Last month, Dallas County commissioners approved $1.6 million for the construction of a new street in the neighborhood along with the 30 affordable homes at 0% financing. The homes are intended to be made available to people making 80% of the area median income. As part of this project, the future homeowners would be required to volunteer more than 350 hours for Habitat for Humanity. Some of that time could be spent building their future home. Those who qualify could also receive up to $10,000 in assistance to help cover the down payment.
It all sounded good to members of the Commissioners Court, especially as North Texas faces an affordable housing shortage. But it didn’t sound like a good plan to some Joppa residents.
Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity representatives appeared at the City Plan Commission meeting on July 6, hoping for approval on a permit to replat the land the new homes would be built on, but several neighborhood residents came out to oppose the project, saying it would overcrowd the neighborhood and disrupt its character.
The land the homes would be built on is the site of an old football and baseball field that was connected to the now closed Melissa Pierce School. Community groups used to play sports on the site, but now it’s overgrown and surrounded by fencing with signs that say it’s private property.
The former segregated public school was built in the 1950s and closed in 1968, according to Advocate Magazine. The school was eventually owned by Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity, and in 2021 it was deeded to a nonprofit organization called the Melissa Pierce Project to be turned into a multipurpose center for the neighborhood.
Yolander Thomas attended the school and played softball on the now-dormant baseball field. She told the commissioners she opposed the project in Joppa because the neighborhood has so many other needs besides housing. It needs more infrastructure like sidewalks and paved streets, and the air quality needs to be improved after years of pollution, she said.“It doesn’t benefit the community." – Shalondria Galimore, South Central Civic League Serving Joppa
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Former resident Claudia Fowler also spoke against the Habitat for Humanity project. “They have gentrified our community,” Fowler told the commissioners, referring to Habitat for Humanity. “What are they doing by giving us 30 more families who do not care about the history of our community? … They don’t deserve another 30 homes in Joppa.”
Despite outcries by some from the neighborhood at the meeting, plan commissioners were ready to reluctantly approve the permit because the city attorney’s office said it was legally required to.
The city attorney’s office said the commission had to approve the permit if it followed land-use requirements and if the platted lots conformed “in width, depth and area to the pattern already established in adjacent areas, having due regard for the character of the area …”
Several plan commissioners apologized to the Joppa residents who turned out to the meeting, saying their hands were tied. But Commissioner Melissa Kingston moved to deny the permit, saying it didn’t conform with the lot pattern adjacent to the site. Those sites varied in size and were not similar to what the permit was asking for.
Shalondria Galimore, president of the South Central Civic League Serving Joppa and founder of the Melissa Pierce Project, told the Observer she and others who spoke at the City Plan Commission meeting were ecstatic about the last-minute denial of the permit. She said she and others want the land to continue to be a green space for the community instead of having homes built on it.
“It doesn’t benefit the community,” Galimore said of the project, adding that Joppa has enough homes at this point that need to be taken care of. “We need to stabilize what we have,” she said. “Just continuing to pile families on top of families … creates more problems.”
Galimore said she and others are willing to sit down and talk with Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity to negotiate.
Not everyone opposes the project, however. Temeckia Derrough, a Joppa resident, told the Observer last month that she was hopeful for the project.
“I feel like [Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity] is revitalizing Joppa because when I moved there in 2006, it was a no man’s land down there,” she said. “The more residents we get to move into the Joppa community, we’ll have more people to fight and change the environment around our community.”
Galimore said she and others were told Habitat for Humanity would likely continue pursuing the project. In a statement to the Observer, Bill Eubanks, the CEO of Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity, said the organization plans to move forward with the project and meet with the City Plan Commission in the coming weeks to discuss its reservations.
“Dallas Area Habitat for Humanity has built more than 150 homes and repaired nearly 100 homes in the Joppa community since 1986, and we are honored by the three decades of partnership and friendships we have in this incredible neighborhood,” Eubanks said. “While the details of these homesites are still in discussions, we look forward to working with all parties to ensure that 30 more deserving families are able to achieve the dream of homeownership right here in Dallas.”
