Hurst council rejects developer’s bid for apartments that included low-income housing

A developer’s request to build a new 120-unit apartment complex in southeast Hurst that would have included affordable housing options for people with limited incomes was voted down Tuesday.

The proposal drew a standing-room-only crowd to city council chambers. After listening for more than two hours to residents who opposed to the plan, the council unanimously voted to deny the request from Gardner Capital.

Council members said the wrong location was chosen for the complex, which would have been built at Bedford-Euless Road and Valentine Street. The proposed site is near a neighborhood that already has apartment complexes nearby. Residents described problems related to those complexes, including loud noises and trash strewn in their yards.

Residents also raised concerns about dilapidated complexes in Hurst and said that building more apartments would bring an increase in crime.

“What [Gardner Capital is] proposing is so much better than what we have, but we have to deal with reality, as I think this is the right program but in the wrong place,” councilwoman Trasa Cobern said before the vote.

Councilman Henry Wilson expressed similar views.

“Putting apartments in a single-family area is the wrong thing to do. I’ve seen the run-down shopping center. Something needs to be done in that area,” Wilson said.

John Palmer, senior vice president of business development for Gardner Capital said his company would like to continue to work with Hurst to identify new opportunies.

“Progress with positive change is needed and inevitable to create true community revitalization, and residents always need a voice in that conversation,” Palmer said in an email to the Star-Telegram.

“I’m encouraged by the number of residents who participated and turned out to express their concerns about who and what is being placed in their back yards. The Council shared many of those concerns and voted accordingly.”

The plans for the proposed complex called for a gated community with one- and two-bedroom apartments in one-, two- and three-story buildings. Gardner Capital also wanted to leave the mature trees in place, and put the three-story buildings close to Bedford-Euless Road so that tenants would not overlook the back yards of nearby homes.

The plans also called for 20 percent of the units to rent at market value, while the remaining 80 percent would be leased to people with limited incomes.

David Derr said he spent time on the streets before getting an apartment and eventually buying a home in southeast Hurst.

“I don’t care about low-income. What matters to me is that my kids are in the H-E-B ISD,” he said.

Derr said he is worried about overcrowding at nearby Harrison Lane Elementary,and that more apartments would further burden the school district.

But Paula Jernigan, executive director of Mission Central, a social service agency serving the H-E-B area, said having more affordable housing choices would help people who pay more than $1,000 a month in rent and live in “substandard” conditions in complexes between Pipeline Road and Texas 10.

“I believe this complex would allow some options for families who for lack of a better term are the working poor people who pay $1,200 a month living in substandard housing. I understand concerns of neighbors, but we have to start somewhere to create competition for apartments costing $1,200.”

This story was originally published December 13, 2017 at 6:01 PM with the headline "Hurst council rejects developer’s bid for apartments that included low-income housing."