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As community members voice mixed approval in city meetings, the City of Dallas’ updated land use plan holds its commission vote today. But what are ForwardDallas’ primary aims? And does the plan have the potential to affect equity, environmentalism, and affordability in the city?

ForwardDallas will advance subject to commission vote today at Dallas City Hall. Following this, the land use plan (updated from the 2006 version) will be submitted to Dallas City Council for final approval. 

In what has been three years in the making, ForwardDallas outlines equity, environmental justice, and affordability for both renters and homebuyers as major themes. However, as the land use plan has no regulatory function, its proposal lays at the behest of Dallas’ existing framework. 

Zoning is a crucial and often overlooked apparatus of city planning. And as Dallas has historically contended with issues such as environmental racism, food insecurity, and inadequate housing, zoning has enabled inequity to be compounded into the city’s general way of life. So, naturally, a new land use plan seems like the solution. But the effectiveness of many aspects of the plan is at the consequence of, if not the city government, housing developers and longtime industrial manufacturers.

As the plan calls for “gentle density” along transportation corridors throughout the city, single-family neighborhoods could be under threat of gentrification as middle housing such as duplexes and triplexes are integrated into neighborhoods within a mostly unregulated housing market.

While homestead exemptions have the potential to save homeowners from spiking property taxes, many encounter roadblocks in the application process. A senior tax freeze is available, but inaccessible for younger or middle-aged homeowners. Solutions for homeowners exist, yes, but are typically laden with bureaucratic hurdles and red tape. 

As affordable and accessible housing is necessary to accommodate Dallas’ growing population, many question the effectiveness of multiplex housing as a solution when there are minimal regulations on rental and housing fees. Furthermore, the city’s Department of Housing and Urban Development’s definition of ‘affordable housing’ uses higher base values in quantifying what is considered accessible.

Institutional investors have consistently bought up around a third of all homes for sale in Dallas in recent years. Of these companies, more than one in four own over 10 properties and one in ten own 100 or more. This simultaneously makes homeownership less attainable for residents while putting control of the rental market in the hands of developers.

“ForwardDallas does not directly address affordable housing.  It does recommend accommodating more housing throughout the city, where appropriate, to provide more housing options for all,” a representative of HUD says. “These different housing types would including different price points and ideally additional supply would start to slow the rising costs of housing.”

Progressive city governments understand the importance of combining land use plans with policies addressing the inverse drawbacks to ensure housing remains accessible. Cities like Seattle and Denver have implemented low-income development plans or have even considered social housing models.

HUD, comparatively, while offering incentives for mixed-income housing developments, only required 1 of 5 “affordable units” in such developments to be reserved for residents making less than 60% of the local Area Median Income (AMI) last year. All other units designated for affordable housing were reserved for residents making around 60-80%. AMI is based on household income, which HUD estimates at over $110,000 for a family of four.

This drastically skews accessibility. Both independent and Federal studies of Dallas’ economy estimate median income of all households to be far less at around $65,000. Individual income, likewise, is estimated at around $37,000. Based on these figures, a single person household making the median individual income or less would only be likely to afford the bottom 20% of all allocated “affordable housing” in a mixed-income housing development.

Texan cities are only permitted to control rent prices under certain circumstances, such as the declaration of a housing emergency. Despite the previous statistics pointing to the city being in a housing crisis and the definition of a ‘disaster’ under state law being applicable to any public calamity, the city government operates under the assumption that rent control is unconditionally prohibited. 

The environmental justice themes of the plan tout some meaningful changes. Revision of land use near the Singleton corridor in West Dallas and Carbondale corridor in Joppa could progressively fill the areas with properties in the community mixed-use and flex commercial designations, thereby pushing industrial development out.

“I think the CPC is responsive to what the residents want and ForwardDallas would create an increasingly unwelcoming environment for industrial businesses in West Dallas,” says Esther Villarreal of District 6, who serves as Vice Chair of the Environmental Commission. “The plan makes land use in West Dallas more tenable for commercial industry instead.”

It’s important to note this does signify an important win for local environmental advocacy groups, such as Downwinders at Risk and West Oak Cliff Coalition. Though Downwinders Executive Director Caleb Roberts stresses that ForwardDallas is by no means perfect or a complete solution.

“I’m an urban planner by trade and I’m very aware of the limitations of ForwardDallas,” Roberts says. “We’re happy with the change of the land use plan, but this is not the end of the fight.”

ForwardDallas, as the plan implies, only looks forward in that it will progressively redress industrial spaces with land use more fitting for nearby neighborhoods. Establishments that may become nonconforming would not be required to leave their spaces. If they were, according to Texas’ SB-929, they would be entitled to compensation. So industrial sites owned by companies like GAF and TAMKO, long-criticized by local residents, are essentially grandfathered in so long as operations do not expand.

“Gathering data to put together a comprehensive plan is the only time a city gets a full perspective of the community needs. Some say an election is supposed to do that, but I don’t agree that it does,” Roberts of Downwinders says. “But while it provides a better perspective, it doesn’t necessarily act as a direct management plan. It’s fragmentary. And the problem is that it doesn’t have to guide any city council decisions.”

While land use changes in the plan have earned the commendation of some local activists, District 7 Environmental Commissioner and activist Temeckia Derrough believes greater action is necessary to ensure Dallas overtakes its biggest challenges.

“The priorities laid out by [the plan] do not represent my district. And Joppa isn’t getting anything out of ForwardDallas,” says Derrough. “Here’s a problem with the City of Dallas: these departments and commissions are not working on anything together. I don’t think we’ve ever had a meeting where the chair of every commission sat down and talked about co-operating in our objectives.”

It is in this sense that ForwardDallas puts the cart before the horse. The goals it strives for are too general, whilst laid within a framework too loose. It states ambitions that our current city government has never meaningfully ventured toward. Dallas lacks the necessary regulation to address issues outlined in the plan, such as affordability and equity. Similarly, the plan accommodates corporations with longstanding operations in the city, many of which have adversely affected the health of its residents. It isn’t so much that regular Dallasites couldn’t benefit from ForwardDallas, it’s that the plan makes no guarantee that they will. The community rewards of the new land use plan would take almost a decade to fully materialize, if at all, whereas benefits for developers are instantaneous. 

ForwardDallas is a win in some ways and inconsequential or open-ended in others. But the primary hope that is held in consensus among all voices contributing to this piece is a desire that the City of Dallas will be granted a city council that is motivated to pursue the goals of aspirational documents such as ForwardDallas head-on. 

A final public meeting held by the CPC regarding ForwardDallas will take place at City Hall today beginning at 9 am. Comments can be given in-person or virtually, with public hearings being held after 12:30 pm.

The post ForwardDallas Explained: How the Land Use Plan Can (and Cannot) Change the City appeared first on Dallas Weekly.