Members of Dallas’ housing and homeless solutions committee on Tuesday discussed broad options to reform the city’s zoning and building codes to increase the housing supply, most notably one that would allow development of multiplex units in single-family neighborhoods without neighbor review or approval.
Before a small gathering of residents, city staff presented a briefing explaining how the zoning reforms could include reducing the minimum lot size requirements and allowing accessory dwelling units to be built without neighbor input.
“I can’t emphasize enough that this is just a conversation,” said Andrea Gilles, the city’s interim director of the planning and urban design department. “There is no proposal on the table, but it is an intent to start the conversation around these issues.”
Gilles said Dallas is behind other cities across the nation in expanding housing options, which is needed to accommodate the housing needs of hundreds of thousands more residents in the next decade.
“We are late to the game on this conversation to be perfectly frank,” Gilles said. “There are cities that have addressed this 10 years ago.”
Andreea Udrea, assistant director of planning and urban design, said the current code has many barriers to allowing more “gentle density” in a manner that’s sensitive to and fits within the current neighborhood context.
“Any type of change, any touch to the code when it comes to housing, it’s going to have to include context-sensitive design standards,” Udrea said.
Any potential change to the city’s code about housing would still have to get through several community input opportunities, the city’s zoning ordinance advisory committee, the city plan commission, a committee and the full city council.
Meeting’s timing
Dallas City Council member Jesse Moreno, who chairs the committee, called the special meeting to fulfill a request by council member Chad West in a Nov. 8 memo signed by four others on the council.
Those signees — Chad West, Jaime Resendez, Jaynie Shultz and Paula Blackmon — were absent from the discussion. Council member and memo signer Adam Bazaldua condemned the timing of the meeting before a major holiday.
“Scheduling a special called meeting, knowing the writer of the memo wasn’t even available ahead of time, to me that’s disingenuous,” Bazaldua said.
Of the council members present, Bazaldua was the lone cheerleader for reform, although a handful of residents spoke in support of adding different housing types to the city.
“Historically minimum lot coverage size was also used as an alternative to redlining that perpetuated segregation,” Bazaldua said.
Dallas resident Elizabeth Markowitz said the reforms would help bring the American dream of homeownership within reach.
“I’m raising my son in an apartment right now,” Markowitz said. “I would love to be able to live in a home. We know reforming our minimum lot size requirements works to lower the price of housing, and it also works to reduce the displacement of Black and Latino residents.”
Most other council members present weren’t opposed to multiplexes developed on vacant land but strongly condemned allowing them in single-family neighborhoods.
Moreno said by-right development — which allows developers to build without neighbor review or approval — is a nonstarter for his district.
“I support density,” he said “I support having more people to live in our city of Dallas. But it has to be in the appropriate place.”
Council member Cara Mendelsohn spoke out against the potential reforms and asked Gilles if she believed the by-right reforms would effectively end single-family zoning.
Gilles denied it would, adding that a single family could live in a particular unit of the multiplex.
Council members who represent underdeveloped southern Dallas said their residents need more single-family homes following decades of underinvestment, which has left the area without robust infrastructure.
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Carolyn King Arnold called the reform a bait-and-switch scheme for homeowners who bought into the promise of single-family neighborhoods.
“If the house burned down next door to us, we’re not looking for a duplex up next to us,” Arnold said.
‘Blunt force approach’
More than a dozen residents who spoke in opposition to the zoning reform ideas echoed concerns that the lack of neighbor input on zoning decisions would disrupt the quality of life of residents.
“A blunt force approach of allowing by-right development of duplex, triplex, fourplex housing units or accessory dwelling units in single-family neighborhoods rings favorably only to developers,” said Greg Estell, who lives in Old Lake Highlands. “Too much of this unproven concept is in the hands of developers whose interests are more financial than altruistic.”
Anga Sanders, a District 3 resident, asked the committee members to “stop this blatant attempt to destroy our single-family neighborhoods.”
More than 40% of the city is zoned for single-family housing with less than 5% zoned for multifamily housing.
Gilles said the city’s efforts to finish its first comprehensive Forward Dallas land use plan, which have included discussions of increasing types of housing across the city, are top priority.
After Forward Dallas is adopted, the city plans to formally begin reforming its development code, which would still need City Council approval.
“We need to break each of the issues down and have conversations that everyone can kind of digest and then make an informed decision,” Gilles said.
