Dixon Branch Homeowners Association

DOUBLE-WIDE NEWS IN THE Dallas Morning News

Aug 01, 2002

Neighborhood battle brewing over 'doublewide'

Residents may wage court fight against manufactured duplex
04/21/2002 By MICHAEL E. YOUNG / The Dallas Morning News

The modest building, plain as porridge, nestles on a corner lot in a quiet neighborhood east of the White Rock Lake area.

But to local officials, homeowners groups and most particularly to the people living nearby, the duplex in the 10700 block of Lake Gardens Drive
threatens every neighborhood in the city.

It doesn't look like its neighbors, for one thing ?– no brick exterior, no sharply peaked roof, no architectural nuances that bespeak a custom
home. Instead, it's a perfect rectangle, long and narrow, and it arrived by truck in mirror halves joined together at the site.

And therein lies the problem.

The manufactured home ?– "the doublewide" to some neighbors and "trailer home" to others ?– is an example of what the Legislature calls
"industrialized housing," which is given a sticker proclaiming it an acceptable dwelling anywhere in the state.

What that means, Dallas building official Raj Sharma said, is that a city can't impose requirements or limits on such housing that it doesn't impose on conventional, site-built homes.

So if the industrialized, factory-built home is placed on a lot with the proper zoning and meets all the setback and placement requirements,
there's nothing a city can do to keep it out.

Which leaves lots of people unhappy, including some of the elected ones at Dallas City Hall.

"Once one of these buildings gets that state sticker, there's nothing we can do, nothing,"
said City Council member James Fantroy, who has
seen several industrialized homes go up in his
southern Dallas district.

"Our constituents call and say, 'We sent you down
there to fight for us,' and we have to tell them there's nothing we can fight," Mr. Fantroy said. "Our hands are tied."

Council member Mary Poss, who represents the Lochwood area where the duplex has been placed, said she's appalled that the state would adopt
legislation that prevents a city from protecting the integrity of its neighborhoods.

"But according to the city attorney's office, if a neighborhood doesn't have deed restrictions to prevent something like this and if the neighbors don't have the wherewithal to hire private counsel to fight it, they're in bad shape," Ms. Poss said.

The Lochwood neighborhood, part of the Dixon Branch Homeowners Association, has both. But residents might face a difficult and expensive court fight to force the duplex out.

"This neighborhood does have deed restrictions that require things like a 90 percent brick exterior and a two-car garage," said Margaret Bell, president of the homeowners association. "Those are the biggest things in this case, but not the only things."

The deed restrictions also require that plans for construction be approved
by a neighborhood architectural commission, a process followed closely when the neighborhood was built, Ms. Bell said. But because the newer
homes in the neighborhood are 15 years old, it has been a while since the architectural committee was active.

"We're going back to a committee, though, now that we see what can happen with these manufactured homes," Ms. Bell said. "We'll reactivate it. This is a wake-up call for us.

"We were asleep at the switch."

The owner of the duplex, identified as Michael Stewart on property records, never approached the homeowners association with his plans,
Ms. Bell said. He could not be reached for comment.

But Mr. Stewart, whose listed address is a shopping center on Montfort Road in Far North Dallas, did talk with some residents, neighbor Christopher Matthews said.
"He told us he was building a duplex, that it would be a split level and it would look like the other homes," said Mr. Matthews, who lives a few
houses away from the duplex. "He pointed to one house and said that's what it would look like.

"We were ecstatic that someone was building and would take care of that vacant lot. We were pretty happy. Then we saw these two modular units
being wheeled in."

Neighbors called the city but learned there was nothing it could do.

"We were pretty shocked, needless to say," Mr. Matthews said. "We're looking at this doublewide trailer, which is what it is, being converted into
a duplex and moved onto a piece of land that had been vacant ever since Lochwood was developed.

"We were all scratching our heads. How could they move a doublewide trailer into a custom-home neighborhood?"

There were more surprises coming. Dallas not only couldn't stop the duplex from coming, it couldn't enforce the deed restrictions, either. That would be up to the residents.

"It'll cost us $5,000 right off the bat to get a temporary injunction to stop construction, and then we'll have to go to court to get a removal order,"
Mr. Matthews said. "It's kind of a shame when you have to stop someone from doing something that's clearly inappropriate for a neighborhood and have to take it out of your own pocket to do it," said Richard Massey, another neighbor.

"There are a lot of retirees here, too," he said. "About 40 percent of the homeowners are retirees on fixed incomes."

But the Lochwood residents, helped by other homeowners in the Dixon Branch area, have the money to go to court.
"We don't want to hurt [Mr. Stewart]; we aren't trying to cause him problems," said Ms. Bell, president of the homeowners association. "We
just need to protect our property values. There's no animosity."

The neighbors would have been perfectly happy if Mr. Stewart had built a conventional duplex on the property, Mr. Massey said.

"If he wanted to come in and build a duplex that looked like the rest of the neighborhood, it would be fine," he said. "He could even have the
property rezoned and build a single-family home. That would be fine, too.

"But right now, I think you could poll everyone in the neighborhood and they'd say they want ... [the duplex] gone," Mr. Massey said.

Peggy Hill, a real estate agent whose family has owned a nearby duplex for years, understands residents' frustrations.

"As an owner, I'm concerned about property values," she said. "And from a real estate standpoint, I'm concerned about all those other affordable,
well-maintained middle-class neighborhoods.

"This same thing could happen to them."