Black, Hispanic groups file complaint to HUD over Dallas’ industrial zoning near homes

A coalition of advocacy groups and residents in predominantly Black and Hispanic neighborhoods on Thursday filed a complaint with the federal government against the city of Dallas alleging it has failed to address harmful industrial zoning. The complaint to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development alleges the city’s industrial zoning policies and practices violate the Fair Housing Act by discriminating against Black and Hispanic residents’ ability to get loans to buy or make repairs to homes. Residents in the complaint are asking HUD to investigate what they claim to be a discriminatory effect of the city’s industrial zoning practices, which they say is “severe and statistically significant,” since a majority of the homes impacted are in Black and Hispanic areas as compared with white, non-Hispanic areas.

Homeowners in the complainant groups say they are ineligible for home loans because of the city’s industrial zoning in and near their homes. Marsha Jackson, who lived next to the Shingle Mountain illegal dump and still lives next to heavy industrial zoning in Floral Farms, signed the complaint along with her neighbors in the Floral Farms Neighbors United/Vecinos Unidos association, the Joppa Environmental Health Project and the Coalition for Neighborhood Self-Determination. The neighborhood groups are located in southern or western Dallas, areas with some of the highest density of Black and Hispanic residents. The complaint says the city’s land use policies of industrial zoning further perpetuate racial segregation. “The city of Dallas needs to be put on notice and they need to start being fair to the residents,” Jackson said. “It doesn’t make any difference what color you are, but they need to make sure they are treating all of us equally and quit playing the favoritism if you don’t have as much money as the people over on the north side of town.”