Planning and Urban Design

Green Builder Offers Solutions to Proposed Impervious Surface Code Change

By April Towery / April 22, 2024 /

Residents and developers are invited to weigh in today and tomorrow on a proposed Dallas development code change that would limit impervious coverage for residential and nonresidential development. Impervious coverage, according to the City of Dallas, is any surface that prevents or substantially impedes the natural infiltration of stormwater into the ground, and includes, but…

As Opposition to ForwardDallas Rallies, Commissioners Say They Don’t Want a Watered-Down Land Use Plan

By April Towery / April 15, 2024 /

The City Plan Commission kicked off a series of workshops last week on the ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan. They talked about density, placetypes, and parking requirements — and they acknowledged the plan has not been well-received by a contingent of residents who are concerned it will change or even destroy their long-established single-family neighborhoods. …

Dallas Leaders Outline Historic Preservation Strategy, Say They Need More Staff to Implement It

By April Towery / April 8, 2024 /

Editor’s Note: The Dallas City Council approved the Historic and Cultural Preservation Strategy on April 11. Dallas staff was tasked in late 2022 with developing a community-vetted vision to preserve the city’s historic structures. Their efforts were on display last week during a Dallas City Council briefing.  The Dallas preservation program was created 50 years…

Where Did Forward Dallas Go Off the Rails? [Podcast]

By Shelby Skrhak / March 24, 2024 /

You might say that Forward Dallas, the City of Dallas’s comprehensive land use plan, has fallen victim to a curse of bad timing. When a controversial — yet hypothetical — zoning idea overlapped a news cycle with the city’s comprehensive Forward Dallas plan, it seems the issues got conflated, says Andrea Gilles, the interim Director…

Podcast: The Land Use Plan That Has Some Dallasites Upset About Zoning

By Shelby Skrhak / March 12, 2024 /

If you live in Dallas, you may not know about the ForwardDallas land use plan, but you’ve probably heard the rumor about that “zoning thing that will allow apartment buildings in single-family neighborhoods.” On this episode of the Dallas Dirt podcast, we bust that myth and several others about this city planning initiative, and trace…