Michael Amonett: Goals of ForwardDallas Land Use Plan Are Intended to Direct Future Zoning
Share News:
By Michael Amonett
CandysDirt.com Contributor
Chief planner Patrick Blaydes held up two documents multiple times at the District 1 Forward Dallas meeting last week: a copy of ForwardDallas and a copy of the Dallas Development Code. Each time he stressed, “This (ForwardDallas) is not this (Dallas Development). Just because it’s in here (FD), doesn’t mean it is in here (DDC).”
That’s true, but the goals stated in the plan are indeed intended to direct future zoning. The Dallas Development Code says so: “The comprehensive plan shall serve as a guide to all future city council action concerning land use and development regulations.”
The Texas Local Government Code also says so: “Municipalities may have comprehensive plans” and “zoning regulations must be adopted in accordance with them.”
In any City Plan Commission or City Council agenda, you’ll find staff recommendations for approval or denial of a variety of requests. Presently, approvals for zoning requests are justified and rationalized by staff, council members, and commissioners by referencing policy found in the current ForwardDallas plan.
So in the future, if you don’t want your neighbor throwing up a townhome, duplex, triplex, or a tiny front-yard, Hardie board house, then the time to become part of the conversation is now.
And those are just the primary uses. With no clear language discerning between primary and secondary uses, restaurants, multi-families greater than nine units and even mixed-use developments are all real possibilities.
These cases will be never-ending and city-wide. The plan is exactly what it purports to be; goals for future development — right next door to your house. You can pitch a fit now or you can have a series of fits from now into the foreseeable future until both you and your neighbors are exhausted from it.
Single-family R75 zoning protects you from a wealth of undesirable scenarios. Those protections allow you to do your job all day instead of spending your evenings mobilizing your neighbors to take off work and fight city hall.
The affordable housing shortage is real but it’s not the fault of those of who’ve spent the last several years making their neighborhoods desirable.
News reports state that 26 percent of single-family homes in Fort Worth are owned by commercial interests. A recent story on 60 Minutes said 30 percent of offers for entry-level homes are cash. We’re texted daily by strangers calling us by our first names and gauging our interest in selling our homes.
There are no more starter homes. They’re all gobbled up before anyone even knows they’re for sale. Student loan debt keeps young people from even qualifying and they can’t compete with a corporation even if they do.
The current version of ForwardDallas will just make all this worse. Allowing land to do more makes it worth more money and land appraisals can’t be appealed at Dallas Central Appraisal District.
All this is no way to treat those who’ve invested their lives here. Why is it that we are always doing something FOR the imaginary people yet to move here and TO the ones of us that already do?
Michael Amonett is a third-generation Oak Cliff resident, former Dallas Landmark commissioner, former president of Heritage Oak Cliff, and former chair of the Dallas County Trail and Preserve Board.
5 Comments
Leave a Comment
Such a spot on commentary. Thank you Michael.
Such a spot on commentary. Thank you, Michael.
Thank you Michael Amonett for writing what everyone needs to know about Forward Dallas. Our current single family zoning requires that if you tear down one of the duplexes or one of the small multifamily units it must be replaced with a single family unit. This current zoning protects the single family homes and the affordable multifamily units mostly found in our inner city. Forward Dallas is a redevelopment plan to higher density for our single family neighborhoods. If passed it will destroy our single family neighborhoods and the affordable units that currently exist in the neighborhood. My question is: who will benefit from FD…certainly not the homeowners living in single family neighborhoods.
So when residents scream and shout, “WE KNOW THIS IS NOT ZONING BUT THIS WILL GUIDE ZONING,” why are continuously told we are misinformed??? The nerve of some of these people…
What can we do to be heard about this? When I could find out the meeting schedule, I’ve been to meetings, always the same song and dance, meaning, they are pushing it through. It would be more believable that they cared about what Dallas looked like, if there had not been so many ugly “non-confirming with neighborhood” structures that have been approved and built over the last 5-7 years.
With all of the upheaval and poor leadership at city hall, I do not think our current council are the people to make such a major change to our future zoning and land use. For some reason they seem to be under the developer’s thumb. I do not think there is much trust of elected city leadership by the citizens of Dallas.
This is a huge overhaul of our current situation. The elected city leadership like what’s new and shiny and now they like politics and do not think beyond that.