In The Zone
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…
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…
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…
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…
A new Texas housing law targeting big cities allows developers to build multifamily on commercially zoned land by right, and it’s now in effect. While more apartments will go up that maybe wouldn’t otherwise, municipalities like Dallas are losing zoning authority over where and how those projects will be built. Senate Bill 840 was one…
