FORT WORTH, Texas — Rudy Avitia didn’t want to move. In 2016, he said skyrocketing rent forced him out of the barbershop he owned and operated for 10 years on West Magnolia Avenue. That swath of Fort Worth’s Near Southside area became the hottest patch of dirt in town after decades of private and public efforts to develop it.

When Avitia first opened shop on the then-trending thoroughfare back in 2006, his rent was low and business was good. A few Zagat-rated restaurants, toney boutique shops, and successful street festivals later, his landlords were asking for a rent hike of more than 566% per month for the tiny ramshackle spot that has since housed two restaurants and an outdoor music venue.

Avitia moved his business a few miles away to Hemphill Street. Though he lost clients and a few barbers in the process, he said business has been good at his new locale. He’s even buying the property, which is situated near the long-defunct Berry Theater.

When he received a piece of mail notifying him that Hemphill Street would soon be rezoned, he initially didn’t think much of it. After some encouragement from his brother Ricardo Avitia, the two have come to believe the city is trying to turn Hemphill Street into the next Magnolia Avenue — and price business and homeowners out of their spaces. Fearing other locals would meet the same fate as Rudy, the pair have been leading the charge against the rezoning effort ever since that fateful trip to the mailbox. They’ve even gone door-to-door canvassing the neighborhood with fliers and information.

“Basically, the developers need to come this way because there's no more property to develop [in the Near Southside],” Rudy said. “I'm buying my property, but if I wasn’t, then my rent was going to go up because the taxes are going to go up. They're going to go up on me and everybody else down the road on Hemphill that's been here for forever.”

Richard Riccetti has also been going door-to-door. The Hemphill business owner finds himself on the other side of the suddenly contentious rezoning issue. He heads the Hemphill Corridor Task Force, a coalition of the eight neighborhood groups that occupy the south side of the city. He and the other volunteers of the task force have been working on revitalizing the area for years. They’ve hosted several public meetings about rezoning, shared information with other neighbors and business owners, and have been working toward a goal of turning Hemphill into a safe, viable artery for the neighborhood.

Riccetti said he was “dumbfounded” by the misinformation being spread about the rezoning and accusations that he and the other members of the corridor are a gentrifying force.

“The goal of the rezoning, oddly enough, is to slow gentrification and build on the character that we have with our Southern neighborhoods,” he said. “In the last 11 years, [house] prices have doubled in Fort worth. So how do we protect our neighborhoods? That is the whole gist of the zoning. That's why I find the misinformation out there just dumbfounding. The role of the zoning is to basically play defense against improper or unwanted development.”

Normally, a rezoning proposal doesn’t capture the public’s attention the way this has, but both sides believe they represent the neighborhood’s best interest. The Avitias formed a grassroots group called Hemphill No Se Vende (Hemphill is not for sale). They pushed the city to hold two in-person meetings — both of which were heated — and hosted an event, Tacos Si, Gentrification No. The Avitias believe the city and taskforce have tried to sneak this initiative through without much public input.

Riccitti, the area’s City Councilwoman Ann Zadeh, and other proponents of the proposed rezoning have conducted countless work sessions and solicited input from neighborhood leaders on rezoning over the years. They have hosted four meetings on the topic (both in-person and online), maintained an active social media presence, and believe they have generally encouraged transparency and community participation. They also say those who oppose the measure have been pedlling misinformation and unwilling to listen or take part in the process.

The proposed rezoning, called “Near Southside General Urban Hemphill Neighborhood,” would change the uses of buildings on a 313-acre patch of Hemphill Street. Currently, landowners of property abutting the busy street can build everything from a single-family home to an industrial building up to 120 feet tall. Developers can also legally build towering properties that overlook houses.

In the proposed rezoning, which will be reviewed by the Zoning Commission on December 9 and summarily sent to the City Council for a vote, buildings would be limited to three stories, and properties that sit adjacent to single-family homes would have to stair-step, so the property isn’t right on top of someone’s house. The proposed zoning would also allow for mixed-use property, such as buildings with retail on the bottom and residential units on top.

Hemphill has already undergone a significant facelift. After a spate of pedestrian deaths, the Taskforce resolved to slow down traffic on the major artery that runs north-south and runs 5.4 miles, all the way from Interstate-20 just past Interstate-30. There are seven schools that orbit the street, at least two community centers, and a Boys and Girls Club all within a four-mile stretch. Crossing the street was like a high-stakes game of Frogger until May when the city finished up its $4.1 million project that restriped the street down to three lanes, improved sidewalks, and added bike lanes and parking spots.

“I think that there's a difference between revitalization efforts in a neighborhood and gentrification,” Councilwoman Zadeh said. “Revitalization is the process of enhancing the physical, commercial, and the social components of a neighborhood. And that takes both the private sector and public sector working together. Gentrification is a process when higher-income households come in and displace lower income households in a neighborhood.”

Ricardo Avitia said he thinks the happy talk from the Taskforce and city is downplaying what he calls the “real repercussions” of the rezoning. Though Baby Gap and Starbucks may not be immediately looking for spaces to rent, he believes the rezoning efforts are the first step. 

“They make it seem like everything's going to be great,” he said. “It's going to be a good thing for the community, but they don't really tell us the real repercussions behind it. When we ask about taxes, they say, ‘Oh taxes are going up anyway.’ They have this pretty little graph that shows how the taxes are going up because people are coming in, but they don't tell us that the city is blasting information out there to marketing people to come in and telling them, ‘We have all these resources for new folks to come in.’ They don't want to give us the resources.”

In a recent post on social media, the Defend Hemphill page posted their demands to city officials, including a 90-day continuance of the vote to “ensure a transparent process and real participation” from the people impacted by the proposed zoning changes; an explainer brochure to be mailed out by the city in both English and Spanish; and that an independent committee be formed to “ensure equitable participation.”

The Avitias and those who oppose the rezoning say their mistrust of the city and the taskforce started with that seemingly innocuous piece of mail notifying business owners on Hemphill and residents within two blocks of the coming vote.

The letter, they say, was written in English and sent out to a predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhood, and the mailer included a line about how residents were not required to attend the meeting. That raised the antenna of Ricardo Avitia, who also believes the city acted improperly by not sending out letters to everyone that would be impacted by the rezoning.

He started a petition that successfully postponed the vote on the measure for 30 days. Had he not, the City Council would have voted on the rezoning last week on December 1. He and others were also wary of the fact that there were no in-person meetings about the rezoning, which is required by law. The city did hold two virtual meetings because of concerns over COVID-19, but, as Ricardo pointed out, many people living in the area are poor and don’t have access to the internet. City officials and members of the Taskforce acquiesced and eventually threw together a meeting in three days, but those who oppose the zoning changes said that wasn’t enough advance warning. The city held a second meeting, at which the Avitias caravanned in a number of people who opposed the changes.

Zadeh, who attended the two in-person meetings, said the opposition made the events “very uncomfortable.”

“I absolutely would like there to be an opportunity for people to get questions answered and to not have inaccurate information continue to be sent out,” she said. “But there wasn’t a lot of listening going on.”

Aside from perceived procedural gaffs, those who are against the rezoning fear being taxed out of their homes and properties. Riccetti said the rezoning would be tax-neutral, and that the real threat of gentrification comes from private investors who offer cash for homes in the area.

“There's lots of developers that are calling up individual residents, and there's lots of mailers going out,” he said. “ ‘I'll buy your house,’ ‘Your house for cash.’ So there's a lot of outside developers coming in wanting to buy up people's homes. So they're feeling that pressure from their mailboxes.”

Riccetti pointed out that the Taskforce has been sending out information in English and Spanish since February. He’s handed out fliers up and down Hemphill and personally delivered some of the mailers to residents. Until last month, he said, “No one has ever contacted me.”

He and Zadeh concede they could do more to alert residents to various city programs that could help them. For example, parts of the area sit in a Neighborhood Empowerment Zone (NEZ). People who live in those zones can apply for mortgage and rent assistance, grants for home improvements, and other perks.

Ricardo maintains the city is using the NEZ to attract outside developers — and another slippery slope toward gentrification. Few if any of the residents in the area know they live in a NEZ, he added, and he fears predatory investors lured in by the new zoning measures will buy all of the houses and change the character of the area.

“Obviously those houses are going to get torn down and condos or townhouses are going to be in their place,” he said. “The cycle will continue until there are no more homes along the Hemphill Corridor. Everything around here will change. Obviously the demographics would change because people from different areas —not only of the city, but the nation — would start to move in here.”

Riccetti said the last thing he and the Taskforce want for the area to turn into another Magnolia Avenue.

“Hemphill is not main street,” he said. “It's not South Main Street; it is not downtown; and it is not Magnolia. And it should not be those streets. It should be Hemphill. It has its own character, its own culture, its own vibe.”

If there’s a silver lining to the controversy, he added, it’s that people in the area finally see the importance of participating in their communities.

“What a great opportunity to get people engaged in their neighborhoods and their neighborhood associations,” he said. “Regardless of how people feel positively or negatively negative about [the proposed zoning], this is a great time to get people involved because so many people have felt out of the process and not engaged and haven't sought to be engaged. They can get involved now.”