The Dallas City Council voted to rezone the former site of Shingle Mountain in southeast Dallas. The decision comes after lengthy public comment and resident testimony about the harms industrial polluters bring to their predominately Black and Hispanic community.
Residents in the Floral Farms area have said the zoning change — from mostly industrial to more agricultural land uses — could help to stop another Shingle Mountain from springing up.
The effort has taken six years to complete.
"We have been here numerous times," Marsha Jackson, leader of Southern Sector Rising, said during Wednesday's council meeting. "It's also [been said] that many residents are not here. Residents work, they don't have their own business like the business owners do."
Caleb Roberts leads Downwinders at Risk — a 30-year old environmental justice group focused on clean air. He told the council needed to move this through
"This is something that should be unanimous," Roberts said. "This should be in support of all the things that you have passed environmental justice wise."
But not everyone was in favor of the change. Numerous business owners showed up to council chambers to oppose the proposed zoning change.
"No one wants this to happen," Eli Amzallag, a business owner in the area, said. "I know all the council members here do not want this rezoning to happen, you guys know it is totally absurd."
And the opposition didn't end with business owners and public speakers.
District 12 Council Member Cara Mendelsohn the only elected official to vote against the zoning change. She also claimed Floral Farms wasn't a residential neighborhood.
"Some [Floral Farms residents] have lived there a long time," Mendelsohn said. "But some of them haven't."
Mendelsohn said residents chose to live in the area and are now asking the city "to take a really significant financial hit."
City staff told Mendelsohn that businesses will still continue to operate.
"Nobody is shutting anybody down," Planning and Development Director Andrea Gilles said during the meeting. "No one is asking anyone to shut down."
But Mendelsohn said regardless, residents shouldn't be in that area.
"From the very first time I met Marsha Jackson [I said] can we move you out? Can we buy your place?" Mendelsohn said. "And that, I believe, should be our posture."
When her colleagues challenged her on her comments and brought her past history of advocating for residential communities, Mendelsohn doubled down.
"I strongly believe in neighborhood determination," Mendelsohn said. "It's just, this is not a residential neighborhood. It's an industrial area that happens to have...27 homes."
"I think it's unbecoming and absolutely embarrassing to see a leader minimize the importance of any neighborhood," Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Bazaldua responded to Mendelsohn's comments. "Clearly it's a residential neighborhood if 27 homes exist there."
Shingle Mountain was a 70,000-ton mound of toxic building materials — and the byproduct of the Blue Star Recycling Company that started operation in 2018. The mound towered over the residents of Floral Farms.
“It was pretty monstrous,” District 9 Council Member Paula Blackmon said during a council meeting last year.
Robert Wilonsky, the former city columnist for The Dallas Morning News, wrote often about the community subjected to live around the toxic mountain.
Wilonsky said city staffers — sent to the area to investigate — “looked like ants compared to the towering mound,” in a 2019 column published in The News.
“Almost six years to the day since I wrote my first column…about the place that came to be known as Shingle Mountain, Dallas continues to betray Marsha Jackson and the residents of Floral Farms,” Wilonsky wrote on social media after the council delayed their decision last year.
Now, the council has passed the zoning change — with some caveats. A motion introduced by council during Wednesday's meeting allows for some industrial uses to still move into the area.
Got a tip? Email Nathan Collins at ncollins@kera.org. You can follow Nathan on Twitter @nathannotforyou.
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