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The city of Fort Worth is moving forward with zoning changes to limit the concentration of businesses like liquor stores, smoke shops and payday lenders in one area.
City leaders have complained in the past about how it seemed as if these businesses clustered in lower income neighborhoods with more people of color.
In October, the city’s infrastructure and growth committee discussed possible amendments to zoning requirements for liquor and package stores, vape shops, pawn shops, and credit access “payday loan” businesses.
The committee floated a proposal to implement new requirements for where these businesses can be built in relation to each other, and to strengthen pre-existing requirements.
Under that proposal, liquor stores, vape shops, pawn shops and payday lenders would have to be 1,000 feet from an existing business of the same kind, either in a direct line or through an intersection.
Pawn shops, already subject to a 500-foot distance requirement, would have seen that distance increase to 1,000 feet.
The Fort Worth City Council briefly discussed the proposal in December with an updated staff report removing distance requirements for pawn shops. Texas state law dictates that in counties of 250,000 or more people, the state will not give a license to a new pawn shop if it is within two miles of an existing one.
The city is now looking to add new language to the zoning rules to define payday loan businesses — which are currently categorized as “banks or financial institutions” and are therefore subject to a less strict zoning — as well as refining the language for smoke shops and restaurants. Bars would also get a separate definition in the city’s zoning code.
The Fort Worth Zoning Commission is expected to review the amended proposal at its meeting on Jan. 14, according to the agenda.
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Emily Holshouser
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