The Texas Workforce Commission has settled a Fair Housing Act complaint against the developers of EPIC City, a planned Muslim-centric community northeast of Dallas.
The state agency reached a settlement with developer Community Capital Partners on Tuesday, according to documents the firm provided to The Dallas Morning News. Emails sent to the Texas Workforce Commission were not immediately returned.
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The agreement resolves issues alleged in the complaint, and the dismissal letter states that Community Capital Partners admits no wrongdoing.
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As part of the settlement, Community Capital Partners leadership must complete a fair housing training program. The firm must review and revise marketing and sales materials to ensure they are nondiscriminatory.
Community Capital Partners is also required to develop and implement fair housing policies. The procedures must be reviewed and approved by the Texas Workforce Commission.
The settlement states the firm must cease using any applicant assessment criteria that is not “objective, uniformly applied, and directly related to business necessity.” The agreement forbids the use of any criteria as a pretext for religious or national origin discrimination.
Community Capital Partners will provide a variety of documents and reports to the state agency for the next five years.
The firm said it is moving forward with plans for its master-planned development across 402 acres in Collin and Hunt counties.
EPIC City is expected to feature more than 1,000 homes, a K-12 faith-based school, a mosque, elderly and assisted living, apartments, clinics, retail shops, a community college and sports fields just outside the town of Josephine, about 40 minutes northeast of downtown Dallas.
“Community Capital Partners is pleased that the Texas Workforce Commission has closed their review of our proposed development,” Imran Chaudhary, the firm’s president, said in a statement. “We welcomed the opportunity to take a deep dive into the Fair Housing Act, and we have identified ways to make our master-planned community stronger and more diverse. Truly, it would be beneficial for everyone building a mixed-use project in Texas to have this review and guidance from TWC.”
The Texas Workforce Commission is the entity responsible for enforcing the Fair Housing Act in Texas.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced in March that the commission was investigating the East Plano Islamic Center and any affiliated entities for potential fair housing violations.
Some members of the East Plano Islamic Center formed Community Capital Partners, the for-profit entity managing the EPIC City project.
“They are potentially breaking state fair housing laws by refusing to sell or rent housing to certain groups based on religion or other protected traits,” Abbott said.
Community Capital Partners has repeatedly said it will adhere to the Fair Housing Act, as well as all other applicable state and federal guidelines. The community will be open to members of all religions.
This is the second investigation tied to the EPIC City development that’s been dismissed. The U.S. Department of Justice ended a civil rights investigation in June.
Abbott previously said a dozen state agencies are investigating “potential illegal activities conducted by EPIC and its affiliated entities.”
The dismissal comes just days after Abbott ceremonially signed a new law in Fairview last week that he said has banned “Sharia compounds” and targets the business structure behind EPIC City.
Abbott alleged the developers were violating religious freedom laws by trying to use religion as a form of “segregation.”
EPIC City’s developers have said the only laws they will impose will be Texas and federal ones.
“What [Abbott]’s proposing is fine. What he’s saying we intended to do is a lie and a falsehood,” Dan Cogdell, an attorney representing the EPIC mosque and EPIC City developers, told The Dallas Morning News Friday. “It’s nauseating to my very core that an elected official of the state of Texas — the highest elected official of the state of Texas — is lying to Texans.”
Staff writer Adrian Ashford contributed to this report.