District 5 Runoff Debate Focuses on Affordable Housing, Developers

June 1, 2021 - Westside

By Ricardo Delgado, Staff Writer | San Antonio Sentinel

The 2021 meet-and-greet debate for the runoff District 5 election at Historic Cassiano Park saw candidates answer questions over affordable housing, their plans for improving the district and how they will manage encroaching real-estate developers.

Elaine Ayala, San Antonio Express-News columnist and journalist moderated the debate. The debate was hosted by the Historic Westside Residents Association, the Westside Preservation Alliance and the Esperanza Peace and Justice Center. Later in the debate audience members asked the candidates questions directly. 

Candidates Teri Castillo and Rudy Lopez survived nine other candidates in the general election, the former leading by a wide margin with 30.6% of the vote, Lopez the runner-up with 14.7%. The seat opens as incumbent councilmember Shirley Gonzales reaches her four-term limit. 

Castillo opened up the debate by introducing herself and her campaign, stressing the need for coalition building and a shift away from policy “refashioned under the guise of progress”, as well as running on a platform “fundamentally grounded in social and economic justice.” The crux of her opening statement focused on protecting neighborhoods often overlooked in favor of newer, more decadent projects.

“We need to be sure we're shifting that infrastructure funding into our neighborhoods, because we see, throughout history, that when you pour a whole bunch of our money near newer, luxury development, it comes up the cost of us, the established communities,” Castillo said.

Lopez began with anecdotes of his childhood in San Antonio and his years of public service within the city, specifically his 17 years at the San Antonio Police Department and his history working with the Thompson neighborhood organization. 

“So at the end of the day, I'm asking you to look at what I've done, the history that I have already, what I've done in my neighborhood in my community, and what I want to do for all the rest of District 5,” Lopez said.

Both candidates answered questions over their personal backgrounds, upbringings and reasons for running; Lopez emphasized the importance of deciding to go back to school played in his life when asked over a pivotal moment in his life, emphasizing age should be no stumbling block for any San Antonio resident. 

Castillo gave a less direct answer, mentioning her decision to not pursue a Ph.D. at UCLA and stay in San Antonio to help communities at risk, eventually pivoting to hammer home more campaign talking points like protecting local businesses and “produce market-rate housing.”

Each candidate pointed out specific city council votes they agreed and disagreed with, Castillo detailing a failed vote to implement right to care in San Antonio as a disagreement and agreed with the adoption of the unified development code amendment, both topics tied to housing issues in San Antonio.   

Lopez singled out the Ready to Work proposition as the common ground he held with the city, citing the need to prepare and retrain citizens of San Antonio for the reopening of the economy post-COVID-19. He would, however, cast himself against Proposition B, which calls for the repealing of Texas Local Government Code Chapter 174 — which gives firefighters and police officers collective bargaining powers — in an effort to increase accountability in the police through contract reform. Lopez added doing away with collective bargaining makes climbing up the ranks harder for “minorities, people of color and women.”

The candidates defined gentrification in their own terms, Lopez giving a more broad definition of “displacement of people in a community where growth is happening.” His rebuffing of gentrification in the city succinctly focused on housing “sold way over market value.”

Castillo’s explanation went into more specifics over how gentrification reaches the west side of San Antonio and how investment into an area does not mean isolating already underfunded communities. Castillo emphasized helping homes stay up to code, as small violations in communities with circling developers can quickly escalate to evictions.

“What that looks like is, one, getting all those calls, those mailers,” Castillo said. “It looks like code compliance violations for your grass being too tall, and then it turns into your foundation being messed up, and then it turns into fees that you can't afford to pay, and then it turns into a notice to vacate and then a demolition.”

Fielding questions from the audience, the candidates presented their plans for the west side of San Antonio. Castillo proposed more investment in community centers, like basketball courts, parks and senior centers, while Lopez emphasized infrastructure spending through an “equality lens” to close the spending gap between neighborhoods in the west side and other districts.

Both candidates agreed to combat the issue of “middle housing” when an individual’s income disqualifies them from affordable housing but is unable to afford a market-rate residence, needs to be addressed. 

“We need to look at the way we define affordability,” Lopez said, stressing the importance of keeping young, recently graduated San Antonio residents in the neighborhoods they grew up in, as opposed to selling family houses to developers.

Castillo said she would organize for  “missing middle housing” and make property affordable for those over low-income thresholds. 

“[W]e're not producing for the very poor,” Castillo said. “We're not producing for the working families. We're producing market rate. Market rate's affordable to even the average area median income of the city.”

When asked what developers should give to the communities they enter, Castillo criticized the giving away of tax incentives and tax abatements to multibillion-dollar corporations which disrupt heavily uninsured and under-protected communities. She posited developers giving back to the community is not a gift, but the bare minimum. 

“It's not a game,” Castillo said. It's not something to negotiate. It's something we're owed.”

Lopez took a less confrontational stance, focusing on companies leaving San Antonio after their tax abatement years ran out, leaving empty buildings behind. 

“We know that from Port San Antonio, the Billy Mitchell, those things sat empty for a long time. That's the worst thing to have. However, if they pack up and leave within a certain amount of time, then we need to make them pay back all the money that they took from us.”

Both candidates agreed small businesses needed more assistance: Lopez proposed more incentives, funneling more federal and state money and widespread internet access, while Castillo wanted to shift the focus away from businesses that technically qualify as small but employ up to 200 employees to “genuinely small business“, which employ far fewer employees but are often excluded from city assistance due to “red tape.”

Autonomous communities and neighborhood associations proved to be more common ground for the candidates, both emphasizing the importance of working together with all stakeholders of District 5 communities to achieve the goals the respective candidates set. Lopez promised transparency and communication with public housing tenants, while Castillo proposed more representation for public housing tenants on governing bodies and increased communication with state representatives and senators.

Ricardo Delgado transferred to Texas State University at San Marcos to study journalism and minor in political science. He graduated during the spring of 2021. Email him at reporter@sasentinel.com