{"id":164540,"date":"2026-02-14T11:09:26","date_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/164540\/"},"modified":"2026-02-14T11:09:26","modified_gmt":"2026-02-14T11:09:26","slug":"hud-investigates-epic-over-alleged-religious-discrimination-in-upcoming-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/164540\/","title":{"rendered":"HUD investigates EPIC over alleged religious discrimination in upcoming project"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development<\/a> is investigating the East Plano Islamic Center over its upcoming project The Meadow<\/a>, formally known as EPIC City.<\/p>\n

The department in a press release Friday accuses EPIC Real Properties, Inc., and Community Capital Partners, LP \u2014 the corporate entities for EPIC\u2014 of violating the Fair Housing Act over religious and national origin discrimination. <\/p>\n

“It is deeply concerning the East Plano Islamic Center may have violated the Fair Housing Act and participated in religious discrimination,\u201d HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement. \u201cAs HUD Secretary, I will not stand for illegal religious or national origin discrimination in housing and will ensure that this matter receives a thorough investigation so that this community is open to all Texans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The probe stems from a complaint from the Texas Workforce Commission describing a “large-scale pattern of religious discriminatory conduct” by The Meadow’s developers, according to the department. <\/p>\n

The allegations accuse developers of promoting The Meadow as a Muslim-only community and that it would represent \u201cthe epicenter of Islam in America.\u201d Other claims include:<\/p>\n

Discriminatory financial terms that required lot owners to subsidize a mosque and Islamic educational centers.A bias sales mechanism consisting of a two-tier lottery system for lot sales, which granted lot access to Tier One buyers.<\/p>\n

The Meadow is planned to be a 402-acre development<\/a> between unincorporated Collin and Hunt counties, roughly 40 miles northeast of Dallas near the city of Josephine. <\/p>\n

It would include more than 1,000 homes, a new mosque, a K-12 faith-based school, senior housing, an outreach center, commercial developments, sports facilities, and a community college.<\/p>\n

Planners from Community Capital Partners, LLC in the past have repeatedly said The Meadow is an open community where everyone is welcome.<\/p>\n

\u201cCCP does not discriminate,\u201d Emily Black said, a spokesperson for the corporate entity.\u201cThey do not seek exclusivity. They support equal housing opportunity and religious freedom, both of which are protected under federal and Texas law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Meadow was first proposed as EPIC City in November 2024. But the project continues to face scrutiny through four state investigations from multiple agencies, and a federal investigation from the U.S Department of Justice over the same claims of religious discrimination. The federal probe was closed after the department found no wrongdoing last June.<\/p>\n

One of those state probes, which involved The Texas Workforce Commission, was also resolved last September.<\/p>\n

The commission had agreed to dismiss allegations that The Meadow discriminate against non-Muslims, according to documents obtained by KERA News.<\/p>\n

Community Capital Partners and TWC entered into a Conciliation Agreement, stating CCP leadership will participate in fair housing training, review marketing and sales materials to ensure they\u2019re non-discriminatory, implement fair housing policies, only use criteria to vet applicants that is “objective, uniform and directly related to business” and submit reports and documents to TWC over the next five years. It\u2019s unclear why the commission sent a complaint to HUD.<\/p>\n

The mosque was also hit with a lawsuit from state Attorney General Ken Paxton in December. He accused EPIC, CCP and its leaders of engaging in fraudulent practices while soliciting funds and says the groups failed to legally verify its statuses as “accredited investors.”<\/p>\n

Penelope Rivera is KERA\u2019s Tarrant County Accountability Reporter. Got a tip? Email Penelope at privera@kera.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development is investigating the East Plano Islamic Center over its upcoming…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[160,162,161],"class_list":["post-164540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-plano","tag-plano","tag-plano-headlines","tag-plano-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}