January 13, 2022 10:37 am
The Appeals Court Accepts the Snider Plaza Alliance’s Case Against the City of University Park on Its Improper Rezoning of Snider Plaza
The coalition of concerned property owners, tenants, and citizens, Snider Plaza Alliance, has filed an appeal of the denial of the Alliance’s motion for a temporary injunction handed down by Associate Judge Sheryl McFarlin, based on a technicality. The November 18 ruling is purely procedural. The ruling did not reach the merits of the Alliance’s allegations: that the UP City Council purposefully disguised the decision to reduce parking requirements in Snider Plaza, resulting in catastrophic traffic management and parking conditions if broadly applied. According to long-time resident Anne McIntyre, “this is unfortunately a repeat performance by the Council, which over time has ignored neighborhood input and its own rules if they happen to get in the way.” On the subject of the project’s impact on Snider Plaza businesses, resident Herb Weitzman, a real estate professional with over 40 years’ experience in Dallas retail development, has observed “There’s not enough parking spaces provided under current ordinance. I’m not against development, but I sure do not want the charm and the pleasure that we all have shopping there to be eroded.”
On December 30, 2021, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the Alliance’s Docketing Statement, formally initiating the appeal.
In the course of hearing the Alliance’s motion for a temporary injunction at which the argument centered on the claim by the City of University Park that the Alliance and its members did not have the standing to bring suit challenging the City Council’s zoning action applicable to the Snider Plaza project known as “SPC 6600 Snider Plaza,” despite the fact that the Alliance numbers among its members a property owner directly across the street from the planned project. In the course of the hearing, Associate Judge McFarlin was clear and emphatic that the Alliance’s case was persuasive; only the lack of suitable representation by a neighbor stood in the way of a favorable ruling on the Alliance’s motion. In the words of the Court, “I can tell you if I deny the pleas to the jurisdiction, I am going to grant the TI [temporary injunction].”
The Alliance’s goals are twofold. First, requiring the City of University Park to play by its own rules, and second, pursuing a civic dialogue about the future of Snider Plaza. A successful appeal would force the City to support the Alliance’s mission: adopting redevelopment rules for Snider Plaza that do not add to the existing traffic and parking congestion while allowing only properly sized future redevelopment compatible with the center’s intimate scale and the surrounding residential neighborhood. If the Alliance’s legal position is adopted, the case would effectively leave 6600 Snider Plaza development project to contend with defective zoning -- affecting building permits, certificates of occupancy, and other actions by the City of University Park taken under the auspices of proper zoning.
For questions relating to the content of this press release, please contact the Alliance’s president, Matt Dixon, at mw_dixon@usa.net.