City Hall Roundup: Planning Officials Work Through Recess
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Dallas City Council members are still in recess (or on summer vacation, if you prefer), but planning commissioners were hard at work at City Hall considering a couple of controversial rezoning cases. So what else is new?
Staff have also been dealing with a nascent revolt from residents living in single-family neighborhoods built around the rear garage/back alley design. A plan to limit who can receive alleyway trash and recycling pickup has some up in arms and demanding a public dialogue about the initiative, which was purportedly decided unilaterally by an official at City Hall. You should read about that here.
Anyway, here’s a bit on a couple of zoning cases that went before the City Plan Commission this week:
Winners Tower Needs More Time to Cook
The City Plan Commission met on Thursday to consider an ambitious development proposal for a mixed use high-rise building on the north corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and Colonial Avenue in South Dallas.
A community engagement meeting was held just a night before during which the developer, Winners Assembly Church, pitched neighborhood residents and stakeholders on the $240 million project: luxury condos, a hotel, a helipad, and offices — all in a 25-story building named Winners Tower.
Reception to the project was purportedly mixed, with community member Nicole Raphael telling commissioners on Thursday that there was “great concern about such a huge proposed building on that site” and that there was “a real desire to see feasible plans.”
South Dallas residents have been vocal about wanting to see responsible development and more investment in the community. That’s likely why staff put forth their recommendation for the project, albeit on the condition that the site was rezoned for a maximum height of 80 feet or around five stories, considerably below what Winners is asking for.
Commissioners were wary of the applicant’s request, with one pointing out that both it and staff’s recommendation aren’t even compatible with the South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan. The plan is a several-year effort to inform officials’ land use decisions based on community need and input.
The City Plan Commission opted to keep the public hearing open until October, putting the proposal on ice for the time being.
A Little Retail or Some Kind of Trojan Horse?
Planning commissioners also took up a far more modest rezoning request, one that still elicited an icy response at its own community meeting in June.
Dallas Morning News editorial columnist Robert Wilonsky wrote on the contentious meeting, noting that some residents probably wouldn’t be satisfied with anything less than a single-family home sitting on the vacant lot developer Will Stacy wants rezoned into a small neighborhood services district with a litany of voluntary deed restrictions.
The site in question is situated on the north side of Royal Lane between Webb Chapel Road and Damon Lane at the edge of a single-family neighborhood. There was a derelict house on the property Stacy bought and demolished to put up a build that could house tenants like restaurants or coffee shops. Still, Wilonsky said some residents were so suspicious they likened the project to a trojan horse for something that will increase traffic or alter the neighborhood’s dynamic in some other way.
Masterplan’s Karl Crawley, representing Stacy in person at City Hall while the developer tuned in virtually, told commissioners on Thursday that they’ve made a number of concessions prohibiting a number of uses and limiting operating hours for the proposed project.
“I’d love to say we have all the neighborhood’s support. I think we’ve moved the needle a little bit in our favor and explained to them what we’re going to do,” Crawley said.
A majority of commissioners voted in support of the rezoning request.
