Dallas Council Changes Housing Policy to Address Equity, Efficiency For Real Estate Developers
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Fifty percent of the Dallas Department of Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization’s annual funding will go toward “equity strategy target areas,” City Council members agreed Wednesday.
Upgrades to the city’s development program have been strategized and briefed at the committee level since November, and Housing Director Cynthia Rogers-Ellickson’s proposal received unanimous support.
The three equity target areas are all in southern Dallas. Target Area One includes portions of Council Districts 2 and 7 near Fair Park. Target Area Two is in Council Districts 4 and 7 bounded at the top by the Trinity River. Target Area Three is in Council Districts 8 and 3, and includes the University of North Texas at Dallas.
The Dallas City Council has slowly been embracing equity, Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn King Arnold said, and she wants to keep the momentum going.
“I want to make sure we are … laser-focused on those target areas and we don’t backpedal or moonwalk as a council when it comes to the targeted areas, when it comes to revitalization,” Arnold said. “I definitely represent some of the most underserved, overlooked, underresourced [areas].”
Changes to Dallas Development Programs
In addition to funneling more funding toward historically underserved areas, changes approved Wednesday include amending the Dallas Housing Resource Catalog New Construction and Substantial Rehabilitation Program to:
- Add a preference to award to developer partners with no current outstanding housing projects with the City,
- Cap all gap funding provided to a developer at a maximum 25 percent of total development cost or $5 million, whichever is less (subject to exceptions for affordable housing projects in target areas and developments with specific project initiatives), and
- Revise and provide consistency in repayment terms for annual cash surplus payments for developers.
Changes to Single-Family Development Requirements and Underwriting
Approved changes to Single-Family Development requirements and underwriting will:
- Add a preference for single-family and homeownership development,
- Add a preference to award to developer partners with no current outstanding housing projects with the City,
- Cap all gap funding provided to a developer at a maximum 25 percent of total development cost or $5 million, whichever is less (subject to exceptions for affordable housing projects in target areas and developments with specific project initiatives), and
- Revise and provide consistency in repayment terms for annual cash surplus payments for developers.
The council also approved amending the Land Transfer Program. The change allows the city manager to provide a defaulting developer’s third-party private financial institution an opportunity to cure the developer’s default before the City exercises its right of reverter with a right of re-entry for affordable single-family homes and multi-family rental projects when the third-party lender’s loan is in an amount greater than the city’s financing.
Council Feedback on Development Changes
The resolution approved Wednesday was on a consent agenda, so there wasn’t much debate or discussion — a good sign for Rogers-Ellickson and her team, who have been working with the development community to craft the changes.
District 12 Councilwoman Cara Mendelsohn was the first to voice her support for the updates, particularly the preference for developers that don’t currently have a city contract and caps on the gap funding percentage.
“This is the kind of work I love seeing,” Mendelsohn said. “It’s consistent improvements in our policy. There are a number of items that are making this policy make a lot more sense for us.”
Rogers-Ellickson said the policy change related to target areas would designate funds specifically for housing. Additionally, several departments are working together to collaborate on revitalization efforts.
“Neighborhood revitalization is looking at the neighborhood as a whole, not just housing by itself, but what does housing do … with economic development, streets, fire, DPD, all those things that build a community and make it healthy and safe,” she said.
