Sunnyside residents say new housing development goes against deed restrictions

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Residents in Sunnyside say a large new housing development violates the area's deed restrictions and should never have been allowed in the first place.

Residents filed a lawsuit that is scheduled to go before a judge for the second time on Friday.

"I learned every sport right over in that field when it was empty," Jackie Cross-Ecford said. "We became a family."

Cross-Ecford's family has been in East Sunnyside for 56 years.

She said her father couldn't buy a home in other parts of the city.

"Because of discrimination, no one would allow him to move there," she said.

Now, her neighborhood is changing, and she said, not in a good way.

Permits show that the City of Houston approved building duplexes on Redbud Street near Chain Street last year.

"It's taking over our ability to see ourselves as a community," she said. "As a residential community, we've been protected for 75 years with deed restrictions."

The East Sunnyside Court Civic Club has filed a lawsuit, claiming the area has deed restrictions put in place in 1955 that ban multi-family buildings more than one story high.

"Those deed restrictions oftentimes get ignored by some process," Houston Rep. Willie Davis said.

Davis told the Civic Club that the city should never have issued a building permit.

"We're not against development, we're not against redevelopment, but the truth of the matter is that you have to work with the community," Davis said.

"We don't want our property taxes to skyrocket, which is what this is causing," Christie Campbell, who lives nearby, said. "Don't just flick us off like a fly or a gnat. Hear us, hear our voices, and we want to know that we matter."

"Sunnyside used to be our own city before we were annexed by the City of Houston," resident Toni Middleton Lewis said. "We still feel like our own community in the city, and we want to keep that here."

For now, a judge has ordered a temporary stop to construction.

Residents hope the pause will send a message to other developers looking at Sunnyside for what they call its relatively low property values.

"Nobody wants the development more than us," Jackie Cross-Ecford said. "But we expect it not to be something that's going to bring the community down in value, but to bring it up."

ABC13 has reached out to the development company and the city attorney to find out what could happen next. Eyewitness News has not heard back.