Lakewooder

From dallasblog.com:

WAR OVER COMPREHENSIVE PLAN ERUPTING AT CITY HALL
By Angela Hunt
Dallas City Councilmember
District 14

For the last two years, the City of Dallas has been developing a
comprehensive land use plan that will guide development in our city for the
next twenty to thirty years. This plan is about to be approved by the City
Council either Wednesday, June 14 or June 28, and it is imperative that you
know what is going on.

I am fundamentally in support of adopting a comprehensive plan for Dallas.
However, I think it's even more important that we get this plan RIGHT. I
have been critical of many aspects of the plan proposed by city staff
because I believe their proposal will negatively impact our neighborhoods.
My main points of contention have been:

● The plan's emphasis on multi-family housing instead of single-family.
● A comprehensive plan map that redesigns our city without substantive
community input.
● A comprehensive plan map that fails to identify stable neighborhoods (so
they can be protected from future development and higher densities) and
areas of change and transition (where we want to grow and redevelop).
● An across-the-board reduction in parking requirements.
● Lack of coordination with DISD to ensure that our schools can handle the
dramatic population growth proposed by the plan.
● Proposal for narrow sidewalk widths (despite ostensible focus on
pedestrianism).
● Lack of focus on Southern Dallas development.
● District 14 neighborhoods that should be designated "Residential" not
"Urban Neighborhood."
● A focus on top-down, city staff-directed zoning decisions instead of a
neighborhood/property-owner-driven process.

Despite having shared my concerns with staff, and despite the fact that the
public has been giving staff very specific suggested changes for MONTHS,
staff has refused to adopt most of the substantive changes requested by me
and groups as diverse as the Dallas Homeowners League, The Real Estate
Council, Save Open Space, Preservation Dallas, and the development
community.

Luckily, the City Plan Commission recognized that staff had not been
listening to the people of Dallas, who will have to live with the
consequences of this plan for decades. Last Tuesday, in a true show of
leadership, our City Plan Commission approved a version of the comprehensive
plan that addresses many of the concerns raised by these community groups
and individuals. Most significantly, the CPC revised the plan so that
neighborhoods and property owners are back in the driver's seat in crafting
future changes to their area. Instead of a top-down process in which city
staff present a neighborhood with a new zoning plan, the NEIGHBORHOOD
RESIDENTS and PROPERTY OWNERS will gather consensus and give their proposed
new zoning recommendations to the city.

The CPC also revised the comprehensive plan map to carve out "areas of
transformation" (UNT campus, South Dallas, Trinity River Corridor, and
Downtown) and designate everything else "areas of stability" until area
plans or neighborhood plans are developed in a community-driven process.
Several other significant changes were made, a list of which can be reviewed
here. The CPC's version of the comprehensive plan map can
be viewed here.

At the end of the day, 13 of the 15 members of the Plan Commission support
their revised version of the comprehensive plan. In seeing the very
positive changes that were proposed by the CPC, although imperfect, I was
prepared to support this "middle-ground" version of the comprehensive plan.
It doesn't contain all of the changes that I thought important, but overall
it will be a good plan for our city and protect the integrity of our
neighborhoods. With these positive changes by the CPC, all in the right
direction, you would think that staff and councilmembers would be embracing
this compromise, right?

Nope.

Staff is furious with what the CPC did - taking authority away from city
staff and putting it back in the hands of Dallas residents. So staff is
telling the Council to pass STAFF'S version of the comprehensive plan, the
one that keeps them in control of future zoning changes. Staff is
marginalizing the thoughtful changes crafted and approved by our Plan
Commission. Staff didn't even provide the City Council with a copy of the
comprehensive plan passed by the CPC; just a chart of "CPC Recommendations"
along with city staff's version of the plan. This is unacceptable.

What can you do about it? If you would like to protect the future of your
neighborhood, if you believe residents and property owners (not city staff)
should be the guiding voice in future zoning changes that affect your area,
then you need to do the following:

● E-mail or call your City Councilmember and the Mayor and let them know
you support the CPC recommendation, "The People's Plan." (Find contact info
here.)
● Attend the City Council meeting this Wednesday, June 14th at 1:30 PM at
City Hall and support the City Plan Commission's recommendations. Bring
your friends and neighbors. THIS IS CRITICAL. (Map to City Hall:
click here.)
● Call the City Secretary at (214) 670-3738 to put your name on the
speakers' list for Wednesday in favor of the City Plan Commission's version
of the plan.

This is about neighborhoods. This is about property rights and having a
voice in the future of your community. If you don't speak up and let your
council representative know your concerns and wishes, then staff's version
of this plan will pass and the needs of your neighborhood will take a
back-seat to a "staff knows best" mentality.

Posted on Monday, June 12, 2006 at 04:20PM by trey garrison | 4 Comments | 1 Reference
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Response: ANGELA HUNT DOESN'T LIKE FORWARD DALLAS!
at Frontburner on June 13, 2006
The councilwoman says the city's staff wants the council to pass its version of the comprehensive plan for Dallas, not the Plan Commission's effort, the one that included input from, you know, the council's constituents....Reader Comments (4)
Staff would do well to STFU. Municipal staff members are there to do the legwork and make a recommendation to the governing body about such things, not make the decisions.

June 11, 2006 | J Shell
Why did we waste $1.4 million dollars of taxpayer money (on a sweetheart contract that was not even put out for competetitive bid!) as well as God knows how many hours of citizen time on this if staff was going to simply do what they wanted anyway.

We could have hired a lot of police officers and fixed a lot of potholes with that much money.

I went to some of the meetings. It was clear the staff was only interested in the comments that agreed with their predetermined outcome. "Listen and learn" was never part of their game plan. Staff may think they "know better" than you and me but we are going to be the ones left with the mess they created after they leave and go on to their next job (and they always leave and go to some other city)

The head of the department in charge of this fiasco should be fired immediately, along with all of the people that dreamed up this taxpayer scam.

No wonder my taxes are so high. What a crock!


June 11, 2006 | PO'd Dallas Resident
I attended Tuesday morning's City Council Comprehensive Plan Subcommittee meeting. As a lawyer, I was stunned to hear Councilman Ed Oakley (after a 1.5 hour hearing) make a lengthy preconceived written motion, which took no account of the discussions among the subcommittee members, city staff, and Plan Commissioner Bob Weiss. And from the lightning-quick reaction from councilpersons Don Hill and Dr. Elba Garcia, it was evident that Oakley had already lined up the votes for his motion beforehand.
And if that wasn't bad enough, when Councilperson Hunt described the hearing as a "sham" (which in my view is being kind), and she called for a public hearing BEFORE taking a vote on Oakley's motion, Councilperson Garcia had the nerve to urge that the vote occur FIRST, and then take the public testimony at tomorrow's City Council meeting. Where is our city attorney in all this?
June 13, 2006 | Mike Northrup
In response to the Frontburner's post that

"ANGELA HUNT DOESN'T LIKE FORWARD DALLAS! The councilwoman says the city's staff wants the council to pass its version of the comprehensive plan for Dallas, not the Plan Commission's effort, the one that included input from, you know, the council's constituents."

Getting input and holding meetings are meaningless exercises if the suggested changes don't make it into the final product. After dozens of meetings, emails, and letters, the fundamental recommendations of council constituents weren't incorporated into the final product.

The Plan Commission went back, looked at the changes recommended and supported by groups as diverse as The Real Estate Council, the Dallas Homeowners League, and Preservation Dallas, to name a few. Shouldn't residents and property owners who have to live with this thing have a say in the final product? Or should we be satisfied with the fact that we "gave our input," even though doing so resulted in no substantive change?

Have you read this thing? Liking the idea of a comprehensive plan and approving this particular plan are two different things. I support having a comprehensive plan, too, but it's even more important to get it right.
June 13, 2006 | Angela Hunt