Following a lawsuit involving accusations of racism, a predominantly African-American church in Dallas, Texas, has managed to block the developer from the construction of a massive warehouse near the church’s property.
Stonelake Capital Partners agreed to halt the project on Thursday, more than a week after Friendship-West Baptist Church was granted an injunction by a Dallas district court judge to suspend plans to build the 200,000-square-foot warehouse, citing “environmental racism” by church leaders and issues impacting zoning policies.
Paul Stafford, the church’s attorney, told the Dallas Morning News that the warehouse proposal underscored Dallas’ history of placing industrial sites in low-income neighborhoods where mostly people of color live.
The warehouse location would have been next to the church and a government building and across the street from a neighborhood with many senior citizens, the Dallas Morning News reported.
Just last year, Stonelake was denied a building permit for the warehouse, which “the denial was based upon the city’s concerns regarding the impact of the project on the community,” the lawsuit says.
The church argued the trucks that would come in and out of the property would pose a safety risk for homeowners and students nearby while pointing to the “negative environmental impact.”
“However, all that may be legal is not logical, and all that is permitted is not prudent,” according to the suit. “In the absence of injunctive relief, Plaintiff and the community will suffer imminent harm and irreparable injury through the loss of enjoyment of the Plaintiff’s property and the property of the community, through the negative effect the proposed development will have on the surrounding community…through noise, pollution, and a public nuisance.”
The lawyer for the megachurch is sought “damages in an amount of at least $500,000 for the loss of quiet enjoyment and decrease in property value of plaintiff’s property as well as lost opportunity to development plaintiff’s property in a manner consistent with the community’s needs and concerns.”
Meanwhile, the church has served as a platform for Black leaders to speak about civil rights issues. In 2020, the church featured a huge Black Lives Matter banner in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd, Axios Dallas reported.
“If they decide to begin construction, they will find me laying down in front of any construction machines,” senior pastor Frederick Douglass Haynes III told NBC5 in June. He also said a truck yard in the neighborhood is environmental racism, claiming that the area has been a victim in the past.
Haynes not only serves the church but is also a social activist, who was chosen last year to lead the Rainbow PUSH Coalition, founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, according to The Dallas Morning News.
Haynes and some neighbors attended a city hall meeting last year to protest against the warehouse. “Most of the people in my neighborhood are senior citizens that are right there in that area. We have a hard enough time trying to get out on Wheatland Road as it is,” neighbor Lovie Hawkins told NBC5.
