City Hall Roundup: The ForwardDallas 2.0 Public Engagement Success Story 

 Voters spoke at the ballot box in November by demanding transparency and accountability from their elected officials, and there’s little doubt they’ll show up again in May when up to 10 sitting council members will be vying for another term at the horseshoe. 

Residents saw this year how their voices mattered. They showed up en masse at town halls, zoning hearings, and council meetings. Sometimes they wore matching T-shirts and posted iPhone videos to keep the dialogue rolling on social media. A few residents got so fed up with the current leadership that they’ve announced bids to challenge the incumbents in a May 3 election. 

And whether the zoning notification signs were properly posted or enough opportunities for feedback were solicited, public engagement happened in a big way, thanks to the residents who call Dallas home. 

I’ve been covering city government since the late 1990s in numerous municipalities in three different states. I’ve found that elected officials don’t respond well to name-calling and personal attacks. But they do remember who put them in their seats and that they can be easily removed. 

In Dallas, where council members serve just two-year terms, it often feels like they’re always running for re-election. There’s no shortage of political theater. The City Council members may think they have their minds made up prior to a vote but occasionally the best-laid plans unravel due to relentless, informed residents and their data-driven arguments. 

ForwardDallas 2.0

Dallas hadn’t updated its comprehensive land use plan in almost 20 years when it was presented publicly for an overhaul in early 2024. 

Who’s Afraid of ForwardDallas? These Residents Say You Should Be

Some confusion existed from the start. Here are some of the comments we heard: Is this a ploy to make it easier for developers to build dense apartment complexes near single-family neighborhoods? Sure, it’s not a zoning document, but won’t the council have to vote for a project if the plan says such a use is recommended for that area? The City has already had a land use plan for decades and no one cared about it before, so does it even matter? It’s just a useless bundle of paper that will sit on a shelf. 

We did a myth-busting podcast with city planners and wrote dozens of stories on the topic, but the accusations of fear-mongering and misinformation persisted. 

As the plan neared the finish line and much was left on the cutting room floor, most everyone agreed that significant strides were made toward environmental justice and anti-displacement. A pesky problem lingered as some residents wanted the plan to explicitly state that their single-family neighborhoods would not be plagued with incompatible development such as multiplexes. 

Councilman Paul Ridley offered a compromise proposal that most everybody could live with and the plan was adopted 11-4 on Sept. 25. Mayor Eric Johnson and council members Cara Mendelsohn, Jesse Moreno, and Carolyn King Arnold voted against it.

Bishop Arts resident William Joy: ‘I Think a Mistake’s Been Made’

Just days before the plan was set to be voted on, 32-year-old William Joy, a former WFAA reporter and Bishop Arts resident, finally read ForwardDallas 2.0. He was particularly interested in the “placetypes” that outline particular land uses for specific regions of the city. No surprise there; that’s what everyone in town was talking about in an effort to create a new placetype that only allowed single-family detached homes. 

A Last-Minute ForwardDallas Amendment Changed Bishop Arts Placetype, Resident Explains Why 

Joy said he’d heard about the comprehensive plan but didn’t pay much attention until he read a Sept. 3 op-ed in the Dallas Morning News written by his council member, Chad West. At that time he realized a vote was imminent. 

“I opened the plan and I remember trying to figure out what’s what,” Joy told CandysDirt.com in October. “There’s City Residential and Community Residential [placetypes] and you gotta go to the index to find your exact neighborhood. I remember looking at it and seeing that my neighborhood was City Residential. I’m thinking, if I’m reading this right, that means the ideal land use for my neighborhood isn’t single-family homes or duplexes — which is all that’s over here. It’s eight-or-more-unit apartment complexes and mixed-use development. Nobody over here is living in an apartment complex, and there’s no mixed-use.” 

The next morning, Joy emailed Councilman West. 

“I said, ‘If I’m not misunderstanding this, I think a mistake’s been made,’” Joy recalled.

After a week of calls and emails with West’s office, Chief Planner Lawrence Agu, and Deputy Planning and Development Director Andrea Gilles, “we finally got to the bottom of it,” Joy said. 

The language read into the record at the Sept. 25 council meeting, at which Joy provided testimony, reads, “Amend the placetype shown on the Near Bishop Arts amendment map from city residential to community residential to reflect the established development pattern.”

So as we look back on 2024, I’m reminded of a lot of residents who made a difference for their neighborhoods and potentially for the future of Dallas. As Councilmember Cara Mendelsohn said in a meeting recently, “At some point, we have to ask City Hall, do we actually listen to our communities? I [hope we do] because we’re here to serve them.”