The City of Houston Planning and Development Department describes Sunnyside as follows.  “Sunnyside is the oldest African American community in south central Houston. Originally developed to provide homes outside the city, Sunnyside is now inside the city limits and close enough for residents to commute. It now includes a number of tract home subdivisions on typical suburban streets, as well as the original frame homes interspersed with small churches of the original neighborhood.  It has endured a number of detrimental land uses, including a major landfill that dominates the center of the community, a now closed garbage incinerator next to the landfill and a number of salvage yards. Recently, new developments have revived parts of the community, especially along Cullen.”

The Houston Hope booth at the Chocolate Bayou Festival in the Sunnyside Neighborhood.

Sunnyside is designated City of Houston Super Neighborhood No. 71. It is located in Houston City Council District D southeast of the intersection of Loop 610 South and State Highway 288. Seven HISD schools are located in the neighborhood including Worthing High School and Attucks Middle School. The land area is over 4000 acres or 6.3 square miles.  Eleven percent of the properties have long-term tax liens not including homesteads. Approximately 640 properties in the proposed targeted subsection of Sunnyside are undeveloped or have tax liens. Almost 280 of these have long-term tax liens.   Over 41 percent (41.54%) of the housing units in Sunnyside are renter occupied.

Several trends are notable in the Sunnyside community. These include:
1) Population loss;
2) Aging population;
3) Worsening economic conditions;
4) Low educational attainment;
5) Loss of good housing stock.

For a City of Houston land use map of Sunnyside go to http://www.houstontx.gov/planning/suprnbhds/landuse/sn71lu.html .