What can Fort Worth do to stop a motel from being built next to an elementary school?
Fort Worth’s city attorney will meet with lawyers from the Keller school district in response to public outrage over an extended stay motel being built roughly 400 feet from Basswood Elementary School.
People packed a town hall meeting Wednesday night to demand the city kill the project. They raised concerns about crime, safety and the seeming lack of notification about a 2023 zoning change that allowed the project to move forward.
The Fort Worth City Council unanimously approved the zoning change at its Oct. 17, 2023, meeting with council member Charles Lauersdorf thanking motel operator Dev Surati for working through the zoning process and bringing his business to far north Fort Worth.
However, Lauersdorf voiced his support for killing the project Wednesday and promised to meet with city attorneys to get the project stopped. He cautioned the crowd that construction already underway couldn’t be stopped because the project already received the necessary approvals with the October zoning change.
It’s not clear if anything can be done.
Fort Worth’s zoning change notification process goes beyond what is legally required by state law. The state requires cities to notify all property owners within a 200 foot radius of a proposed zoning change. Fort Worth’s ordinance has a 300 foot requirement.
The city also set up a series of zoning notification emails allowing residents to get notified of any zoning change applications.
Generally speaking, the public’s only recourse after an approved zoning change is to challenge whether the city or town gave proper notice, said Ray Oujesky, an attorney with the firm Kelly Hart, which has handled several zoning cases in Fort Worth.
Fort Worth ran into an issue with its zoning change notices in June 2023 after condo owners sued to the city for not notifying them individually about a proposed apartment building being constructed next door. This forced the city to restart the zoning change process from scratch before ultimately allowing the building’s construction to go forward.
The proposed Studio 6, part of the Motel 6 chain, would be four stories, have 99 rooms and be located on the eastern boundary of the property line closest to Basswood Elementary. The site would also have a single-story 5,500 square foot retail space, according to a site plan included with the zoning change application.
Lauersdorf is looking at ways to rezone other parcels around Basswood Elementary to remove industrial uses, he said in an email to the Star-Telegram. He’s also looking other schools in his district to see if they have parcels that need rezoning.
“I’ll also be asking staff to bring forth an amendment to the ordinance to restrict hotels from being built within 1,000 feet of private or public schools,” he said.
The city has rules restricting alcohol sales near schools and childcare centers, but not hotels.
This story was originally published February 22, 2024 at 4:45 PM.
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