Featured Citizen Action

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  • Dear Mayor and City Council,

    I am writing to you in support of Neighbors United/Vecinos Unidos, the neighborhood association for Floral Farms, and all Dallas communities affected by environmental injustice regarding the City Council vote on our Authorized Hearing to rezone their community and the City of Dallas’s Development Code amendment to comply with SB 929 that is scheduled for February 12, 2025.

    This effort began in 2019 due to the industrial-residential adjacency issues exposed on the national stage by Shingle Mountain. Because of the harm being caused to their health and property, the City Plan Commission initiated the authorized hearing to consider rezoning their neighborhood. To prepare for this process, they drafted a neighborhood-led land use plan over the course of a year from 2019 - 2020. There is clear consensus on the need to deindustrialize the floodplain and ensure adjacency issues with residential and industrial properties are resolved.

    State legislation such as SB 929 looks to threaten rezoning cases like Floral Farms, but the pending code amendment should not discourage City Council from progressing positive land use and environmental justice goals.

    As is outlined in the Staff report for this case, “The Forward Dallas 2.0 was approved on September 25, 2024. One of the main goals of the plan is to address historic environmental injustices where industrial land uses operate within close proximity to residential neighborhoods and housing. In general, the recommendations in this Authorized Hearing align with the goals of addressing historic environmental injustices and align with adopted future land use map included with Forward Dallas 2.0”. With the recent passage of ForwardDallas 2.0, it is critical that the Dallas City Council uphold its’ policy goals and approve the CPC recommendations for future zoning for Floral Farms.

    We support the recommendations that Planning and Urban Design have provided to provide residential protections through residential and agricultural zoning changes in Floral Farms. We appreciate the creation of the Planned Development (PD) for the area that includes some Light Industrial zoning. We also want to prevent unnecessary blocks to moving ForwardDallas and other Environmental Justice goals forward due to state policy. While we understand that the City of Dallas must comply with state policy, placing a barrier before the adverse impact hearing is an unnecessary step in the SB 929 compliance discussion. If the City moves their “funds” hearing discussion in the middle of the Board of Adjustments two step amortization hearing, it still allows the city to avoid unnecessary expenditures while showing the community which nonconforming uses are causing air and quality of life issues in their neighborhoods.

    Please support public health and safety by supporting the recommendations from the Floral Farms community for their future zoning and set a positive precedent in the city moving forward. We must ensure another Shingle Mountain can never happen again, and this is one step in that direction.

    Sincerely,