Emily Liu arrived in Dallas less than two months ago to lead the Department of Planning and Urban Design, which has been at the forefront of the controversial ForwardDallas comprehensive land use plan and a development code overhaul.
She may have gotten more than she bargained for. In a short time, Liu has seen a shakeup of several city departments as Interim City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert makes good on a pledge to “tackle immediate priorities to support a stable and thriving Dallas.”
And by the looks of a July 11 presentation before the City Plan Commission about what’s next for the planning department, it appears Emily Liu is here for it.
Building Trust With the Dallas Development Community
City officials have said that upwards of $12 billion worth of projects are presented for their review in a single calendar year, so oversight and informed decision-making is vitally important.
Now the director of the merged Planning and Development Department, Liu oversees all functions of land use and permitting.
“The goal of this new department is to achieve positive outcomes that build trust with the Dallas development community and also encourage robust investment in the City of Dallas,” she said.
Liu said she has spent a lot of time with staff, particularly the Development Services employees who work at the Oak Cliff Municipal Center, because “change is not easy.”
About 70 Development Services employees were recently moved out of a City-owned building at 7800 N. Stemmons Freeway when several fire code violations were revealed. A report is due at City Hall at the end of the month showing the results of an investigation into the Stemmons Freeway site.
Development Services Director Andrew Espinoza was shuffled out of the city’s organizational chart when the departments were combined. His last day with the city is Aug. 5.
Liu’s Priorities For the Future
Among Liu’s top priorities is finalizing the organizational chart. There are too many vacancies and too many senior planner positions, which aren’t attractive to recent college graduates, she said. There also are six vacant assistant director positions as a result of the reorganization.
“Our department cannot function with such a high vacancy rate,” Liu said.
Long-term goals include streamlining the development review process, improving customer service, and fostering a culture of teamwork, collaboration, and problem-solving, she said.
“We want to make Dallas an easy place to invest in,” Liu said. “We need to look at our surrounding communities, what they have done right, anything we can learn from them. There are some investments we’re losing to surrounding communities.”
Commissioner Melissa Kingston said the current permitting timelines are unacceptable. It takes about three years to get from filing an application to receiving a permit on a large project.
“It’s fairly impossible unless you’re a fairly large developer to get lending to hang on with you and even then to predict what the lending environment will be in order to do your forecasting,” Kingston said.
Rezoning applications and specific use permits can take up to a year from filing to approval, Kingston added.
Commissioner Tipton Housewright commended the new director for her emphasis on efficiency and speed.
“That’s something we as a city have a not-stellar reputation on,” he said. “I encourage you to stay on that path. It’s going to be essential for the city to remain competitive in a very competitive region, to preserve and enhance our tax base and make a more sustainable North Texas, where we get more development in the City of Dallas and less sprawl.”