Neighborhoods will be protected against multifamily buildings known as stealth dorms encroaching on homes near TCU after a zoning change.
The Fort Worth City Council decided Dec. 9 to approve a zoning request intended to prevent multifamily buildings known as “stealth dorms” from being built near single-family homes and ensure new developments are compatible with residential neighborhoods.
The zoning request, initiated by City Council members Elizabeth Beck and Jeanette Martinez, will affect more than 386 acres in their districts. The area is generally bounded by Berry Street, the BNSF railroad line, Biddison Street, Hemphill Street, Seminary Drive, Lubbock Avenue, Pafford Street, McCart Avenue and Cleburne Road.
Beck said the change would help preserve neighborhoods of the periphery of the TCU area.
“It’s important you protect the character of the existing neighborhood,” she told the Fort Worth Report.
Most zoning for that area dated back to 1940, but the new zoning will allow for some multifamily housing and some limited commercial uses.
The zoning change is intended to preserve “the character of suburban residential neighborhoods” while encouraging new developments to complement existing homes and buildings in scale and with similar architectural elements, city staffers wrote.
What are stealth dorms?
Stealth dorms are housing developments where multiple unrelated individuals, often students, live together in a single building in a neighborhood of primarily single-family homes.
Infill development would be encouraged to be compatible with nearby neighborhoods and zoning changes would need to align with the city’s comprehensive plan, according to a city staff report.
The plan, first discussed by the Fort Worth Zoning Commission at an Oct. 8 meeting, eliminates high-density multifamily developments in the area and adds conditional use permits for some businesses, such as auto repair shops, screen printers, and window and door manufacturers. Projects already in the zoning process, such as duplexes, would be grandfathered.
A map shows the area rezoned to protect south Fort Worth neighborhoods from dense housing projects. (Courtesy image | City of Fort Worth)
Cristina Plascencia Snoke, a Rosemont Neighborhood Association member who was raised in the community, told zoning commissioners in October that she supported the change because it would enable other families to live and thrive in the close-knit area.
Snoke said she oversaw the Rosemont neighborhood’s efforts over the summer to rezone nearby areas.
“I feel very emotional about my community,” Plascencia Snoke said.
Beck said other zoning or building ordinances changes are still needed to more clearly identify stealth dorms in planning documents.
Even though a housing project may look like a multistory single-family home, “they are really stealth multifamily,” she said. “We should call them that.”
Eric E. Garcia is a senior business reporter at the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at eric.garcia@fortworthreport.org.
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