Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Thursday added five communities to his signature neighborhood revitalization program, which aims to improve targeted areas via partnerships with banks, endowments and other private entities.

The added communities are: Alief, Kashmere Gardens, Magnolia Park-Manchester, Sunnyside and the portion of Fort Bend County inside Houston’s city limits.

Turner’s administration will seek input from residents to develop “action plans” for each neighborhood, then put the plans before city council for approval.

The additions double the reach of the program, called Complete Communities. It already covers Acres Homes, Gulfton, the Near Northside, Second Ward and Third Ward.

All of the participating communities “still struggle with access to quality amenities and services,” Turner said at a news conference Thursday.

“We selected five neighborhoods because they, like the pilot program neighborhoods before them, face real challenges and need our support,” Turner said. “The city's unemployment rate is at its lowest since 1981, but residents in these communities still struggle to find ways into the workforce.”

Residents in three of the new communities are predominantly African American, a constituency that political analysts say will be key to Turner’s re-election chances this year. He is seeking a second four-year term in November, but faces a stiff challenge from three other major candidates: Councilman Dwight Boykins, lawyer Tony Buzbee and businessman Bill King.

“The core of the additions was Kashmere Gardens, Sunnyside and Fort Bend because that focuses on Turner’s base, and he knows to win re-election he needs really solid support in the African-American community,” said Rice University political scientist Mark Jones.

Turner said each of the added neighborhoods have large tracts of undeveloped land and at least two federal opportunity zones, where investors can receive certain tax breaks.

The mayor first announced the program in April 2017 and kicked off a series of Hurricane Harvey-delayed public meetings several months later to help develop plans for the first five neighborhoods.

City council approved those plans last August. Though each plan varies by neighborhood, they generally break down into several broad priorities split into many goals and projects.

In Turner’s hometown Acres Homes, for instance, high-priority items include reducing the unemployment rate by 50 percent by 2023 and building a town square with retail and restaurants along the West Montgomery corridor. In other areas, projects include street and sidewalk improvements, building affordable single-family and rental housing, and, in Near Northside, partnering with local groups to enroll youth in summer jobs and internships.

Neighborhood and housing advocates praised Complete Communities when Turner first announced it, though some also raised concerns that the program did not include additional housing dollars and could amount to a reshuffling of community development funds already spread thin across the city. Critics also have said some of the approved projects are things the city already should be doing.

Turner’s office late Thursday sent the Houston Chronicle a list of projects supported by banks and corporations, including one backed by $6.1 million from Wells Fargo to provide down payment assistance grants and “homebuyer education” through local nonprofits. In another instance, Microsoft is coordinating “digital literacy workshops” and other STEM and economic development education programs for students and adults.

King blasted Thursday’s announcement, calling the program “a total sham” and “an election year ploy to win back voters who feel they have been left behind” by Turner’s administration.

So far, the fund that supports Complete Communities has taken in $11 million in donations and “multi-year pledges” from banks, corporations and business interests, with a goal of reaching $25 million, Turner said.

“We are not here to gentrify these communities,” Turner said. “We are not here to change their personality. We are not here to change their culture or their identity.”

The city is seeking to avoid that in part by remaining engaged with the communities and basing the action plans off residents’ input, program Director Shannon Buggs said.

"The most severe negative impact is when we displace residents from their neighborhood because the great things that they've always wanted to see in their neighborhoods finally arrive,” she said.

jasper.scherer@chron.com