Fate, TX – Our beloved town, Fate, stands at a precipice. The City Council, blinded by their misguided vision, threatens to unleash a torrent of up to 1,300 new apartments upon our community. As a staunch defender of Fate, The Fate Tribune refuses to mince words. Let’s expose the truth behind this reckless proposal known as Lafayette, which will come before the council for a vote tonight! (02/05/2024).
The Citizens’ Outcry
Picture it: Fate’s sunsets, the laughter of children in our parks, the comforting hum of our local diner. Now imagine it all obliterated by towering apartment complexes and overrun by transient renters who don’t have a stake in our community. Our concerns are real:
- Traffic Nightmare: Fate’s roads are already clogged during rush hour. Adding 1,300 more units will turn our streets into a perpetual traffic jam. The developer is offering little more than words to mitigate this problem. The City Council’s response? Crickets.
- Schools Overwhelmed: Our schools are already overcrowded. But with this influx, classrooms will burst at the seams. Our kids deserve better. Why is the Council deaf to our pleas.
- Rural Lifestyle: Fate’s charm lies in rural environment…away from crowded cities. This project is an attempt to urbanize our small town… just like the Strong Towns philosophy that our City Government covets like a cult. And the Mayor and Council are willing participants.
- Property Values Plummet: Apartments built next to train tracks have only one possible outcome … Section 8. No amount of appeasement will change this. The noise and vibration cannot be mitigated with architectural design and the end result will be that only the poorest of families would be willing to put up with this situation (because they unfortunately have no choice). The result will be a community in decline. The Council’s solution? Apathy.
- Strained Emergency Services: It won’t take long before the influx of thousands of new residents will overwhelm our emergency services … and the Council will tell us we MUST approve a new bond to pay for all the new emergency service buildings, trucks, police, & fire. They simply ignore these facts.
City Council’s Betrayal
Let’s dissect their arguments – if we can call them that:
- Economic Growth Delusion: They chant “progress” like a broken record. They say it is “inevitable” … but they are the cause of it. And at what cost? Our peace? Our identity? Their math doesn’t add up.
- Affordable Housing Mirage: They dangle “affordability” like a carrot. But this word is mutable and can mean anything they want it to mean. (Read Here) But these apartments won’t house struggling families; they’ll attract transient renters. The kind of renters that won’t care if they live next to train tracks. Our community deserves better.
- Density Disaster: They preach density like zealots. It’s a mantra of the Strong Towns philosophy that they covet. But Fate isn’t Manhattan. We cherish open spaces, not concrete jungles. Their vision blinds them.
- Property Rights Suppression: The Council portrays the developer’s property rights as sacrosanct. But what about our rights as existing residents? Are we mere collateral damage? The Community also has rights. WE THE PEOPLE have the right to decide what developments are allowed in our community. The Council are supposed to represent the People … not Developers.
- Deceitful Pretty Pictures: The presentation made to the Planning & Zoning Commission include pretty pictures (renderings) of trees and open spaces. But this is just PR…these renderings to not exist in the legal, official documents. The legal documents contain vagaries that will not restrict the design concepts once approval is provided.
The Legal Quandary
Despite claims by some on the council, Texas law, does NOT prohibit “exclusionary zoning”. Exclusionary zoning refers to zoning ordinances and practices that effectively exclude certain types of zoning, such as multi-family housing. It is NOT illegal to exclude multi-family housing in a City as long as the reasons why you are excluding multi-family housing are not discriminatory. The law governing discrimination in housing is the Fair Housing Act. The reason ‘why’ you are excluding multi-family development matters.
There are plenty of legal reasons to exclude multi-family zoning which don’t ‘presume’ to discriminate.
- For one, a lack of infrastructure to support a large block of new housing. This would include roads, water, and availability of emergency services to name a few.
- “Crime” is part of the infrastructure … but not in the sense that the apartment dwellers are more likely to be criminals, but because the availability of police to serve any additional populous of permanent residents would be stressed to the breaking point.
- “Noise” can be a factor. Not because apartment dwellers can be viewed discriminately as “noisy” but because any large gathering of individuals in a concentrated area would dramatically increase the livability of those already in the region.
- “Traffic” is a legitimate, legal concern. While commercial development may increase traffic during the daytime, large concentrations of residents in a single area increase traffic in the early mornings, evenings, and nighttime. The proposed development is expected to generate 1418 entering trips and 1085 exiting trips in the AM peak hour, and 1751 entering and 1679 exiting trips in the PM peak hour. THAT’S JUST ONE HOUR – in the morning and evening. The final result will be 10’s of thousands of new vehicles on our roads daily.
Our Call to Arms
Fellow Fate-dwellers, rise! Attend the Council meeting TONIGHT (02/05/2024). Raise your voices. Remind them that Fate isn’t just a dot on a map; it’s our home. We won’t surrender to big developers who only care about money and don’t care about our community. The bottom line is that if the project doesn’t work without apartments … then it doesn’t work. Try again.
In the end, our FATE rests with us!
Disclaimer: For those in the cheap seats, this article reflects The Fate Tribune’s unapologetically biased views. If you seek impartiality, look elsewhere. Fate’s destiny hangs in the balance, and we stand with our community. Why don’t YOU!