The Dallas City Council is set to take up the 2024 bond proposal this Wednesday.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the Community Bond Task Force (CBTF) has finalized its recommendations on how bond dollars in the $1.1 billion program should be allocated. The highest allocations were for streets and infrastructure ($375 million) and public parks ($350 million).
The City Council will now consider the recommendations and determine the final bond program that will go before Dallas voters next year. It is not yet known whether the bond election will be held in May or November of 2024. Council members will begin official discussions about the bond proposal this Wednesday with CBTF chair Arun Agarwal, who is scheduled to present the task force’s recommendations.
In a previous interview with The Dallas Express, Agarwal said the funds should be used to “help the goals of critical infrastructure and build the future of the city.”
“The mayor and City Council always said the priorities were three P’s: parks, public safety, [and] potholes,” he said. “We tried to take care of all three of them.”
In his State of the City address last week, Mayor Eric Johnson stressed that the $1.1 billion bond package “should allow us to make critical investments in our city without raising your taxes.”
“The two biggest allocations in this bond package must be for streets and for parks,” he said. “That’s what our citizen-led Community Bond Task Force recommended. That’s what the people of Dallas want. That’s what I want as your mayor. And that’s what our city needs.”
Still, some have criticized these allocations and said more money should be directed toward housing. The final CBTF recommendations included $98 million for housing and economic development and $1.6 million for homeless services. The Dallas Housing Coalition (DHC) previously advocated for $200 million.
DHC organizer Bryan Tony told the Dallas Observer last month that he hopes the City Council will set aside more funding for housing projects but expects the battle to be difficult “given the city’s historical underinvestment in housing.”
“It would be difficult to go from zero to $200 million in housing as a first stab at this,” he said. “But we do remain optimistic that there is support within the community and among City Council for a greater investment in housing, and we are remaining committed to our $200 million and advocacy for housing and our $35 million for homeless solutions as originally recommended by the community bond task force subcommittee.”
In his State of the City address, Johnson claimed that while the City of Dallas needs more housing, the municipality is not the ideal authority to take the lead on making it happen.
“We need more housing in Dallas. But historically, government is simply not good at playing the role of a housing developer,” he said.
Johnson argued that the City should instead aim to “make things simpler for professional builders” by improving the permitting process and easing zoning restrictions, as previously covered by The Dallas Express.