Dallas closer to preventing residents from petitioning to shut down harmful business

Several West Dallas activists feel hopeless after a commission agreed to send the City Council a recommendation stripping residents of the ability to petition to close businesses that have proven harmful to the community.

The City Plan Commission on Thursday approved an amendment to the Dallas Development Code to align its amortization process — where the city closes down a business that affects the community negatively — with Senate Bill 929, a new state law that adds protection for business owners. The state law, approved in May 2023, allows the affected business to request payment for its losses.

But the change approved by the commission, which will now go to the City Council for final approval, also removes residents’ rights to file a petition to shut down a business.

Janie Cisneros, the leader of Singleton United/Unidos, a neighborhood group in West Dallas, said the vote was “disturbing.”

“I can’t believe this is the city we live in, one that knowingly sacrifices vulnerable residents,” Cisneros said. ”This is discrimination through and through.”

For about four years, Cisneros has been working with community activist groups — including GAF’s Gotta Go, or GAF Vete Ya, a campaign — to get the shingles company GAF out of its West Dallas site on Singleton Avene and stop what they say are harmful emissions of sulfur dioxide and particulate matter affecting area neighbors.

GAF said it will close in July 2029, but neighbors want them out sooner.

The dispute started Oct. 3 when Cisneros tried to file a petition for GAF amortization but was told the Board of Adjustment would not accept her application due to the new state law.

GAF did not respond to comment.

In the past, amortization allowed for the shuttering of, for example, a car wash where attempts to curb drug crimes repeatedly failed and a small auto repair operation that had been at its location for years when city planners pushed through new zoning.

Late last year, the Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee approved the city attorney’s recommendation to update the code despite multiple residents speaking against the ordinance and the section that limits residents’ rights to petition amortization.

The recommendation was then sent to the City Plan Commission. The City Council will have the final vote on updating the development code.

“I think this notion that we are eliminating the citizen’s right to speak is a false choice,” City Plan Commissioner District 10 James Housewright said.

“There are multiple avenues and opportunities to speak, communicate a grievance, come before the City Council, vote a councilman out of office, and many other options.”

Several commissioners said their hands were tied by SB 929 and the legislation was a direct attack on Dallas.

District 7 Commissioner Tabitha Wheeler-Reagan, representing South Dallas, said she did not support the recommendation because she disagreed with taking away residents’ right to petition for the process.

“This is a mess,” Wheeler-Reagan said. “I understand that a lot of these issues are in the Southern District, and that has been done systematically. Removing the right seems so unfortunate and puts us in a bad place.”

The vote was 8-5.

Enough money to shut down businesses

Another recommendation by the city’s attorney would create a nonconforming-use fund to cover the costs of a business’ losses.

According to the recommendation, the city’s chief financial officer must determine whether sufficient funds are available to pay out a nonconforming property and hold a public hearing to determine whether continued operation of the business use will adversely affect nearby properties.

The application is deemed incomplete if the city hasn’t put enough money in the budget for the fund.

Commissioners asked how the fund would work, how much money each district would allocate to the fund and who would get priority if several districts were dealing with the same issue.

“I don’t know what the prioritization method would be,” said Bertram Vandenberg, chief of general counsel with the city’s attorney’s office. “I’m not sure. Would it be first-come, first-served? Would it be the two that could be funded at the expense of the one that could be? I think that’s something we would have to look at.”

Evelyn Mayo, a co-chair of Downwinders at Risk, an environmental justice nonprofit, spoke against the recommendation.

“The current proposal from the city attorney throws a roadblock up before the Board of Adjustment can even determine if there’s an adverse impact found by rejecting applications if there’s no funding available in a funding mechanism that does not exist,” Mayo said.

“Let residents file applications to determine harm, then have a checkpoint for funding to be allocated.”