Housing, Parks Take Center Stage as Advocates Make Final Push For $1.1 Billion in Bond Funds
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More than 130 Dallas residents packed Council Chambers on Wednesday to support housing, parks, and arts and culture in the 2024 bond election. But the real needs lie in less popular projects like streets and drainage, one Community Bond Task Force member pointed out.
Following a four-hour public comment session, Community Bond Task Force chair Arun Agarwal presented the panel’s recommendations during a council briefing.
The CBTF issued the following recommendations, totaling $1.1 billion:
- Streets and Transportation $375 million
- Park and Recreation $350 million
- Public Safety Facilities $88 million
- Flood Control and Storm Drainage $75 million
- Economic Development $73 million
- Cultural Arts Facilities $59 million
- Libraries $28 million
- City Facilities $26 million
- Housing $25 million
Dallas City Council members had plenty of questions and comments during the marathon meeting and will revise the project list in the coming weeks. The bond election will go before voters next year, although a May or November date is still being debated.
District 9 Community Bond Task Force representative Courtney Spellicy said the recommendations are not necessarily reflective of what the community needs.
“I think it’s really important … that this proposal that’s being presented today by Chair Agarwal is a reflection of what the community wants and what the citizenry wants,” she said. “I would wager that if you polled all 90 constituents that participated, you would find, at max, 30 percent that would support this program and find it to be a responsible utilization of funds.”
During the CBTF data gathering process, residents advocated for parks, housing, and the arts, but nobody spoke about things like waterproofing issues in the parking garage under City Hall, Spellicy explained.
“But we all know it has to be addressed,” she told the City Council. “My desire would be that, although it is certainly popular and more politically expedient to support a number of things, you’re going to have to do the tough thing, which is to increase funding in streets and infrastructure, increase funding in all of your facilities … and in regard to housing, it’s disingenuous to say that the city is becoming a developer by putting bond funds toward housing because the reality is that money is going to be utilized for streets and transportation infrastructure as well as water.”
Parks Versus Housing?
During Wednesday’s lengthy council briefing, a lot of discussion centered around how one need should not be pitted against another.
Everything is important, and the needs are endless, District 1 Councilman Chad West said.
“I don’t see this as one department versus the other, although I feel like I’ve been expressing my concern on that for months that I feel like it’s been pitted that way,” he said. “I don’t see this as housing versus parks and I feel like it’s become that in the media. I don’t like that because they’re both so important.”
West pointed out that housing “gets beat up a lot in the media for not having a set goal.”
“So often we find that with housing and homelessness, the people who need our help the most are not the ones who have the time to take off work to be down here,” he said.
District 7 Councilman Adam Bazaldua said the CBTF recommendations weren’t in line with what was originally recommended by council. For example, the average dollar amount recommended by responding council members for housing was $150 million, but the task force recommended $25 million, he said.
“It almost seems like this was a pointless exercise and it created more work,” Bazaldua said.
Members of the Dallas Housing Coalition are asking for $200 million for affordable housing. The CBTF is proposing $100 million for housing, economic development, and homelessness, with about $25 million specifically slated for affordable housing.
Bryan Tony, organizer of the Dallas Housing Coalition, said DHC members want to start families, age in place, and support future generations being able to afford Dallas housing.
“We are here because if Dallas is not intentional about its investments now, we and many of the people, businesses, and neighborhoods we are all here to serve are at risk of not being here any longer,” Tony said.
A $2 million investment in housing could “easily grow to over $2 billion worth of impact generating thousands of new housing units thanks to additional support from traditional lenders, state, and federal funding,” DHC leaders wrote in an email rallying support at Wednesday’s council meeting.
Parks advocates also fought for their piece of the pie, pointing to a report from HR&A Advisors that found a return on investment for every dollar spent on parks results in more than $7 back to the city.
The CBTF is recommending $350 million for parks and recreation.
Fair Park First CEO Brian Luallen supported investment in “catalytic projects” related to parks and the arts.
“At the end of the day, these facilities don’t have other capital mechanisms,” he said. “They are owned by the City of Dallas and it is critical to make sincere investments in line with the bond task force and many citizens who came forward and spoke on behalf of critical needs in their communities across this great city. When we invest in quality of life, we create further investment in housing, and that draws the fabric of this city together. It’s what makes Dallas special.”
City Council to Slice And Dice
Council members are now faced with reviewing staff recommendations and CBTF recommendations and coming up with their own. Elected officials discussed whether to use the staff presentation or CBTF recommendations as a baseline. Some questioned “arbitrary” numbers and how certain allocations were made.
“I love parks, but I also want to be able to afford to live in this city,” Bazaldua said. “If we can’t drive to these parks without getting a blowout, what’s good about these parks?”
District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn and District 9 Councilwoman Paula Blackmon strongly supported a November bond election. District 13 Councilwoman Gay Donnell Willis asked about how the projects were “pressure tested” to determine whether other funding sources were available.
At the close of the 10-hour meeting around 7:30 p.m., council members agreed to revisit the matter soon. If an election is to be held in May, they would be tasked with setting a date in January or February.
City Manager T.C. Broadnax said his staff would meet with council members individually, communicate by memorandum, and schedule another council briefing.
“We’re going to go back, sharpen our pencils, take all the feedback that we received, have individual council conversations about good, bad, and indifferent, and maybe get some priorities around certain projects,” Broadnax said. “We can run that through our own filters and share something with council at a future date via memo and then come back and do a full briefing to try to advance the conversation.”
View the full Dec. 6 Dallas City Council briefing here.
