Local government officials and community leaders have expressed frustration that the City of Dallas’ slow permitting and highly regulated construction process is contributing to Dallas’ ongoing housing and homelessness crisis.

The topic stirred fierce debate at last Wednesday’s City Council meeting, with District 6 Council Member Omar Narvaez knocking opposition to increased single-occupancy housing and broader housing reform as narrow-minded self-interest and “NIMBYism.”

“We hear about NIMBY versus YIMBY. I’m proud of District 6. I have apartment complexes that do come up and not everybody wants them, not everybody likes them. But we’ve been working very hard to have a YIMBY attitude when it comes to putting in place these affordable units because we care more about our fellow human beings than dollars. It’s about people over dollars,” said Narvaez.

Later in the meeting, during a debate over a proposal to require electric vehicle chargers in new construction homes, District 1 Council Member Chad West highlighted the role of regulations in driving up construction costs and how additional regulations interfere with building new housing.

“We all support [Comprehensive Chemical Awareness Programs]. It passed with a unanimous vote. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t review the ordinances that come out of CCAP without a sanity check to make sure they make sense with our other policies because it’s not going to be a 100% batting average. Housing, at least in my mind, is our number one priority as a city right now,” West said.

Later in the week, presenters at non-profit organization Housing Forward’s annual State of Homelessness Address decried bureaucratic roadblocks as a key reason homelessness persists in Dallas and throughout America.

“We have had a pervasive national policy failure of epic proportions to build enough housing,” said Cullum Clark, director of the Bush Institute-SMU Economic Growth Initiative.

Clark also alleged that the City of Dallas maintains a uniquely inefficient system of permitting and building regulations. The City’s permitting process is executed by the Development Services Department and overseen by City Manager T.C. Broadnax.

“Land use rules, the housing market, and permitting complexities that make it impossible or very difficult to build new housing or difficult to maintain naturally affordable older housing … all those rules have been getting worse for at least 30 years. In Dallas, I think we can find abundant evidence to show, that among big cities we’re — I’m sorry to say — we’re an underperformer when it comes to new housing,” Clark said.

Housing topics have remained at the forefront of discussion throughout April. City officials acknowledged permitting and transparency inefficiencies while discussing expanding a recently launched permit activity dashboard from tracking just single-family construction permits to also tracking commercial permitting.

During an Economic Development Committee meeting earlier this month, District 13 City Council Member Gay Donnell Willis expressed exasperation with the City’s slow embrace of modern, more efficient permit tracking.

“I’m just going to take this moment to register that I’m baffled that in 2023, the ninth-largest city in America doesn’t have a better handle on this,” Willis said.

The Dallas Express reached out to Council Members Narvaez, West, and Willis for additional information on their comments but received no responses by the publication deadline.