The city of Dallas is waging war against homeowners. Five city council members, city staff and the city manager are engaging in very real attempts to remove the rights of homeowners to determine what their neighborhoods look like. For generations, Dallas zoning codes have given homeowners the right to vote on how their neighborhood is developed. Now those voting rights are under attack.

In a stealthy year-end move, council members Chad West, Adam Bazaldua, Paula Blackmon, Jaime Resendez and Jaynie Schultz released a proposal that will destroy single-family neighborhoods, the very backbone of our city, the types of neighborhoods that make Dallas a desirable place to live. The city manager and staff are simultaneously pushing the passage of ForwardDallas, a document designed to fundamentally change Dallas zoning by circumventing homeowners’ power to affect what happens in their area. They are doing this in the name of increased density, yet they have been forced to admit that these changes will increase neither affordability nor home ownership. This is a naked power grab and nothing more than a gift for developers and investors.

You have no doubt seen the media blitz that was released when the public became aware of their plans, including a hastily released news statement that it was a “conversation, not a proposal.” But conversations begin with those who are most affected, not presented as a fully developed fait accompli.

These proposals have two main goals: (1) removing homeowners’ rights and (2) changing single-family zoning to multi-family by allowing duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes by right in single-family neighborhoods. They would simultaneously reduce the minimum lot size to 1,500 square feet, smaller than most houses. Most lots in Dallas are 7,500 square feet, meaning that lots as they currently exist would be able to have five houses in the same space.

Beware any time you see the phrase “by right.”  It means removing voting rights from homeowners and placing those decisions in the hands of developers and investors with a profit motive. The current city of Dallas process requires that significant zoning changes require advance notification of nearby neighbors, who then can vote to approve or reject the changes. This proposal kills that. Last year, 30% of Dallas homes were sold to investors who do not live here and have no concern about what happens in our neighborhoods.

It is well known that home ownership is the surest way to build generational wealth, a particular need in Black and Brown communities, the very communities these proposals will hurt most. Investors are already circling southern Dallas like hungry sharks, looking to buy up any homes they can to demolish and replace with more expensive houses. The small homes our grandparents worked so hard to buy and keep will be demolished and replaced by more expensive houses, eliminating the opportunity for subsequent generations to use them as the basis for wealth building by living in, renovating or renting them out.

Dallas has a history of implementing regulations that harm communities of color, and this is no different. These proposals: removing homeowners rights and destroying single-family zoning, will decimate minority communities and turn Dallas into something resembling the excessively crowded, inordinately expensive row house communities of Philadelphia and New York.

While council members West, Bazaldua, Resendez, Blackmon and Schultz engage in misdirection, double talk and subterfuge, we must fight to retain the sanctity of single-family homes and normal-sized lots. We must be ready to fight to keep what we have, what works. It means being ready to stand up, speak up, attend council meetings, send emails to all council members and make it known that we will not give up our rights or our neighborhoods without a fight.