{"id":173775,"date":"2025-08-25T07:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T07:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/173775\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T07:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T07:36:10","slug":"get-involved-in-dallas-zoning-reform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/173775\/","title":{"rendered":"Get involved in Dallas zoning reform"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019ll grant that the very words planning and zoning can summon yawns, but if you live in Dallas, you better be awake to what\u2019s about to happen.<\/p>\n

City Council members on Wednesday discussed an ongoing effort to review and reform Dallas\u2019 development code, including rules that govern what kinds of buildings can go where. This could be really good or really bad, depending on how it plays out.<\/p>\n

From our perspective, council members need to find a way to balance protection for residents\u2019 investment in single-family neighborhoods with the need to encourage development and bolster the overall housing supply. <\/p>\n

Planning and Development director Emily Liu told us this process is still in the very early stages; there isn\u2019t even a formal draft proposal yet. Public engagement is set to continue. \u201cWe want to reach as many people as we can,\u201d Liu said. <\/p>\n

Opinion<\/p>\n

Get smart opinions on the topics North Texans care about.<\/p>\n

We strongly urge everyone to participate. Hearing from young people is especially important. They are the group most likely to be affected by the decisions the city is about to make, and sadly, are often least-inclined to participate. The city will hold stakeholder listening sessions<\/a> on Sept. 9, 11 and 16.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been a lot of little \u201cband aid\u201d changes to the city\u2019s development code over the years, but the code is still overly complex and doesn\u2019t work well, city staff said. The code was originally drafted in the \u201960s, and the city\u2019s population has grown by hundreds of thousands since then. <\/p>\n

Antiquated code, extreme regulatory hurdles and indecipherable maps don\u2019t invite investment in the city. Dallas lags far behind North Texas\u2019 suburban superstars for growth and development, and that doesn\u2019t bode well for the city\u2019s future or its tax base. <\/p>\n

The starting point for Wednesday\u2019s conversation was a diagnostic report prepared by planning and zoning consultant Camiros. It analyzes current code and identifies possible changes to it.<\/p>\n

One idea is to reduce Dallas\u2019 dependence on \u201cplanned developments,\u201d or PDs. These are bespoke zoning districts that allow the combination of different land uses to achieve a desired effect. <\/p>\n

Dallas has approved more than 1,100 of them over the years, according to the report, creating an impossible to navigate mishmash of land uses. Beginning to clean that mess up is a good idea. <\/p>\n

Many of the code changes the report points to are about simplifying the code and making it easier for everyone to use. Those changes aren\u2019t likely to be very controversial. <\/p>\n

Some of the more consequential ideas will be controversial, and they\u2019ll require fuller discussion before they are written into code. That will come in time.<\/p>\n

For now, council members should focus on keeping the zoning reform process civil and productive. This involves a lot of community engagement that takes time.<\/p>\n

Here are our north stars: protect established neighborhoods, make it easier to develop commercial land into mixed-use properties and figure out how to get City Hall out of the way of the market as much as possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ll grant that the very words planning and zoning can summon yawns, but if you live in Dallas,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":98863,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5135],"tags":[5229,1596,14840,14841,6083,80,358,3187,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-173775","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-city-council","11":"tag-dallas-city-hall","12":"tag-editorials","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-united-states-of-america","18":"tag-unitedstates","19":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","20":"tag-us","21":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115088260077056022","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}