When the construction equipment arrived last week at Fairfield Lake State Park — an 1,800-acre jewel in Freestone County, 90 miles southeast of Dallas — its future appeared sealed. Goodbye, public trails. Adios, public lake full of catfish and bass. Hello, putting green for the wealthy.
Many Texans were surprised to find out that the state didn’t own the park’s land. For nearly 50 years, the state had a free lease on the land from Vistra Energy, which ran an adjacent coal-fired power plant. When Vistra shut down the coal plant in 2018, it sold the entire 5,000-acre parcel of land, including the park, to Todd Interests. The developer planned to build a gated community with a private golf course.
The state tried to find a way to reopen the land to the public, but after months of negotiation, it couldn’t reach an agreement with Todd Interests. This editorial board begged for a hero to step in. State Rep. Angelia Orr, a Hill Country Republican, filed a bill that would have allowed the state to use eminent domain to seize the park’s land. But Orr’s bill never even came up for a vote.
Many observers weren’t surprised. Property rights are sacrosanct in Texas, right?
Well, no. Eminent domain — the government’s right to take property for public use, assuming it pays a fair price — is enshrined in the Texas Constitution.
Even before joining the United States, the Republic of Texas embraced forced legal sales. In 1839 its Legislature created a commission to find a site to house the fledgling government, either through a sale or condemnation. Since then, much of Texas as we know it today came about thanks to eminent domain. Projects from railroads to pipelines to highways relied on eminent domain. In 1979, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department acquired the Franklin Mountains through a legally forced sale. Just outside El Paso, that 26,000 acres is now one of the nation’s largest urban parks.
With Fairfield Lake State Park, the agency has stepped up again. On Saturday, June 10, in a last-ditch effort to save the park, the commissioners unanimously approved a motion to acquire the entire 5,000-acre property through eminent domain. Figuring out how much the state should pay for the land will involve Freestone County’s district courts.
Admittedly, this drastic measure isn’t ideal. It would have been better had the state been able to work out a deal with Vistra or Todd Interests to reacquire the land. We agree with Parks and Wildlife Commission Chairman Arch Aplin III that the agency should craft a policy to ensure that eminent domain is only used in “extraordinary and unusual situations” in the future.
The government’s power to take land can easily be misused. Local governmental entities routinely use ”blight” to justify land seizures in which residents are often underpaid. Eight years ago, the Houston Independent School District bulldozed homes in a historically Black neighborhood to build a new high school. More recently, in Freeport, a massive port expansion forced dozens of households to accept offers to trade their homes for port-owned properties in a flood-prone area.
But with Fairfield Lake State Park, the agency didn’t take the step lightly; no current residents of the land were harmed; and the public benefit is clear. Texas State Parks Division Director Rodney Franklin noted during the commissioners’ meeting that 80 percent of the public comments the agency received were in support of using eminent domain to save the park. The park has been closed since June 4, but given that taxpayers have already put $70 million into improving Fairfield Lake since it was established, the public has a vested interest in ensuring that the park remains open for generations to come.
In a state with a growing population competing for limited open space, these conservation victories reflect true Texas values. We look forward to Fairfield Lake State Park reopening to people of all backgrounds.
Houston Chronicle
