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Hemphill Street townhome project pulled after developer faced ‘timing delays’

A townhome project slated for Fort Worth’s Hemphill corridor will not go forward after the developer dropped its request for a needed zoning change.

The project faced opposition from some residents worried it would lead to gentrification.

Fort Worth-based Townsite dropped its request because of “timing delays,” according to an email to the city’s development services department from Townsite co-founder Mary Nell Poole.

The email was forwarded to the Star-Telegram from city council member Elizabeth Beck, whose district includes the proposed site.

The owner has decided to sell the property, Poole said in the email. She did not immediately respond to a phone call requesting comment.

Fort Worth-based Townsite proposed putting 24 two-story townhomes at the corner of Hemphill Street and West Morningside Drive. The location, south of downtown and west of Interstate 35W, was previously a used car lot.

The townhomes would have been rentals at a lower price than the larger complexes in the area, a TownSite representative wrote in a city zoning document.

However, at the Feb. 14 city council meeting, Beck instructed Poole to work with the neighborhood to come up with a concept that better met the neighborhood’s needs.

Townsite held a meeting Feb. 23 with the Hemphill Corridor Development Collaborative, a community group managing the redevelopment in the neighborhood, to discuss potential changes to the project.

It was scheduled to hold a second meeting Thursday, but that meeting was canceled after Townsite pulled its zoning change request, said the group’s chair Fernando Peralta.

Some residents celebrated Townsite’s decision to pull the project, including Hemphill No Se Vende (Hemphill is not for sale), a group fighting against gentrification and displacement south of downtown Fort Worth.

“This is the Power we have as a Community when we Work Together for a Common Cause!,” the group said in social media posts.

Peralta was less inclined to celebrate.

“This is not a step forward. This is no step,” Peralta said arguing the area needs an overarching zoning plan that will protect longtime residents from displacement.

The group started that work in 2020, but fears it would transform the neighborhood into an extension of the Near Southside prevented the collaborative from moving forward.

There are 30 properties for sale right now in the area where developers can come and do whatever they want with little to no community input, Peralta said.

The collaborative is meeting on April 27 to discuss the zoning plan with the goal of getting more people involved and moving something forward, he said.