Forestwood Development Update: Neighbors Negative, Back to Drawing Board
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It’s not over, but once again a neighborhood is squawking about the same things we hear so often with re-zoning and new development I should really create and market a NIMBY PACKET:
Logo: Name of development with a red line slashed through it. Put on yard signs and plant them in every yard all over North Dallas. Create buttons to wear on baseball caps, lapels, etc.
Premium package: bumper stickers.
Methodology: mass quantities of email communication, calls to local bloggers and reporters (good luck there!), call City Councilwoman every day, fill busses to plan committee and City Council hearings. Take friends to all meetings (offer to drive them) and stay for at least 1 hour, loud applause, louder boos.
Shirestone, directly behind Forestwood, is bursting with slash signs.
I’m being a smart-aleck, but seriously, this seems to be the formula. Now it’s happening up at the intersection of Inwood and Forest, where we told you about the battle to bring a mixed use concept to an aging family-owned rental property. The property owners, the Daniels family, who have owned the land since 1849, want to yank down the 208 old townhomes and replace them with (up to) 350 rental units, a mix of town homes and apartments. This would include townhomes with garages and small yards, and a large multi-family unit with elevators that would have a boutique-hotel feel to it. Oh, and also a pool.
Here is a report from Jennifer Staubach Gates on the progress. In a nutshell, she says that 90 families in the neighborhood are against the redevelopment of the Daniels’ family Forestwood Townhomes, while 60 are in favor. The issue seems to be the retail component. These neighbors of course have retail right across the street at the northeast corner of Inwood and Forest, and they (90) don’t want more. She thinks the parties can eventually reach a consensus with more discussion.
Interestingly, the neighbors were very much in favor for the Daniel family’s offer to donate additional land, like 6 acres, to Jesuit for playing fields. Can you get one without the other?
Letter From Jennifer Staubach Gates on Forestwood Development
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For the life of me, I don’t understand this opposition…….is the present run-down property really the better alternative? Or are they just saying that they are okay with redevelopment as long as it is exclusively residential? In that location, I would expect retail is pretty essential, and removing it would be a dumb move for any property owner looking to help diversify their revenue stream. My kids go to DISD, so I’m all for properties that can help add to the existing tax base to better fund my kids schools. As far as I’m concerned, the NIBYs are literally the affected folks across the creek, a very small demographic considering the other benefitting neighbors within a few blocks radius (including me…….I live 2 blocks away). Please stop the NIBY nonsense and start working with developers and owners in a cooperative manner, or you will lose your influence and all opportunity promote constructive change and concessions!
Additionally, I would point out that just about every home sold between Forest and Royal and the tollway and Preston typically gets sold with the local retail at Preston/Forest and Preston/Royal as being a strong amenity and neighborhood selling point. This could be true of Inwood/forest as well, given the right redevelopment.
This article is garbage and written like it came from a highschool journalism class. Firstly there is no donation to Jesuit. Secondly, the signage the neighborhood only goes into a yard that has confirmed and written to the Dallas representative handling this matter. The proposed development will evict longstanding members of our community from the townhouse community to be replaced by your run of the mill Dallas (lowest bidder) type complex. The Daniels family has done a very poor job managing the current property and clearly have a bottom line mentality at the expense of the community. They are not members nor do they live here and have done everything from skimping repairs to not watering to save money. Expecting these yahoos to do anything more is irrational.
To address the commentary of the above response adding a handful of businesses will not affect the tax base and the money for DISD. Nor will the proposed businesses diversify our neighborhood they will bring more of the same corporate franchise garbage with a huge increase of traffic of oftentimes less than beneficial individuals. If anyone wants first hand knowledge and factual data of what adding retail does next to residential properties I can provide it. To summarize it drastically devalues properties (when compared to like properties) and increases crime. Is this what you want in your neighborhood?
Shhhh, don’t tell West Village, Knox Henderson, Uptown and the McKinney corridor that mixed use properties kill values.
New development almost always brings in more interest and more developers to the area. People want to be able to walk to and enjoy retail. I live between Forest and Royal on the east side of the tollway, and I can’t tell you how many times a week we walk through the neighborhood and meet up with various neighbors of ours and end up at one of many restaurants at Preston/Forest or Preston/Royal. Being able to walk to take a walk with my kids to the grocery store and back is just one of the little things I enjoy being a Dad. The property values in the neighborhood continue to grow and break records, and the only people getting upset are the folks that are in homes that aren’t worth more than lot value, because their tax valuation continues to go up. New development is good for the city, new retail is good for the neighborhood.
Amen, brother. Well thought out and executed development is how a city progresses.
The opposition is not to redevelopment, it is to the retail; ie: a grocery store. The neighborhood has a fair number of kids and I doubt the parents want a grocery store for a next door neighbor. There are people out walking the neighborhood all the time and they already walk to the eating establishments right across the street, so that sort of retail is already here. There is also more room to add more of that on the other side of Inwood. This side of Inwood is residential. DISD may actually suffer from the townhomes being torn down because the new rentals will cost nearly twice as much as the current ones. Those families will simply move to Richardson or Plano; costing DISD more of its middle income students.