City releases draft of first land-use plan to address inequity that’s divided Dallas

The city of Dallas has released a working draft of a long-awaited ForwardDallas plan, first-of-its-kind guidelines for deciding how public and private land should be used, developed and preserved for decades to come.

Now the clock is ticking for Dallas residents to review the draft and provide feedback so the city can reimagine itself, a collaborative effort to heal wounds from longstanding discriminatory policy that led to racial and economic disparities.

“Prior to looking forward, we must recognize that historically, land use and zoning has been used to exclude and segregate people of color in Dallas,” states the executive summary of the plan.

Andrea Gilles, the interim director of Dallas’ Planning and Urban Design department, said her team is finishing up open houses this month and plans to host “pop-up events” soon in areas where the community has recommended changes to the draft.

“This is an iterative process,” Gilles said. “It’s not final until it gets a vote at City Council. Our hope is to be through the City Plan Commission by the end of the year.”

City Council could vote on the plan as soon as January, although Gilles said that’s an optimistic timeline. The commission’s committee on land use planning will hold a workshop Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. in Dallas City Hall’s room 6ES to review and likely revise the draft based on community feedback.

ForwardDallas will be the city’s first comprehensive land-use plan, which will be one factor in future zoning decisions, including how the city will accommodate more housing for a growing population, Gilles said.

The plan is not a rulebook that sets in stone how land can be used by both the city and private landowners. Gilles said the guide will help decision-makers understand how the land should be used without restricting certain kinds of development.

The nearly 80-page document and interactive online map is also “one of the last pieces of the puzzle” in Dallas’ pursuit to add equity to decision-making processes.

Dallas adopted a racial equity plan last year and overhauled its housing policy in April with the chief aim of lifting up groups in Dallas who have long suffered worse outcomes in housing, infrastructure, employment, health, wealth, education and public safety.

Placetypes

A land-use plan, unlike a zoning decision, provides various options to the city or private property owners for how land should be used, Gilles said.

Large swathes of undeveloped land, mostly in southern and western Dallas, lack any guidance on the kinds of land uses that would be appropriate, which makes zoning decisions more difficult, Gilles said.

The Trinity River corridor, for example, has no clear plan for development that reflects how the community wants the land to be used.

“You have to start from scratch every time,” she said.

ForwardDallas’ color-coded map designates 12 particular “placetypes” or kinds of uses, such as Traditional Residential, which should be used for single-family homes and auxiliary dwellings, and Blended Residential, which is meant for single-family and multifamily homes.

The benefit of the land-use plan, Gilles said, is that none of the placetypes, including Neighborhood Mixed Use, Flex Commercial, and Industrial Hub, have just one use.

Each placetype has multiple possible uses depending on the needs of the community, allowing development decisions to be holistic and “context-sensitive,” which considers what is already on the land and attempts to “soften” new development into the current makeup.

Feedback process

If a property owner or neighborhood group wants to help reimagine any parcel of land in Dallas, Gilles said the ForwardDallas feedback process is how to do it.

Residents engaging in the feedback process is what the city needs to make sure the plan represents diverse neighborhoods’ needs and challenges, Gilles said.

In the plan map, large sections of Oak Cliff are listed as a Traditional Residential placetype. But comments made on the site indicate community support for mixed-use retail, which would allow more development of areas that have long lamented a lack of food and health care options.

Bryan Tony, a key organizer of the Dallas Housing Coalition, said the plan is a “huge opportunity to bring Dallas into the 21st century.”

But the document’s complex terminology is a barrier for a lot of residents, Tony said, and he hopes the city can make it more accessible to ensure all of Dallas is included.

“We’re all ready for it to get adopted as soon as possible because there’s so many conversations that need to happen around lot size reduction … parking reform, allowing more housing by right,” he said.

The coalition of more than 160 local organizations rallied at City Hall last month to support a $200 million bond package to increase affordable housing production.

Tony said the group has longer-term plans to champion zoning reforms after the bond election to address exclusionary practices and myths about affordable housing that make building homes harder.

Raul Reyes, president of the neighborhood coalition West Dallas 1, said he has attended several town halls to learn more about what the plan means for his community and to help shape its design.

The housing and environmental justice activist said he walked away with a mix of cautious optimism and exasperation toward a city that has long promised its residents an equitable future.

“When you come to us with this big document, we’re like, ‘What is it doing for us now?’” Reyes said.

The housing affordability crisis is urgent, Reyes said, for his neighbors in West Dallas, an area with the highest rates of gentrification and displacement of longtime residents.

The plan also allows the community to influence the “adjacency uses” of placetypes, which would allow neighborhoods to shape how near industrial development is to their homes.

That’s a chief aim of environmental justice groups and neighborhood associations, particularly in West Dallas, where Shingle Mountain has long since disappeared but the lack of zoning restrictions that made it possible persist.

The industrial eyesore made headlines after community activist Marsha Jackson and supporters rallied the city to remove the 70,000-ton pile of roofing debris dumped near her Floral Farms home.

Residents can add comments to the ForwardDallas map online, as well as review comments made previously. The City Plan Commission will hold a public hearing on the plan after the formal public input phase ends, which will likely continue through most of October.

Gilles said they haven’t decided when the city will be done collecting feedback. Once complete, though, her department will brief the City Council, which will also hold a public hearing on the plan before taking a vote.