In The Zone

With 14-1 City Council Vote, H-E-B Secures Rezoning for Its First Planned Dallas Location

By Charles Grand / December 11, 2025 /

It looks like Dallas is on its way to getting its first H-E-B after the city council voted 14-1 on Wednesday to approve the grocer’s zoning request for a controversial site at the southeast corner of LBJ and Hillcrest Road. The vote came after a few hours of public comment and discussion at the horseshoe.…

Multifamily Housing Construction and the Affordability Escalator

By Charles Grand / December 1, 2025 /

A recurring critique of Dallas City Council’s alleged propensity for approving multifamily rezoning applications is that officials are cynically using the housing affordability crisis to justify the construction of upscale projects in the face of neighborhood opposition. If there’s a shortage of affordable housing, the criticism goes, how is greenlighting a high-end development in Preston…

Public Feedback Highlights Division Over Dallas Zoning Reform Effort

By Charles Grand / November 24, 2025 /

Hundreds of Dallas residents are engaging with the process of zoning reform as the city pursues modernization of the land use part of its development code. Who said Dallasites weren’t invested in the future of their city? Over the past few months, the Planning & Development Department (PDD) has been meeting with stakeholders and hosting…

David Schwarte’s Texas-Sized Fight To Preserve Single-Family Neighborhoods

By Charles Grand / October 28, 2025 /

The notion of small government and local control has animated Texas politics for generations, but those days increasingly seem long gone. And when it comes to single-family neighborhoods, each new legislative session brings a slew of bad bills, at least according to the Texas Neighborhood Coalition. A veteran corporate attorney in the airline and tech…

Implementation of South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan Needs Community Input

By Charles Grand / October 10, 2025 /

City officials are gearing up to implement the zoning and land use guidance from the South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan that city council members adopted this summer. The final plan was the culmination of years of work by officials, neighborhood residents, and other stakeholders who set out to develop a five-year strategy to revitalize…