. The company is building a large complex on the East Side.
"Sure, we look at the growth in Fort Bliss as an opportunity to generate more jobs and improve the industry," he said.
"But in reality, we are building like we always have. We look at growth and go with it."
Gustavo Reveles Acosta may be reached at greveles@elpasotimes.com; 546-6133.
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