A former member of Dallas’ City Plan Commission is speaking out about what he thinks ForwardDallas is lacking.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the controversial comprehensive land-use plan has made waves over its emphasis on density, prompting fears among residents of single-family zoned neighborhoods that the plan would be used to rezone parts of Dallas to allow for multifamily housing in places where it had previously been prohibited.
Businessman Jasmond Anderson recently spoke with CandysDirt about a somewhat different criticism: that the plan focuses too much on housing at the expense of big-picture growth and development.
Here is some of what the outlet published on this topic:
Jasmond Anderson, like many Dallas residents, has been closely following discussions about the city’s comprehensive land use plan. At one time in the not-so-distant past, he was seated at the horseshoe during those discussions.
Anderson, CEO of a design-build development company, was the District 4 plan commissioner when ForwardDallas 2.0 first came under review in 2021. Anderson said he was “booted” off the commission for lack of attendance but he also served briefly on the Comprehensive Land Use Plan Committee (CLUP) tasked with updating the 2006 original version of ForwardDallas.
Anderson told CandysDirt.com that he is concerned about the plan’s emphasis on housing, focus on “placetypes” — generic land uses for different geographic areas of the city — and what appears to be the dismissal of the years-long work that’s been poured into smaller plans such as the West Oak Cliff Area Plan and South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan.
“I began to ask why we were not relating to any of the area plans that the city has spent so much time and effort on,” he said. “I felt like the discussion should have been led by the planning staff offering good examples and guidance for opportunities for sustainable and economic development. Things like streets, transportation access, economic opportunities, healthcare, and retail are considered in overlay districts but were not included in the ForwardDallas placetypes. It seems like it was out there on its own. We’re doing ForwardDallas while all these areas are doing their own area plans.”