Welcome to the International Management District
The International Management District (IMD) was created by the Texas legislature in 2007 by State Representative, Hubert Vo. The District covers approximately 12 square miles and is bounded by Highway 6 on the west, the Sam Houston Tollway on the east, Bellaire on the north and along Bissonnet from Hwy 6 to Kirkwood/W. Belfort to Hwy 59. The District is primarily in Houston and Harris County, however, a small portion in the Southwest area of the District is in Fort Bend County. Our Management District is empowered to finance projects related to Public Safety, Mobility and Transportation, Environmental and Urban Design, and Business Development.
The District provides programs and services in accordance with its Service Plan, adopted in June of 2008, and supplemental to those services offered by the City of Houston and Harris County. The services are funded through a 10 cent per hundred-dollar property value assessment on commercial properties, including apartments. No residential or exempt property is assessed. An 11-member, all volunteer, board of directors, consisting of area commercial property owners, governs the International MD. The members are appointed and approved by City Council.
The area in which the District encompasses is more commonly known as Alief. According to Wikipedia, the first written account of Alief occurred in 1861, when Ron Reynolds claimed 1,250 acres of land at Brays Bayou headwaters. The land was sold to Jacamiah Seaman Daugherty in 1888 and in 1889 he allowed the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway to build on his land. Daugherty sold his land in 1893 to Francis Meston who planned to engineer a community, Daugherty stayed to oversee land sales in Meston’s Houston office and set aside a plot of land for a cemetery. In 1894 Harris County recognized the community, as the surveyor deemed it, as the Town of Dairy, Texas. In 1895, in an attempt to obtain a post office, Dairy was forced to change its name in order to avoid confusion with a town named Daisy. Dairy was renamed in honor of Alief Ozelda Magee, the country’s first postmistress. Magee’s burial site is at the intersection of Bellaire Boulevard and Dairy Ashford Road in the International District.
