In Farmers Branch, Concerns Over Turning Post Office into a Gun Range-Store Next to a School
Posted by jhingarat21 on 1st Sep 2015
Speaking of petitions …
That’s right: Texas Legends has asked Farmers Branch for the OK to turn a post office at 14202 Proton Road, near Midway and Spring Valley, into “an indoor firearms training facility that will include two gun ranges, classrooms, offices and a small retail component,” according to council documents. Which would be fine, given the area’s light-industrial zoning and its proximity to warehouses and railroad tracks, except for one thing: The Westwood School has two campuses nearby, including a main campus just 320 feet north of the would-be gun range.The inbox is clogged this morning with Farmers Branch residents wringing their hands over tomorrow’s city council vote concerning a request to convert a former post office into a gun range and a gun store next to … wait … a school?
Westwood is looking to move into a single campus. But the move isn’t imminent: The private school is currently rehabbing a building near Dallas Christian College, but that work’s scheduled to take at least two more years. And until the new school’s opened, Westwood’s staying put. Next to, quite possibly, an indoor gun range and gun store.
At the July 27 Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. where this first passed, eight out of the 10 people who spoke about the proposed facility were against the city granting a specific use permit to Texas Legends, and the council will need a super-majority vote to OK the application.
Right now, they’ve got more than 800 people opposed to the SUP, according to this petition on Change.org, which wants to make it very clear: “This petition is not anti-gun. We respect responsible gun owners and law enforcement that would use this facility. Those who sign this petition respectfully ask the Mayor and Council Members of Farmers Branch to table approval of Ordinance 3339 until a thorough briefing of the pros and cons to those most impacted by this business is completed and presented to Council.”
Greenhill parents are also circulating a petition against the proposed gun range.
