8 February 20–26, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents that we keep discussing. And for me, I have a vision, my constituents have a vision for what they wanna see in the area.” Festering Community Distrust A preliminary plan for the South Hampton Road facility showed more than 100 beds for the chroni- cally homeless, office spaces, green areas and community amenities. The property was purchased as part of the council’s plan to create permanent sup- portive housing complexes for the home- less in each council district. Distrust festered, though, when the neighboring community said they were left out of the planning process and blindsided by the city’s purchase. One of the chief concerns among residents has been the hospital’s proximity to Kiest Park and Brashear Ele- mentary, which is connected to a Dallas Public Library branch. “Yes, we need services for everyone in this city, including those most in need, but this is not the right spot,” Amy Smith, the mother of a Brashear student, told The Dal- las Morning News after an especially con- tentious community meeting about the facility. In the months after the hospital’s pur- chase, the city opinion seemed to be that the project was happening. Gracey, though, has taken a slower approach. When campaign- ing for council he stressed the importance of neighborhood self-determination, and said the city “dropped the ball” on the project’s handling. Gracey first inquired about selling the property early last year, but the council still wanted to make something work because of the undeniable need for homelessness ser- vices throughout the city. Council members and residents have also tossed around the idea of slicing up the parcel of land and de- veloping affordable housing — the issue Gracey believes his constituents in the area want prioritized. “Some of my constituents think that it’s a not-in-my-backyard conversation, and it’s really not,” Gracey said. “The discussion from the very beginning has only been about homelessness and not even housing. … The community wants housing, which is another crisis that we have.” What complicated the housing proposal is the restricted bond funds used to pur- chase the property, which are earmarked specifically for homeless response. For sev- eral years, council members have worried that using the property for anything other than what its purchasing money was desig- nated for would be a breach of community trust. Last month, council member Adam Ba- zaldua asked if it could also lead to legal trouble for the city now that Proposition S — a City Charter amendment that allows resi- dents to sue the city over failures to enforce local or state ordinances — is enforceable. “If we acquired this property with the understanding that the voters thought it would be for one use, and we unilaterally make a decision otherwise, I’m concerned this opens us up to be vulnerable to litiga- tion,” Bazaldua told the committee. Funding the Independence Drive Property T he council doesn’t have an ethical or legal issue, though, if the funds from the property’s sale are put toward a different homelessness solution. Just one month after purchasing the former hospital, the Dallas City Council approved a $5 mil- lion purchase of a TownHouse Suites near Duncanville to be turned into housing for the homeless. Redistricting has resulted in the hotel, located on Independence Drive, being added to District 3. “This all started with a policy that stated that every district would have some permanent supportive housing facility in their district,” Gracey said. “If that’s still a policy to have one in every district, then the one in the area where I want to focus on and where the greatest need is, is the Inde- pendence property.” Money from the hospital sale could be put toward the Independence property, which — like the South Hampton Road facil- ity — sits empty three years later. City staff say more than 100 beds could be maintained at the property. In a December Housing and Homeless- ness Solutions meeting, council member Cara Mendelsohn urged the council to put the funds from a sale toward completing the Independence Drive project. “We literally kicked out people and made them homeless to create housing for people who are homeless, and nobody lives there,” Mendelsohn said. “It is absolutely shocking.” ▼ CITY HALL BIG WIN FOR THE SHORT- TERMERS AIRBNB, VRBO OWNERS TO KEEP BOOKING GUESTS FOLLOWING LATEST COURT VICTORY. BY KELLY DEARMORE O wners and operators of short-term rentals in Dallas can keep doing business thanks to an appellate court ruling on Feb. 7. The decision from Justice Yvonne Rodri- guez is the latest turn in a legal battle that began in June 2023 when Dallas City Coun- cil voted to ban short-term rental (STR) properties, such as you would find through Airbnb and VRBO, in all single-family resi- dential neighborhoods. The ban, which would have eliminated up to 90% of operating STRs in Dallas, was set to take effect in December of that year, but never did, thanks to the Dallas Short Term Rental Alliance being granted an in- junction that prevented the city from en- forcing the new ordinance. The debate over how STRs should be handled by the city had raged well before the June 2023 decision, including various task forces and efforts to have STR owners register with the city and pay hotel occupancy tax. “The Texas Constitution provides: ‘No citizen of this State shall be deprived of life, liberty, property, privileges or immunities, or in any manner disfranchised, except by the due course of law of the land,” the ruling states. “Appellees have ‘a vested right to lease their properties and this right is suffi- cient to support a viable due-course-of law claim.’” Advocates for keeping STRs out of single- family neighborhoods, including groups such as the Dallas Neighborhood Coalition, cite cases where STRs have been used as “party houses” and have created unsafe con- ditions in some neighborhoods, along with troubles for residents relating to overcrowd- ing and excessive problems with parking, traffic, trash and noise. Those groups also point to the high-profile cases where shoot- ings and prostitution have taken place at party homes in North Texas as reasons for their opposition. But Airbnb owners and operators and the members of the Dallas Short-Term Rental Alliance, who filed the lawsuit lead- ing to the injunction, say that the ban the City Council approved paints with too large of a brush, punishing the majority of STR operators who act as good neighbors for the sake of eliminating the small minority of bad actors. A spokesperson for the city of Dallas de- clined to comment, citing pending litigation. At this point, there seemingly aren’t many options for the liti- gation to continue, however. With an in- junction being granted as well as the appeal being de- nied, that’s a pair of losses for the city, leaving an appeal with the Texas Su- preme Court one the few avenues for the city to take. “What we’d like to see happen, now that the appeal got turned down, even though we are happy we get to continue operating, our ultimate goal is to sit down with the city and come up with something sensible,” Lisa Sievers, president of the Dallas Short Term Rental Alliance, said on Monday. Sievers, who owns and operates a pair of STRs, estimates the city has spent more than $3 million on setting up the STR registration and code compliance program, maintaining it and then fighting this case in court. “How many police officers would that have paid for?” she asked. “And to be clear, I’m not pooh-poohing what the anti-[STR] group is all about,” Sievers said. “I don’t want to live next to a party house, but in the original [STR regis- tration and code compliance] ordinance I helped work on in a STR task force for the city, the owners and operators were going to pay for the registration program that would also include code enforcement on nights and weekends, which is when it’s needed the most and when we have not had it, but the council didn’t adopt it.” Sievers also doesn’t know what the city is planning to do in terms of responding to this latest legal loss, and a court date to look into the constitutionality of the original ordi- nance has not been set, but she is sure that this topic will be much discussed in the coming months. “We do have elections coming up in the spring,” she said. “You can be sure this will be asked about at every town hall meeting with every new candidate.” ▼ POLICE ‘THE CITY KNOWS THIS IS A CRISIS’ PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE BUMPS UP POLICE HIRING GOAL. BY EMMA RUBY S taffing within the Dallas Police De- partment seems to be top of mind for the Dallas City Council. In the Feb. 10 Public Safety Committee meeting, council members voted to raise the department’s re- cruitment goal from 250 officers to 325 in the current fiscal year. The motion will go before the full city council in the coming weeks to be made offi- cial or to be struck down. At the end of Janu- ary the Dallas Police Department had 3,168 officers sworn in, a retention briefing said. For this fiscal year to date the department has lost 48 officers to attrition and hired 94. Ever since the November passage of Prop- osition U — a city charter amendment that demands the hiring of 900 additional police Photo-illustration by Sarah Schumacher Dallas short-term rental owners won again in its continuing legal battle against the city. Unfair Park from p6 “OUR ULTIMATE GOAL IS TO SIT DOWN WITH THE CITY AND COME UP WITH SOMETHING SENSIBLE.” -LISA SIEVERS
