A flier circulating on social media calling for a boycott of three local businesses has made an already contentious Southside development issue even more divisive.
The flier calls for Southside residents Frye Tile, Brislin Inc. and Go Box — owners for all of which had some hand in advancing a proposed three-unit townhouse project on a lot at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Seventh Street South that almost 200 nearby residents have publicly opposed.
“Southside residents will boycott: Frye Tile, Go Box, Brislin Inc.,” the flier reads. “Do the right thing. Jesus loves y’all. Southside Syndicate don’t.”
Kenny Frye, who owns Frye Tile, is trying to develop the townhouses. Brislin owner Quinn Brislin and Go Box owner Rob Graham both sit on the city zoning board that granted a variance for the project on July 11 and allowed it to move forward.
About 60 Southside residents attended the zoning board meeting to protest the project, and 185 have signed a petition submitted to the city requesting the lot be rezoned from multi-family residential (R-3) to single-family residential (R-1) — which would disallow the townhouses. City Building Inspector Kenny Wiegel confirmed the city has received the petition.
Neither Frye nor residents The Dispatch contacted who oppose his development plans claim to know anything about the flier.
Brislin and Graham both declined to comment other than to say they didn’t know who created the flier.
Frye, who said he first saw the flier Thursday, called it “slanderous” and “rude.”
The Dispatch previously reported Frye had met with city officials to discuss the possibility of a land swap — with the city or a private landowner — that would allow him to develop the project elsewhere. Frye said Friday he had even floated the idea of building “New Orleans-style homes” on the lot to help ease resistance to the development.
Now, while he wouldn’t say outright he was no longer considering those options, he alluded to being more sure of his first idea.
“I’ve actually tried to offer these people something else, which is very nice, and for them to be doing this slander stuff that they’re doing is really just hideous,” Frye said. “It sort of shows what I’m up against down there.
“I don’t have to offer anything,” he added. “And to just keep getting this kind of treatment from these folks is pretty rude. But … they’re about to get what they don’t want down there (which) is some townhouses.”
But some Southside residents who oppose the development seem just as upset about the flier.
Edwina Williams, who lives next door to the Frye property and has very publicly opposed the development as a threat to her privacy and property’s value, said she had no idea who posted the flier but that it made her “sick.” She added such messaging “hurt everybody involved.”
“I hate that it was on Facebook,” she said.
Jan Miller, another Southside resident who opposes the townhouses, decried the flier with her own post on Facebook.
“This is stupid and petty,” she posted. “These men and their businesses are helping our community by serving on these committees. This is not the way to handle this. We need to be proactive and get the zoning changed and be more informed.”
The flier was also shared on a neighborhood watch app of which many Southside residents use. Qua Austin, a spokesperson for the neighborhood watch but not someone who signed the petition, said the residents she has spoken with do not support the boycott.
“We’re all floored,” she said. “We have no idea where it’s coming from. I wish they would show themselves.”
In any case, Southsiders opposed to Frye’s development face an uphill battle to get a rezone.
Legally, a rezone requires proof of public need and either an error in the original zoning or a substantial change in the character of the neighborhood.
The neighborhood was first zoned R-3 in the 1970s. There are four apartment complexes located within a four block radius of Frye’s lot.
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