Live Oak at Fitzhugh

[UrbanBiker]

Looks like they have a couple more of the older Apartment's on Live Oak vacated and fenced. I would guess that they will soon be coming down. I did not see any signs concerning future development. But, just getting those out of that area on Live Oak will be a good.

[tamtagon]

Looks like they have a couple more of the older Apartment's on Live Oak vacated and fenced. I would guess that they will soon be coming down. I did not see any signs concerning future development. But, just getting those out of that area on Live Oak will be a good.

My old neighborhood. There was a Mexican family living in on Live Oak that had a goat, and I could not resist using my broken Spanish to find out what's up with that goat. I always thought a goat would be a cool pet or whatever.... but they were fattening up ole Billy for a special dinner, that's all.

[UrbanBiker]

Yum, Yum, Cabritto…. Now that’s some good eats! I’m still surprised that there is not a restaurant, which has Cabritto as a focal point on their menu.

[urbanite07]

Just drove past LIVE OAK and MUNGER, WOW!! Lot's of old apartments fenced off.. guess they are ALL coming down..

[LongonBigD]

Isn't this the corner with the Metropolitan on Live Oak (or something like that?) I remember seeing a site plan which was to include 50-60 townhomes in that development. They stopped building those after the second building - I'm assuming due to lack of interest (that corner is still kinda sketchy) - and put a fence around them. I think they slashed the prices to get rid of them and they still have vacant units.

Hopefully you are right and tearing down all the old stuff will spur new interest, BUT if it doesn't, here we go again tearing down the old with nothing to show for it but another vacant lot. I guess some of these old places were even too far gone for the rehabs that Power Properties were doing over on Gaston. If so, its too bad, I am a big fan of what they were doing over there by making the old hip again without tearing anything down.

[Otis]

Speaking only about myself, I would much rather have a vacant lot next door to my $250K house than Section 8 housing. I guess I don't understand the disdain for empty lots. I would much rather have a patch of maintened weeds than a Delux Inn, crack house or dilapidated apartment building. To me, cleared land shows signs of progress. Just my opinion.

[urbanite07]

Speaking only about myself, I would much rather have a vacant lot next door to my $250K house than Section 8 housing. I guess I don't understand the disdain for empty lots. I would much rather have a patch of maintened weeds than a Delux Inn, crack house or dilapidated apartment building. To me, cleared land shows signs of progress. Just my opinion.

TOTALLY AGREE with Otis .. the Deluxe 'motel hell" on Live Oak is the perfect example, ever since that dump came down, all the crack heads, hookers, and thugs have all but flocked to another area.. Section 8 housing is fine, I just don't want it next door to my home... and please don't start with the suburb rebuttles, it's getting old.

[berryhill]

TOTALLY AGREE with Otis .. the Deluxe 'motel hell" on Live Oak is the perfect example, ever since that dump came down, all the crack heads, hookers, and thugs have all but flocked to another area.. Section 8 housing is fine, I just don't want it next door to my home... and please don't start with the suburb rebuttles, it's getting old.

With all due respect, I don't see how you can say that with a straight face. If Section 8 housing is "fine" then next to whose houses are they supposed to put it? Those valued at $249K and under? I don't blame you or anyone else for not wanting run-down buildings or apartments next to their place, but I take exception with any statement claiming to be in support of assisted housing for the poor as long as it didn't affect their property value. And the suburb rebuttals might be old, but they still apply. It's the very center of the city! Wanting low income people to move (despite them probably being there longer than your home) because it lowers your property value or you don't want to see them on your commute and because you really want to be in a convenient or trendy area near downtown sounds a selfish and to be in complete disregard for the long term interests of our city. I guess we'll just go ahead and move them to Oak Cliff where they belong.

[palchik]

With all due respect, I don't see how you can say that with a straight face. If Section 8 housing is "fine" then next to whose houses are they supposed to put it? Those valued at $249K and under? I don't blame you or anyone else for not wanting run-down buildings or apartments next to their place, but I take exception with any statement claiming to be in support of assisted housing for the poor as long as it didn't affect their property value. And the suburb rebuttals might be old, but they still apply. It's the very center of the city! Wanting low income people to move (despite them probably being there longer than your home) because it lowers your property value or you don't want to see them on your commute and because you really want to be in a convenient or trendy area near downtown sounds a selfish and to be in complete disregard for the long term interests of our city. I guess we'll just go ahead and move them to Oak Cliff where they belong.

There should be a limit of 1 section 8 unit per building...that way you spread the wealth (or poverty in this case) and avoid ghetoization.

[urbanite07]

With all due respect, I don't see how you can say that with a straight face. If Section 8 housing is "fine" then next .

Hey Berryhill - Relax .. nothing wrong with not wanting urban Dallas to go backwards to the 80's, last I checked the word 'progress' was synonymous with 'improvement', hence moving the ghetto out and refreshing the area with the new.

If you want to live near section 8, graffiti covered signs, crime, then so be it ... As for me, I choose prosperity and progress.

[BigdBill]

With all due respect, I don't see how you can say that with a straight face. If Section 8 housing is "fine" then next to whose houses are they supposed to put it?

Sounds like you are volunteering to me.

How about this? Section 8 housing is "fine." The crime, drug use, poverty, and lower property values that generally come along with it, are not "fine."

[ericthegardener]

There should be a limit of 1 section 8 unit per building...that way you spread the wealth (or poverty in this case) and avoid ghetoization.

I've always thought that there ought to be a way to spread out lower income housing and avoid at least some of the problems that come with high concentrations of poor folks in one area.

It seems that it might lessen crime overall and that the lower income housing would be less likely to fall into disrepair due to social pressure and the occasional helping hand from their neighbors.

Of course I don't know how such a system would be implemented but the number of lower income households is not shrinking and currently every "bad" neighborhood is next to someone else's "good" neighborhood.

Maybe there is a way to lessen the overall negative impact of these neighborhoods.

[berryhill]

Hey Berryhill - Relax .. nothing wrong with not wanting urban Dallas to go backwards to the 80's, last I checked the word 'progress' was synonymous with 'improvement', hence moving the ghetto out and refreshing the area with the new.

If you want to live near section 8, graffiti covered signs, crime, then so be it ... As for me, I choose prosperity and progress.

You completely misread what I was saying. I specifically said I saw nothing wrong with you not wanting to live near a bad area. Just don't say that you're in support of the housing but then qualify it by saying as long as it's not in your neighborhood. It's hypocritical. And no, I don't really care to live next to those kinds of things at this moment in time but then I certainly don't have the audacity to move into an area and then push to have certain residents displaced. And I think we may have different interpretations with "progress." For me, making progress would be to come up with more innovative ideas to achieve said "improvement" in the area than merely displacing people to areas where people didn't pay as much for their homes as you. Bigdbill, I agree with you saying that you don't want the negative aspects surrounding the area. But that's where finding a way to mitigate the negative effects that these developments comes in and, *gasp*, maybe even trying to reverse the influence. Just think, it could help make progress in the community growing organically and thus cause an "improvement" to your property value. And isn't that the real goal of most people on this board, to foster the organic development of our center city neighborhoods? It's not shiny, new Uptown and it's not a vanilla gated community in Plano. Artificicial "improvement" through displacement is extremely short-sighted and counter-productive for the whole city.

In my opinion this argument is a microcosm of the prevailing Dallas attitude that many board members fight against: that somehow buying shiny new objects is better than adopting innovative ideas to solve our problems. We see it in the destruction of our historic buildings, the continuing decline of Fair Park coinciding with the emergence of the Arts District and the Cowboys Stadium, and on a smaller level, the amount of plastic surgery procedures we've become known for. It's children who are apt to throwing away broken toys in favor of new ones but prudent "grown-ups" are the ones that problem-solve in an attempt to fix it and buy a replacement as a last resort. Wonder which side Dallas lies?

[CARTMAN]

Developer plans new apartments in Old East Dallas

McShane reportedly plans 160-plus new units on Live Oak


06:46 AM CDT on Monday, March 17, 2008
By STEVE BROWN / The Dallas Morning News
stevebrown@dallasnews.com

An Illinois-based developer is knocking down two blocks of Old East Dallas apartments to make way for a new project.

McShane Cos. is preparing to demolish the old apartment complexes on Live Oak Street between Bennett and Fitzhugh avenues.

The developer bought those buildings and adjoining vacant land from Dallas-based Performance Properties this year.

"They are going to tear those buildings down and put new apartments on that whole block," said Performance Properties' David McQuaid.

The executive in McShane's Austin office in charge of the project was out of the office and could not be reached for details. But Mr. McQuaid said the plans are to build more than 160 rental units.

The buildings on the property were constructed in the late 1950s.

The planned redevelopment is the latest in an ongoing wave of apartment construction sweeping through neighborhoods east of downtown. Performance Properties sold several blocks of apartments along Bennett near Belmont to another developer – United Dominion Realty – which cleared the land and is preparing to build more rental units.

McShane is also building apartments in suburban Austin.

Its Cadence McShane Corp. is one of the most active general contractors in the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

[urbanite07]

Developer plans new apartments in Old East Dallas
.

My question is, and sorry if I offend, are these new apartments going to house low income people???

[CARTMAN]

My question is, and sorry if I offend, are these new apartments going to house low income people???

Hmmm...that's an interesting question but I doubt it. Hopefully they will compete with the newer apartments at Live Oak and Haskell. The land values are a too high for this area now.

[Urban Legend]

Those apartments on Live Oak between Fitzhugh and Collett are definitely coming down soon, and will be replaced with a nice, new apartment project with about 165 apartments. This will be a huge positive change for the neighborhood. The developers wanted to get a zoning change to go to 4 stories, but the neighborhood was so difficult to deal with, they decided to just do what they are allowed to do with their existing zoning. It's too bad, because a 4-story project would've put more people (law abiding citizens) on the street and made that block much more vibrant. I'm still glad those old properties are being torn down and being replaced with nice, new property. If only the neighborhoods didn't fight the old Carnival grocery store redevelopment on Henderson, we could've had a really cool mixed-use development with retail and apartments instead of a decrepit old grocery store. Unfortunately, a small handful of people killed that project as well as a brand new Whole Foods on Gaston in spite of the fact that a majority of people supported those projects.

[psukhu]

^
How old are the people that typically fight the increase in density?

It would be interesting to see when these people eventually give up the fight. Depending on when they were born, their views on urban redevelopment probably varies. The change in zoning to increase density will come eventually.

Sociologists have different versions of the generations in the US, but they are mostly similar. People in the same generation tend to have similar values and beliefs on things like this, especially if they grew up in the neighborhood that might be redeveloped. Here's one example:

(name - birth year)
G.I. Generation - 1901–1924
Silent Generation - 1925–1942
Boom Generation - 1943–1960
13th Generation - 1961–1981 (aka Gen X)
Millennial Generation - 1982–2008 (mostly overlaps with Gen Y)

[hamiltonpl]

I read a story in the Dallas Morning News about the difference between, Generation X, Baby Boomers, and Millennials. One of the characteristics of Gen X was "wanting to take back the inner city." Boomers fled the city for the 'burbs. While Gen X wanted the urban life. I definitely see that trend continuing for quite some time.

[psukhu]

^
Based on that I bet many of the people wanting to preserve low density zoning within the City of Dallas are indeed people born before 1964.

Even NYC has the same issue. People tend to want to preserve the neighborhood as it was when they grew up. Eventually those people move out or die and the neighborhood is allowed to increase in density without opposition. I was in NYC last week and I was surprised to see how dense the Queensborough Plaza area is becoming. Definitely more dense than most places in Texas.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=New+York,+NY&ie=UTF8&ll=40.751479,-73.938396&spn=0.002942,0.007424&z=18&layer=c&cbll=40.750047,-73.938637&cbp=1,0,,0,-1.7039330156853012