A city-run nonprofit is expected to vote Tuesday on whether to throw a lifeline to a beleaguered mixed-income apartment complex in northern Dallas. The city has supported the project in the past, but it faces an uncertain future because of legal hurdles, which the developer hopes to overcome by partnering with the city.
The project, called Cypress Creek at Forest Lane, has been championed by fair housing advocates and supported by city management because it would add high-quality housing for low-income Dallasites in an area of the city deemed “high opportunity.”
It’s also drawn fierce opposition from homeowners in neighborhoods not far from the proposed development.
The war of words over the development highlights the challenges of building affordable housing in diverse and densely developed urban areas where single family homeowners predominate, and raising questions about who gets a say in where poor people get to live.
Tuesday’s meeting is the second time the Dallas Public Facility Corporation will take up the Cypress Creek project. In February, after hearing from a handful of opponents that included city council member Adam McGough, the board postponed its vote. It directed the developer, Sycamore Strategies LLC, to do more community engagement and come back in a month.
The project would include about 190 apartments, nearly half of which would lease for market rents starting around $1,500 per month. The majority would be priced at rates affordable to a mix of middle- and low-income renters.
‘No Apartments’
A community engagement meeting in the local library branch illustrated just how dug in all sides are on the project. It was attended by a few dozen people, mostly homeowners who live nearby, most of them strongly opposed. A couple brought their own signs that said No Apartments, and police officers were on hand.
The opponents were a diverse group, racially and ethnically, though they appeared to skew white and older. And opposition has come from residents in historically Black Hamilton Park as well as wealthier, whiter Hillcrest Forest.
They’re also a very small portion of the thousands of residents living near the proposed apartments.
The city’s director of the Office of Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization, David Noguera, tried to keep things peaceful. He said the city needs more housing like this — especially as the population continues to grow — and that it is in line with the city council’s commitment to racial equity.
That prompted an outburst from Nathan Brin, a lawyer who owns a home about three-quarters of a mile from the proposed apartments, who bristled at the idea his opposition was discriminatory.
“How can you stand here when you know that most people don’t want you here, and don’t want the city manager sticking their nose in our neighborhood?” he demanded.
A clearly frustrated Krochtengel told the crowd that lower-income people working in the area should get a chance to live there too. And that a history of segregation, discrimination and opposition from homeowners keeps affordable housing from being built in areas like this.
“I’m sorry that you feel that your single-family homeownership entitles you to tell other people where they can live,” he said. “That’s something you feel, and there’s nothing that I can do about that and I’m sure that I’m not going to change your mind.”
Others raised concerns about the building design, its location near a freeway. They pointed out that, if the city acquires the land through the DPFC, the property will be exempt from local taxes for 75 years.
Several people voiced opposition based on the belief that apartments — especially a complex that would set aside some units for low-income people — would lead to increased crime, overcrowded schools, or greater traffic congestion.
Who benefits?
Those claims are commonly deployed to shut down proposed affordable housing developments. They’re also, generally, wrong, according to Christina Stacy, who studies housing and land use policy at the Urban Institute.
“There’s a plethora of research showing that it provides benefits, not just to people with low incomes who get to live in those buildings, but to local economies overall, including schools,” Stacy said.
She said studies find projects like Cypress Creek — those built using federal low-income housing tax credits — typically have little impact on the surrounding neighborhood. And when they do, that impact is usually positive, increasing property values and reducing crime. That’s true in less affluent areas, and also in wealthy neighborhoods.
Dallas, she points out, remains one of the most racially and economically segregated cities in the country. The Urban Institute ranked 274 cities on overall inclusion in 2016, and found Dallas scraped the bottom of the barrel on nearly every indicator.
Stacy said community engagement meetings like these tend to amplify the voices of homeowners, who are wealthier and more likely to be white due to a history of racist housing policies. That can sideline the voices of people who’d benefit from affordable housing.
“Homeowners have more of an incentive to go to these meetings, and they’re much more likely to be at them,” she said. “So when we say ‘do community members have a say?’ those [landowners] are usually the community members that are part of the discussion.”
There were a few proponents of the project at the community meeting for the proposed apartments. One was Shamira Lawrence from the Inclusive Communities Project, who works with people struggling to find a place to live using federal housing vouchers designed to take them to high opportunity neighborhoods. Landlords discriminate against them, and these apartments wouldn’t be allowed to do that, she pointed out.
And there was Nichole Jefferson, who lives in Hamilton Park. She accused opponents of not being forthright, disguising their opposition to living near poor people as concerns about schools and traffic.
“I think everyone needs to be honest with themselves and say these are people you just don’t want living near you,” she said. “Yeah, you want them here to work for you, but you just don’t want them living next to you.”
'High opportunity'
The mix of neighborhoods surrounding the project demonstrates the patchwork nature of dense urban landscapes. A drive around the area offers a glimpse of million-dollar ultra-modern mansions, modest and aging older homes, mid-century ranches and leafy streets with old-money charm.
The census tract where Cypress Creek might be built is racially and ethnically mixed — about 50% non-Hispanic white, according to Census data. Dallas, overall, is about 28% white. It’s also a mixed-income tract, with a 13% poverty rate. At the same time, more than 20% of households make over $100,000 a year.
The area is considered “high opportunity” because of these characteristics, and because it’s close to a DART station, and a lot of jobs. The sprawling Medical City Dallas Hospital is perhaps the largest employer. And it’s close to transit and other amenities.
If the project were built about 1,000 feet to the north, it would be in a higher poverty census tract, home to Hamilton Park, a historic Black neighborhood as well as a massive market-rate apartment complex. If it were built 1,000 feet to the west, it’d join a majority-white census tract with just 1% poverty rate and median household incomes over $150,000.
But standing in the middle of the empty patch of grass, next to Highway 75, where the apartments may be built, no houses are even visible.
Potential complications
At the February meeting, the DPFC board also told Sycamore Strategies’ Krochtengel to go back to the negotiating table with adjacent property owners. Board members wanted him to try again to negotiate a private solution to the deed restriction blocking the apartments. Their approval would negate the need for the city to acquire the land.
A month later, that also seems like a bust.
At the community meeting in the public library branch, Bill Roth made it clear that that avenue was also a bust. The owner of an office building next to the proposed apartments said he opposed the project, declared his intent to sue the city if it tries to overcome the deed restriction.
“We don’t want to fight, but we will,” he said.
That means that the Dallas Public Facility Corporation is poised to consider the same development, with the same opposition, and the same legal hurdles that it considered a month ago. If it approves the acquisition, the city council will need to give its approval next.
Got a tip? Christopher Connelly is KERA's One Crisis Away Reporter, exploring life on the financial edge. Email Christopher atcconnelly@kera.org.You can follow Christopher on Twitter @hithisischris.
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