Why would Dallas ever hand over 18 acres of prime real estate within its city limits to University Park?

Yet that’s what University Park asked Dallas to do as part of a boundary adjustment application that would have shifted a school and church along Northwest Highway out of Dallas.

After the request hung around City Hall for about two years, Dallas City Council members rightly questioned the proposed land gift during a summer briefing of its Quality of Life, Arts & Culture committee. University Park has since withdrawn its application after being told its approval was “unlikely,” a spokesperson for the affluent city of 25,000 told us in an email.

We’re glad to hear it and support the far more reasonable approach of hammering out an agreement to address University Park’s underlying concerns. Dallas council member Gay Donnell Willis, whose District 13 includes the area, told us conversations between the two cities are active and ongoing.

The issue arose out of concerns of families at Michael M. Boone Elementary School, which opened in 2020 at 8385 Durham St. The school is within the city of Dallas and part of the Highland Park Independent School District, but about 80% of school families reside in University Park.

Willis said families have reported confusion between Dallas and University Park first responders over which city should answer calls from the school. They also had concerns over street and drainage problems around the school, as well as conflicting signage rules between the two cities and the school district.

University Park initially asked that Dallas’ boundary adjustment include only the school. But the application was amended to include Northway Christian Church because state law required the boundary in question to be contiguous to University Park, according to a city memo. HPISD also later joined the application. Both sites, plus rights of way, total about 18 acres.

“Moving a boundary of the city of Dallas is a really big deal,” Willis said. “There is a way to solve this without taking that measure.”

Council member Paul Ridley was a bit more pointed. “I just don’t like the idea that we are abandoning part of our property to an adjacent city that thinks they can service it better than we can,” he said at the committee meeting.

This isn’t just any property, either. A stone’s throw from NorthPark Center, this is some of the most valuable real estate in the city. The school and church don’t generate property tax revenue for Dallas, but a city staff memo said that if ever converted to homes, the land could generate an average of $3 million a year in tax revenue.

We are glad Dallas won’t consider moving its boundary. Doing so would encourage similar applications from other cities. Still, the Boone Elementary families are in a predicament; Dallas should help them out of it.

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