Eminent domain filed to save state park
Texas Parks and Wildlife recently filed a petition to condemn the site of a former state park and seize the land through eminent domain.
The petition was filed in the Freestone County District Court on Friday after months of unsuccessful negotiating between the state and the developer who owns the 5,000-acre property, Todd Interests.
Todd Interests is a luxury development company based in Dallas with plans to build a private, highend neighborhood called the Freestone Club on the site of the former state park. Todd Interests purchased the park from the site’s previous owner, Vistra Energy, earlier this year.
Luminant, a subsidiary of Vistra Corp., owned the property since 1968 and leased the land to the state at no cost. Parks and Wildlife sought to purchase the state park site, but Vistra would not consider a sale of just the parkland, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife.
In June, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission approved a motion to acquire the property through condemnation at a special commission session.
Now, supporters of keeping the park public are excited about the state’s use of eminent domain, including the policy and action group Environment Texas.
“Eminent domain should be used in only extraordinary circumstances; this is one of those extraordinary times,” Environment Texas Executive Director Luke Metzger wrote in an email to the Chronicle. “It’s unfortunate that Todd Interests has rejected a fair offer from the state to buy this land and is instead moving ahead with razing the land and destroying the $72 million worth of campsites, bathrooms and other investments the state has made to the land over the last fifty years.”
Shawn Todd, founder of Todd Interests, defended his company's decision to purchase the site and condemned Texas Parks and Wildlife's decision to use eminent domain in an op-ed in the Dallas Morning News.
The Chronicle reached out to Todd and Texas Parks and Wildlife for comment but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Facebook group
In July, Todd Interests released a 44-second video of development updates of the Freeston Club, showing construction vehicles driving through paved roads in the park, digging through the surface while workers surveyed the land. The video prompted backlash from the social media group “Save Fairfield Lake State Park,” which has almost 3,000 members.
Misti Little, one of the group’s administrators, said she was “ecstatic” when she found out the state filed the petition for eminent domain.
“A lot of our supporters in the Facebook group have qualms about eminent domain generally because it’s used negatively for a lot of things,” Little said. “But we’re all very supportive of it in this instance. It’s a light at the end of the tunnel.”
‘Sense of relief ’
When exactly the court proceeding will begin is currently unclear. But with the filed petition, the district court judge could appoint a commission that would determine the fair market value for compensation for the park. The process is subject to appeals.
Little said she hopes the proceedings will be resolved in the next couple of months.
One of the other administrators for the group, Sandy Bates Emmons, said the fight to save the park has been a personal and emotional fight for her family over the last seven months. Emmons said the condemnation filing gave her, “the biggest sense of relief,” the closure of the park affected her business in Freestone County and she was leading the fight to keep the gravesites of formerly enslaved people preserved.
“We are feeling much more confident that the land and the lake will be in caring hands with Texas Parks and Wildlife and they will restore the habitat and ecosystems, saving them from further destruction,” Emmons said. “I also hope the many archeological sites have been spared and that Easter’s gravesite in the forgotten freedmen’s cemetery within the park have been left intact.”