WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — A federal judge writes that the city of Warner Robins may have killed a downtown low-income project based on race.
Back in February of 2020, the city said their deal with the Woda Cooper development firm to build an affordable housing complex at Perkins Field was dead.
The company disagreed and they sued the city.
In the lawsuit filed last April, Woda Cooper claims Warner Robins city leaders, including Mayor Randy Toms, invited them to build housing downtown, steered them to Perkins Field and supported the plan for more than a year.
Woda Cooper says Toms and other officials stalled on granting final permits for the plan after hearing public comments on the project.
RELATED: Supporters, detractors both vocal at Warner Robins Perkins Field affordable housing project hearing
The company argues that some people in Warner Robins opposed low-income housing downtown and that opposition was based on race.
When we sat down with Toms last February, he said those claims were simply not true.
"To say or infer that I am a racist, I don't want minorities, and this city is a racist community, is just a flat lie," he said.
Last week, federal Judge Marc Treadwell said the developers may be right about why the city killed the project.
"The sequence of events leading to that about-face strongly suggests that the city succumbed to political pressure arising from racial animus," wrote Treadwell.
He added "the City rolled out the red carpet in almost every conceivable way."
Treadwell wrote that the city rolled up that red carpet only when people objected to "the 'elements' that affordable housing would bring to downtown Warner Robins."
Treadwell threw out most of the Woda Cooper lawsuit, but kept one count alive.
That's the one that argues Toms and other city officials violated state and federal housing laws by rejecting the Perkins Field project based on race.
Back in February of 2020, Toms denied that the city killed the project based on what Woda Cooper alleges was "a fear that the Perkins Field Development will bring low-income and minority residents into the downtown."
"The community at large didn't want multi-family dwellings to jumpstart our downtown development," said Toms in 2020.
The company says it spent more than $1 million planning the Perkins Field housing before Toms and others halted the project.
Denis Blackburne, Senior Vice President of Development for Woda Cooper told 13WMAZ back in April, they didn't want to have to file the lawsuit.
"Our intention is not to win a lawsuit. We would really just like to develop the property as it was intended right from the start."
On Tuesday, Blackburne told 13WMAZ in a statement: "Although we are pleased with the judge’s comments, it still takes time. The litigation is in process and working its way through the system. We still feel, as we did since the beginning, that we have a strong case in our favor. Frankly, the Mayor and City Council have done a disservice to the city by putting it at risk of having to compensate for our losses and damages. This could be resolved very easily as all the City has to do is sign the lease agreement with us. But it does appear that such decision will now be made by the courts."