Michael Davis waited for customers at a parking lot on South Fitzhugh Avenue.
It was after 2 p.m. during the second week of the State Fair. The traffic outside Gate 5 on Robert B Cullum Boulevard was as busy as ever.
Things were quiet near Gate 8 on Fitzhugh Avenue, right across the 277-acre site south of Interstate 30.
For 24 days every year, the State Fair of Texas’ giant Ferris wheel, with “Texas Star” emblazoned on it, lights up for millions of visitors who descend upon the fairgrounds to experience the whirlwind splash of neon-speckled rides, treats and fried food. It’s the longest-running fair in the U.S.
Parking can be an obstacle.
More than 50 years ago, the city began enforcing an ordinance that allows nearby residents to turn their driveways, yards and vacant lots into parking havens for fairgoers.
Fair Park’s revitalization has often centered around the promise of course-correcting the harm city-led policies caused to residents of South Dallas and its neighboring communities. A special parking program arose from community-led efforts to grow commerce in the area. But residents have complained about its enforcement.
Residents in South Dallas and nearby neighborhoods like Jubilee Park and Mill City annually apply for a special “Fair Park parking permit” to either run parking lots during the State Fair to earn an income or to park their own cars. It’s a unique law that requires yearly renewals, and not many neighborhoods in the city have such a program.
The State Fair of Texas is a nonprofit organization that handles pedestrian access and gates into Fair Park during the event. The responsibility of parking enforcement outside the park falls on the city.
Nearby residents said the fair represents weeks of frustrations with visitors parking in spots reserved for residents, tailgating or littering.
One resident said their family members received a parking citation despite having active permits.
Fair Park is a sore subject for many in the neighborhood. In the 1960s and ‘70s, Dallas used eminent domain to raze homes of Black South Dallas residents to expand parking for the State Fair. They promised some of the land would be used for a community park.
The residents are still waiting.
In recent months, it appears $5.7 million in donor funds raised for the park was misspent, and while Fair Park First, the nonprofit manager, and Oak View Group, the day-to-day operator, fight over who is to blame, the future of the park’s plan is murky.
The issue at hand
In the meantime, city code allows residents to turn their properties temporarily into parking businesses for a $100 license. The ordinance mandates attendants running the lots stay on the premises as long as a car is parked there.
Residents who live around Fair Park need a separate free parking permit, and it must be visible on the parked car’s dashboard at all times.
Operators and homeowners approach parking enforcement with varying points of view. For some, there’s too much; for others, there’s too little.
Sandra Juarez, a homeowner in Jubilee Park, said residents are cited even when they have permits. The Dallas Morning News reviewed her permit and the steps she took to challenge a citation despite having a permit.
On the first day of the State Fair, Juarez had a get-together planned at her house. She hadn’t received her permit.
When she called the city, many on the phone did not seem to know the special parking permit designated for Fair Park. Finally, a city official returned her call, she said.
They emailed her the permit. She printed it out and gave it to two guests who were visiting.
“They were parked in my curb, and they had their parking permit visible for the weekend,” she said. “They received a ticket.”
“I actually enjoy the fair. I myself go with my family,” Juarez said. “I just feel that we’re not taken into consideration. I feel like the fair focuses on just the fair, and not what’s happening outside the fair.”
Juarez took a day off work to drive downtown and filed a dispute of the citation on Oct. 6. The review could take 30 days, she said. Juarez is still waiting to hear from the city.
Private operators say city is not enforcing the same rules on commercial operators
The majority of the permits, 68% of 322, are for properties zoned for commercial use. On the residential side, 79 property owners also have these permits.
For operator Phil Ziegler, the parking ordinance been life-changing.
“Parking cars helps me,” Ziegler said. On a fixed income, the extra money he makes from parking cars helps him pay off high utility bills from the summer and helps him through the rest of the year.
Operators Davis and Ziegler said the parking ordinance is not being enforced properly. Davis’ wife, Gaytha Davis, was a City Hall employee and worked in the office of council member Tennell Atkins.
The operators said commercial stores on Martin Luther King Boulevard violated their certificate of occupancies and the minimum parking requirements. The ordinance limits parking within the area bound by Fitzhugh Avenue, the T&P Railroad, Metropolitan Avenue and Robert B Cullum Boulevard “to driveways and vacant lots.”
But city officials said this sentence refers to the residential area just southeast of Fair Park.
“This sentence only refers to one small residential zone within the much larger Fair Park parking area, which stretches as far as I-30 to the north and Malcolm X Boulevard to the west,” the city said in a statement.
Last year, the city’s code compliance department issued 50 notices and citations for violations, such as illegal vending, no supervising attendant, not displaying a license, parking on unapproved surface and not having a Fair Park parking license.
In 2024, as of Oct. 18, the city issued 40 citations on similar grounds.
In response to questions from The News, city officials said “one particular operator (Davis) does persistently and aggressively complain about perceived issues with the ordinance, to the point that this operator has been told to send all future communication only to the City Attorney’s Office.”
“We disagree that there are ‘concerns’ with the ordinance, which has successfully governed Fair Park parking licenses for decades,” the statement said.
“The City Attorney’s Office has verified that this interpretation of the ordinance is incorrect, and that both commercial and residential property owners may apply for Fair Park parking permits,” states a city memo.
City disagrees with operators’ assertions
Requests to revise the ordinance have persisted since last year, according to emails reviewed by The News. City officials said they were reviewing the ordinance and operators said they hoped the ordinance could be revised before this year’s State Fair began, according to the emails.
That didn’t happen.
City officials released a memo on Oct. 18, following several requests for information from The News.
In it, assistant city managers Robin Bentley and Dev Rastogi said they were moving the authority of overseeing the program to the freshly minted transportation and public works department under Gus Khankarli.
Bentley and Rastogi said the department will review the ordinance and brief the City Council’s transportation and infrastructure committee on proposed changes to the ordinance next year, in spring 2025.
