ForwardDallas has become synonymous with density and rezoning for a lot of residents ahead of a Dallas City Council meeting on the comprehensive land use plan later this month.
As previously reported by The Dallas Express, residents have expressed fears that the document would be used to rezone single-family neighborhoods, allowing developers to throw up multifamily housing and undermine the character of certain parts of the city.
While proponents of the plan’s guidance (which emphasizes density and more housing options) argue that such direction is warranted in light of the ongoing housing crunch, a lot of residents feel that City officials are not entirely grasping the possible impacts residents may have to deal with.
Here is some of what CandysDirt recently published on people’s concerns:
Who’s afraid of a little ol’ land use plan? Well, for starters, a resident who has a five-story apartment building overlooking her backyard. An architect who thinks the plan should be scrapped and the process restarted from scratch. A Park and Recreation Board member who doesn’t want multiplexes in single-family neighborhoods. A woman who lives near White Rock Lake and doesn’t think neighborhood associations have had a seat at the table when it comes to “initiatives that could radically change the character of their subdivisions,” to name a few.
The ForwardDallas 2.0 comprehensive land use plan is an update of a document originally drafted and adopted in 2006. It doesn’t govern zoning but it sets a vision for the future that includes a granular look at housing, something not everyone agrees on. Single-family homeowners have been pitted against affordable housing advocates as they’ve debated the best location and type of dwellings to address the Dallas housing crisis.
The Comprehensive Land Use Committee and the City Plan Commission have sliced and diced the document, and another big round of revisions was made at a Sept. 3 meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Economic Development Committee.
ForwardDallas 2.0 is now headed to the full City Council for a public hearing on Sept. 25.