DallasDirt » restrictive covenants

Stanley Marcus Home May Become Dallas Landmark House, Get Bigger

Candy Evans — Thu, 07 May 2009 19:46:33 +0000

As reported on Unfair Park this morning, Preservation Dallas’ Landmark Commission Designation Committee is heading to the late Stanley Marcus home at 10 Nonesuch Place, the home now owned by the Lovvorn family. Not only will the Committee figure out if 10 Nonesuch should be a Landmark House, they are going to figure out how and where the owners can add on to the 9,000 square foot structure. You may recall the Lovvorns debated scraping the home last summer, but decided to save it. The purpose of tonight’s meeting is, as reported, a site visit so the Commission can see what they have — inspect which parts of the house are historic and cannot be touched, which parts are, well, not significant so that the Lovvorns can go to town remodelling those areas. PD’s Katherine Seale did tell me the Lovvorns are planning an extensive addition, and what she has seen thus far looks great. The whole point, which she thinks the homeowners realized last summer, is there is flexibility in owning an historic home. It’s not like you have to call the “Preservation Nazi’s” every time you want to paint a wall.

Nagin’s Folly

Candy Evans — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 05:29:18 +0000

So here’s the cute Frisco town home Ray Nagin is about to lose for $1500 — it’s up just north of Lebanon Parkway, a hefty stone’s throw from IKEA. The Mayor of New Orleans obviously doesn’t know that Texas has some of the strongest homestead laws in the country, which protects us from creditors, and sometimes spouses. In 1837, in fact, a property could not be sold without both the husband’s and wife’s signature! There are five ways you can lose your home in the Lone Star state: Failure to pay taxes of any kind — federal income taxes, property taxes; mechanics liens, when you fail to pay a workman who has done work on your house provided he correctly files a mechanics lien; purchase money mortgages — in other words, failure to pay your mortgage; failure to pay homeowners maintenance fees, a topic hotly debated in Austin right now; and failure to pay home equity loans borrowed against the homestead. Unlike other states, Texans may only borrow up to 80% of the equity in their homes, another reason why our market is a heck of a lot healthier than most.

Little Forest Hills

Candy Evans — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 23:36:01 +0000

I’m told the Dallas City Council voted against making Little Forest Hills a conservation district, yes? So what do we think about this?

Security At New Bush Home:Our Tax Dollars At Work?

Candy Evans — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 16:21:26 +0000

Looks like we’ll be footing the bill for the former president’s security, at least for awhile. Question: doesn’t Mayflower Estates have a private police patrol program?

Bush/Meaders Restrictive Covenants: For Whites, Only?

Candy Evans — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 16:38:42 +0000

I wondered when this would come up — and now it has, thanks to The Huffington Post. (Channel 11′s Bud Gillette called me about this Friday.) HP is stirring trouble, not telling the whole story. The James Meaders Restrictive Covenants are (sadly) typical of the way developers created sub-divisions post World war II in Dallas when the city was growing. I have experience with these because we also have them in our neighborhood. In fact, almost every Dallas neighborhood does! When we closed on our home in 1999, I was shocked when I read them. Homeowners in our ’hood extended our deed restrictions in 2005 as a means of “protecting property values” — so they are, in fact, effective today. But the racist clauses are illegal and un-enforecable and have been so since the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Our ‘hood fixed our’s in 2001, and it appears that Mayflower beat us to the punch and amended, second to the last page, on July 16, 2000:

“Item 11 shall be deleted.”

Covenant 11: “Said property shall be used and occupied by white persons only except these covenants shall not prevent occupany by domestic servants of a different race or nationality in the employ of a tenant.”

Drafted in 1956 and totally offensive by today’s standards. But read covenant 13:

“Invalidation of any of these covenants by a judgement or court order shall in no wise affect any of the other provisions, which shall remAin in full force and affect.”

So federal anti-discrimination statutes trumps the noxious covenants. What I never understood is why you just couldn’t delete the clause outright, since it’s illegal and unenforceable, but attorneys tell me that’s not the way contracts work.