BROWNSVILLE — The City of Port Isabel categorically denies that it discriminated against low-income Hispanic residents in the years following Hurricane Dolly.
The Port Isabel City Commission, its Planning and Zoning Commission and the city itself, filed a response last week to the Nov. 6 lawsuit brought against it by the Cameron County Housing Authority and Community Housing & Economic Development Corporation in federal court.
Those entities sued the coastal tourist destination, alleging that Port Isabel city officials violated federal housing and civil rights laws by segregating “the City of Port Isabel by denying families and individuals the right to live in a particular neighborhood based on their national origin and familial status.”
At focus in the lawsuit is the 16-unit Neptune Apartments, which became uninhabitable after Hurricane Dolly slammed into the Rio Grande Valley in 2008.
After the lawsuit was filed, Port Isabel City Manager Jared Hockema said the city denies all the allegations and would vigorously fight them in court.
The 17-page lawsuit against the city contains allegations of racism, which Hockema described as “scurrilous references to unattributed comments by members of the public,” which the city isn’t responsible for and doesn’t condone.
The Cameron County Housing Authority and Community Housing & Economic Development Corporation allege in the litigation that millions of dollars in federal grant funding was lost because the city wouldn’t authorize necessary zoning changes and use permits for the Neptune Apartments because its tenants would be low-income and Hispanic.
In its response, the City of Port Isabel said it doesn’t know if the Cameron County Housing Authority and Community Housing & Economic Development Corporation were ever awarded funding to rebuild the Neptune Apartments in the first place.
“Defendant does not have sufficient information to admit or deny whether the Authority was awarded CDBG-DR funding to rebuild the Neptune Apartments in any form … so Defendant would therefore deny those allegations,” the city’s response states.
At issue in the lawsuit are several meetings concerning the development of the Neptune Apartments site.
“During these meetings, the Anglo residents also displayed their true motives, espousing classic examples of camouflaged discriminatory comments, such as not wanting ’those people’ to come back, because the neighborhood had been ’cleaned up,’ and multi-family residents would bring ’drugs and crime’ back to the neighborhood,” according to the lawsuit.
At the heart of the conflict is that funding awarded to the Housing Authority through the Lower Rio Grande Valley Development Council to rebuild the Neptune Apartments into a 26-unit mixed-income development in April of 2014, according to the lawsuit.
However, Hockema said the City of Port Isabel worked extensively with the Cameron County Housing Authority, but that entity failed to produce a design that was compatible with the city’s land use regulations.
Allegations contained in the lawsuit paint a different picture.
“During the process, which ultimately resulted in Plaintiffs being denied the ability to receive the federal funds, or redevelop the Neptune Apartments, comments were made by members and public officials suggesting that affordable housing should be limited to the area known as ’Little Mexico’,” according to the lawsuit, which describes this area as being further inland on the other side of Highway 100 in the industrial part of the city.
In its response, the City of Port Isabel said it has no knowledge of the area known as “Little Mexico.”
“Defendant admits the Neptune Apartment site is located on a desirable location that partially overlooks the Laguna Madre – a beautiful bay, as alleged in (paragraph) 19. Defendant has no knowledge of which area it is to which Plaintiffs refer as ’Little Mexico’ … and denies that any area on Port Isabel is so nominated by anyone other than Plaintiffs.”
The City of Port Isabel, the City Commission and the Planning and Zoning Commission have claimed official immunity for all allegations brought against it and requests a trial by jury.
