Dallas Takes Its First Swing at Zoning Reform in Almost 40 Years

City staff in Dallas have been making the rounds to give residents a sneak peak at what they’ve got cooking for zoning reform.

As previously reported by CandysDirt.com, the city is embarking on a painstaking effort to simplify and modernize the portions of its voluminous development code that have to do with land use. The initiative’s website states officials hope to “encourage a wider range of housing options,” scrap outdated regulatory hurdles, “promote sustainable growth patterns,” and “strike a thoughtful balance between preservation and progress.”

Modernization and Simplification

Staff at the Planning & Development Department (PDD) published a diagnostic report last month that outlined some of the key proposals they’ve developed in collaboration with select stakeholders (more on that later). Here’s a summary of that report.

Dallas Officials Are Gearing Up for Zoning Reform

Proposed changes to the code include introducing new residential districts that allow for a wider range of housing types that could introduce more affordable options and enhance neighborhood flexibility, such as duplexes, triplexes, accessory dwelling units, etc. 

On the non-residential side of things, staff are seeking to rework commercial and mixed-use districts to promote walkable, transit-oriented neighborhoods. Part of this includes eliminating office-only zoning to create a tiered set of scalable commercial and mixed-use districts.

Neighborhood and community retail districts would be updated to better accommodate mixed-use development, while auto-centric regional retail zones (think IKEA, car dealerships, Costco) would remain reserved for areas farther away from residential neighborhoods.

Staff’s initial pitch would also introduce transit-oriented development districts to encourage higher-density, mixed-use projects near public transit. The central business district would also see new zoning categories to “better reflect the character of the CBD” by creating concentric zones that distinguish between the core, surrounding areas, and adjacent residential areas.

‘I Hope This Will Be an Opportunity and Not a Done Deal’

The Planning & Development Department introduced their ideas at a number of introductory public engagement meetings across town over the past couple of weeks. The last one was held Thursday evening at Churchill Recreation Center in North Dallas.

A number of residents showed up, many of whom were wary of city staff’s push for zoning reform after the adoption of ForwardDallas 2.0, the city’s update to its comprehensive land use plan.

ForwardDallas 2.0 Land Use Plan Adopted, Will Guide ‘How and Where’ City Should Grow

Some critics of ForwardDallas 2.0 feel the city ran roughshod over the concerns of single-family neighborhoods in a bid to increase density to alleviate Dallas’ housing shortage. A lot of the rhetoric in the opposition’s camp had to do with situating multifamily housing near neighborhoods zoned for single-family.

While the very lengthy process allowed residents to voice their opposition, staff’s argument that the plan was “not a zoning document” did little to mitigate the situation. Now, staff’s moving forward with zoning reform, which very much will be part of the development code.

Arista Strungys, a consultant for the city through her Chicago-based city planning firm Camiros, explained to attendees Thursday night that the diagnostic report’s recommendations were preliminary and did not at all propose where particular districts would be mapped on Dallas.

During the question and answer portion of Thursday’s public engagement meeting, one of the first issues raised was who exactly were the stakeholders that the city consulted with when devising its initial zoning reform proposals.

“We were looking for those that are working in a more technical level with the code to see how the code’s functioning,” Strungys said, noting that they needed the perspective of professionals like architects and developers who actually have to follow the code in dealing with the city.

“We’ve been doing these meetings. We’re gathering feedback. We’re continuing to take feedback, and then we’re going to go and we’re going to draft,” she added. “Once we get the actual draft document out, this type of public engagement is going to multiply by many, many, many meetings.”

One attendee who identified himself as Pat Long suggested at one point that many of the people in the room probably felt that the process that led to the final ForwardDallas update was “not a give and take” in terms of resident input and that some felt they were told they just had to “accept the idea of density.”

“I hope this will be an opportunity and this really isn’t a done deal where you just kind of take comments and then march on,” he said.

Strungys stressed that the city will be soliciting feedback from all corners of the city to evaluate and inform the first draft of its official zoning reform proposal. Ultimately, sometime next year, that proposal in a later draft will find its way before the Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee, then the City Plan Commission, and then the Dallas City Council.