Debra Guerrero of The NRP Group brings political skills to D.C.
DebraGuerrero has been interested in politics since she was growing up near Brooks Air Force Base now the Brooks master-planned community, which she would later help build. When Guerrerowas 14, her father encouraged her to volunteer for TommyAdkissons campaign for state representative. He lived in their neighborhood and attended their church. Her ambition would lead her to a seat on the San Antonio City Council, where she represented District 3, encompassing the neighborhood, from 1997 to 2001. For the last 19 years, shes worked as a housing developer for the Texas branch of The NRP Group, a Cleveland-based multifamily property company, a job that has always involved a political dimension. Thanks in part to her efforts,NRP has come to specialize in working with government agencies to build affordable housing. ALSO READ: First apartments built with San Antonio Housing Trust entity are sold and renamed She is now stepping into her most political role at NRP, where she is senior vice president of strategic partnerships and government affairs, being called on to navigate the hallways of Congress. Last month, the National Association of Home Builders appointed her as chairwoman of its affordable housing group. In that role, shes helping lead the lobbying for legislation that would grow the federal governments low-income housing tax credit program or LIHTC, which has been central to the creation of affordable housing in the U.S. since it was created under the presidency of Ronald Reagan with a goal of making it more effective in an era of rising interest rates and construction costs. With rents and mortgage payments rising across the U.S., Guerrero said shes hopeful that Congress will approve changes even as Republicans and Democrats are bitterly divided. Housing has always been a priority for the Democratic part of the aisle, but now its become such a priority beyond just big urban centers, she said. Its a priority in rural areas, when youre talking about attracting urban development. Its become a priority in revitalizing areas, even in suburban communities. Its a big change from 10 or even five years ago, she said, when housing wasnt as high on the national agenda. Bringing NRP to Texas Since it opened its local office in 2004, NRP has become one of the most prolific housing developers in San Antonio and Texas. It has built 127 communities across the state, with more than 30,000 apartment units and an investment of roughly $4.6 billion, according to the company. Sixty-three percent of those units are designated as affordable or workforce housing, meaning they can be rented only by those with incomes at levels below the local median wage. Its safe to say that little or none of that would have been built if not for Guerrero and her friend and business partnerDan Markson, an ambitiousdealmakerwho in 2019 was found dead in his home with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. ALSO READ: First new housing project funded by 2022 bond breaks ground on South Side; its to add 324 units They met in the late 1990s, while she was on the City Council. He brought her toNRP shortly after he joined the firm in 2003 to found its Texas operation. At first, it was just the two of them. When I began, I was like Dans right hand. It was all about building Texas thats it. And we did everything, she said. I was doing applications out of my car. I was doing these complicated applications, taking pages out of binders, putting others in, in the back of my PT Cruiser. They introduced NRP to the idea of partnering with public entities to build housing, she said. With projects such as Cevallos Lofts in Southtown and Jones & Rio in downtown, they pioneered a model of building housing in which the developer partners with a public facility corporation, orPFC, receiving a property tax exemption in exchange for offering lower rents. The model has proved controversial, even as its use has spread across Texas. They built large apartment complexes in untested markets such as the Baldwin at St. Paul Square, near the Alamodome, and the Kennedy at Brooks paving the way for other developers to follow. Guerrero, who earned a law degree and a masters in public affairs from the University of Texas at Austin, became one of the most powerful women in San Antonios male-dominated real estate development industry. She stayed involved in public work, serving as a trustee for the San Antonio Independent School District from 2012 to 2021, when she left to focus on her work for NRP. Working on Capitol Hill Markson was strongly involved with the National Association of Home Builders, helping to found its multifamily council. Upon his death, Guerrero stepped in to take over the work. Her advocacy through the NAHB and the Texas Association of Builders, where she chairs its multifamily council is part of her job atNRP, she said. She estimates that she spends about a quarter of her work time on advocacy on the state level and a quarter on the federal level. I have been fortunate enough to continue to be not only involved in our Texas developments, but the advocacy part the part that I know that I do well, she said. Ive been that kind of connector. I can always connect the dots. I love to connect people. NRP has given me that opportunity. Her lobbying comes as builders across the U.S. are struggling in a volatile economy to make the numbers work on housing projects, especially for affordable housing. Supply chain disruptions have pushed up the costs of materials, and rising interest rates have made it more expensive to borrow money. In San Antonio, the city has sought to help by infusing money into affordable housing projects from the $150 million housing bond that voters approved in May. Developers have also tapped funding from national programs, including the Biden administrations American Rescue Plan, passed in 2021. Guerreros priority is to pass a bill known as the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act, proposed by the NAHB and other industry groups. She expects it to be filed later this month or in early May. The bill would increase the amount of tax credits available through the LIHTC program and reduce the portion of each tax-credit project that must be funded through bonds. Since each state gets a limited supply of tax-exempt bonds, that would increase the number of tax credit projects developers could build, she said. The NAHB pushed for those changes two years ago with no success, she said. But shes hopeful that something will happen this year. The bipartisan support forLIHTC is unbelievable here, she said. And theres a sense of urgency. Everything has to get done this year, she said. Because once you start getting into next year, where its an election year, nothing really substantive gets done. Theres just not a lot of people working together. Guerrero said she travels to Washingtonabout once a month to meet with congressional leaders and their staff, as well as other stakeholders, such as develope
Sunday, April 9, 2023 at 9:00 am