No Pitchforks in Sight at District 1 Councilman Chad West’s ForwardDallas Meeting 

All the elements were in place for a perfect storm of a town hall meeting Monday evening. More than 100 people gathered, many wielding signs displaying their aversion to the Dallas comprehensive land use plan known as ForwardDallas. The meeting was called by District 1 Councilman Chad West who, with his appointed Plan Commissioner Christian Chernock, has been under fire for encouraging discussions on greater density in some Dallas neighborhoods. 

But there was no shouting or name-calling. 

The two-hour meeting included a presentation on housing, a review of the ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan update, and a question-and-answer session. 

It left one person rhetorically asking aloud, “Does the ‘Say no to ForwardDallas’ crowd even know what they’re saying no to?”

Education and Information

Those who oppose the land use plan — currently in a draft editing stage at the City Plan Commission awaiting a July 11 review — do not like being told they’re misinformed or uneducated. They have said they’ve been lied to by staff and elected officials who want to line developers’ pockets and allow for more housing everywhere. 

Guest columnists Carol Bell-Walton and Rudy Karimi have expressed their frustration with ForwardDallas on CandysDirt.com and encouraged the public to get involved. However, there still appear to be a whole lot of Dallas residents who aren’t interested in the plan and even more who don’t know what it is. 

The plan doesn’t use the words “must” or “should” and doesn’t dictate zoning. It basically outlines what “types” of land uses are compatible and desired in certain locations for the future. It’s based largely on resident feedback, as evidenced by numerous revisions ranging from commas and minor word changes to removing multiplexes as a primary use in single-family neighborhoods. 

A developer’s proposal to, for example, build a fourplex in a residential area, still has to go through a rezoning process, public hearings, and review by the City Plan Commission and City Council. 

Housing Shortage

West said he thinks the key to keeping Monday’s meeting from going off the rails was discussing the “why” when it comes to density.

“A few councilmembers and plan commissioners have hosted ForwardDallas town halls, a good number of which have resulted in some attendees yelling at and even berating city staff,” West wrote in a newsletter to supporters last week. “A misstep, in my opinion, was not including a discussion about our housing shortage along with the reason why ForwardDallas is calling for more density. Insiders at City Hall, and I suspect many who read this e-newsletter, understand that Dallas desperately needs more housing in order to avoid making the same mistakes that many coastal cities have made (namely, waiting too long to enact zoning reforms to address their housing shortages). But we can’t assume that the average resident in Dallas has delved deeply into the housing shortage reports that exist.” 

Housing And ForwardDallas

The always-affable Assistant Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization Director Thor Erickson kicked off Monday’s meeting by talking about housing programs, how projects are financed, and how Dallas incentivizes affordable housing. 

Chief Planner Patrick Blaydes led the discussion on ForwardDallas and reviewed the nuances of the document. 

Attendees asked good questions, some of which were likely an effort to make a point on record, such as, “How will ForwardDallas improve traffic?” and “How can we protect our single-family neighborhoods from having three-plus-story buildings blocking our sight lines and sunlight?”

Blaydes suggested that tools such as conservation districts or neighborhood stabilization overlays are designed for that purpose. There’s also a thoroughfare plan that addresses traffic, he explained.

Blaydes pointed out that private property owners still have the right to ask to do “whatever they would like to do in a current zoning district or to change that zoning district.”

“That would be neighborhood advocacy to be involved in those future decisions about the areas that might not be in your neighborhood but might be adjacent to your neighborhood,” he said.

It’s a long process, but neighborhoods can also call for authorized hearings to evaluate zoning through a public process and determine whether a change needs to be made to the city’s development code. 

Minimum Lot Size

West acknowledged that he asked for discussion on minimum lot size through a five-signature memorandum, which later became a three-signature memorandum when council members Paula Blackmon and Jaynie Schultz removed their names, 

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That discussion is on hold for now, pending the resolution of ForwardDallas, West said. 

“My interest in minimum lot size reform is, one, there’s no rhyme or reason for why our lot sizes are set the way they are,” he said. “You look at lots in Stevens Park Village and there are many different shapes there. You look at Kidd Springs and there are some 50×100 lots where the back of them have been parceled apart and there’s a second family living behind there with their own single-family home. There are three-acre lots in East Kessler.” 

West added that he’s concerned the state is going to pre-empt local government and tell Dallas what it’s going to do. 

“I’d rather we get ahead of it as a city, make the decision for ourselves, and go through the hard conversations instead of waiting for the state legislature to do that,” he said. 

Where Does Chad West Stand on ForwardDallas?

West was appointed to the City Plan Commission in 2017 by former Councilman Scott Griggs right around the time that the beloved El Corazon restaurant was torn down to make way for a drugstore. 

“That happened because there was no plan for that area,” he said. “There was no zoning; there was no land use plan.”

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It allowed for fast-food restaurants at Zang Boulevard and W. Davis Street, West explained. 

“When the city is investing so much money in transit, a streetcar … it was a huge miss for us to not have the planning in place to … at least encourage the preservation of that structure,” he said. “I made a pact to neighbors that we would have planning for the parts of the district that didn’t have planning already.”

ForwardDallas is not perfect, but it outlines some things that everyone agrees on, like environmental protection for West Dallas, the councilman added. West asked that residents continue provide specific feedback on what they don’t like about the plan. 

“A lot of people have asked me where I’m at on this,” West said. “Generally, I’m here learning like you are.”