Dallas’ City Planning Commission elected on Thursday to advance ForwardDallas to city council members in a 10-4 vote during a days-long meeting making final tweaks to the plan.
Most of the edits made during the meeting consisted of minor grammatical and word changes. For example, “ft” was changed to “feet,” and some sentences were added to emphasize the proposed connecting of Dallas residents to nature by adding green spaces.
Members of the public joined the meeting for a brief public hearing, representing opposing viewpoints on the plan.
“I’ve spent the last 30 years trying to protect my neighborhood, all of it for nothing if ForwardDallas is adopted,” argued Dallas resident Mitt Hawk. “While it has good aspects, it needs to be edited to remove duplexes, triplexes, and tri-homes as single-family units. As citizens of Dallas, we look to you as City leaders to protect our neighborhoods.”
Others voiced their support for the current document.
“We see the work you’re putting in. This plan meets the goals for all of Dallas,” claimed Dallas resident Brian Tony. “We want appropriate housing. We want thoughtful development. We need better services and communities. All of this can be put together by this plan.”
The commissioners began discussing ForwardDallas at 12:30 p.m., and by 6 p.m., Commissioner Lorie Blair made a motion to approve the plan.
“I urge every one of you to take a bow and say we’ve done the best we can at this level,” said Blair to the rest of the commission. “It’s time to move it on and let our bosses do the work.”
Blair said that she and other commissioners were beginning to suffer from “editing paralysis” after countless hours of meetings and revisions.
“The majority of us have fatigue, it’s time to send this along,” said Commissioner Melissa Kingston. “I know a process like this is never going to be easy. I want to take a minute to thank members of the public who have spent hours and hours reading this and providing feedback.”
While the majority of commissioners were ready to move ForwardDallas to the next stage, some argued that there was still work to be done.
“We need a revised document reviewed by the public and the body,” said Commissioner Joanna Hampton. “We owe it to all the folks who have spent so much time with us.”
Commissioner Deborah Carpenter echoed Hampton’s statements, saying it would be wrong to pass it through without reading it in full, including all the tweaks the commission made on July 25.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the plan has prompted accusations that the rezoning of single-family neighborhoods to allow for multifamily housing would be implemented to achieve ForwardDallas’ mission of increasing density, a notion that has upset many residents currently living in such neighborhoods.