What the City’s new ‘Historic and Cultural Preservation Strategy’ means for neighbors

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This spring the Dallas City Council voted unanimously to approve the city’s new Historic and Cultural Preservation Strategy by the Planning and Development department. The strategy, commissioned in November 2022, attempts to integrate the city’s Racial Equity Plan, Housing Policy 2033 and Economic Development and Incentive Policy into the process of recognizing individual properties and neighborhoods as historic.

The overarching intent of the strategy is to “reduc[e] racial disparities and assist close-knit historically marginalized communities in preserving their history and culture … by dedicating the resources and tools needed to equitably preserve history and culture in Dallas.”

What does this strategy include?

The strategy has 19 detailed action items with three major goals: 1) cultural and economic future, 2) preservation empowerment, and 3) incentivizing historic preservation. 

To accomplish these goals, the City will add four full-time staff members to the Office of Historic Preservation, which currently has only one full-time staffer. In addition to staffing, $75,000 was added to the City’s 2023-24 budget in order to begin historic resource surveying, both citywide and specifically in neighborhoods seeking historic designations. The last time the City did this kind of surveying was in the 1970s.

The City committed to another $100,000 in fiscal year 2024-25 for the relaunch of the Historic Preservation Program website and materials, and a pilot “cultural landmark” designation, which aims to preserve sites based on their history, rather than their architecture.

“Many of Dallas’ most powerful stories do not have an architecturally significant building to house them,” the strategy report points out.

Proposed “cultural landmarks” would be a formal City zoning type, as opposed to the Texas Commission on the Arts’ “cultural districts,” which are mainly honorary.

How do historic overlays work in Dallas now?

Over the past 50 years, residents of Dallas have used historic overlays to preserve buildings or even entire neighborhoods because of their historical or cultural significance. 

Currently, 21 neighborhoods in Dallas have historic preservation overlays, 14 of which are in downtown and East Dallas.

An overlay can lead to symbolic recognition such as historical markers, but also have been a way for residents to stabilize their neighborhoods in the face of rapid redevelopment and gentrification. That’s because historic preservation overlays limit the way buildings can be renovated or demolished, and what types of buildings can be newly constructed, based on residents’ input. Overlay zoning can restrict nearly every aspect of construction, from front yard size to the shape of windows.

For example, in South Dallas’ South Boulevard/Park Row historic district, homes may not exceed 36 feet in height, have three options for front facades, and must have roof overhangs of 12 inches or more. This overlay’s standards are based upon homes built in the early 1900s for a then-predominantly Jewish community of South Dallas, according to the historic district’s webpage.

What are the pros and cons of a historic overlay?

Jason Brown, a fifth-generation South Dallas neighbor and president of Dallas City Homes, lives in the Park Row/South Boulevard neighborhood, one of South Dallas’ three historic designation overlays. Wheatley Place and Fair Park are the other two. In Brown’s experience, historic overlays have succeeded in preserving and stabilizing the neighborhood.

“For the most part, everyone over in Park Row/South Boulevard that I’ve spoken to is in the neighborhood because of its charm and its character,” Brown says. “If it wasn’t for [the overlay] … it would’ve been cut up and carved up for a buck, to get more houses out of the land.”

Brown’s main concern with historic districts is that neighbors can’t always afford to fix and maintain their structures, but he feels the changes in the Historic and Cultural Preservation Strategy have begun to address these barriers.

“We’re talking about areas where folks are on fixed incomes or have economic challenges. That might get in the way of someone trying to preserve their structures,” Brown says. “Luckily, our landmark commissioners have been very abreast to the challenges in these neighborhoods and they’re exercising their discretion in terms of material standards that can help folks out.”

The Rev. Todd Atkins of Queen City’s Salem Institutional Baptist Church says that the pricing for each historic district’s materials can vary significantly based on the design standards set by the overlay. He emphasizes the importance of educating neighbors that one overlay’s material requirements will be different than another’s.

“Once [neighbors] understand what we’re trying to do, they’re more understanding of the cost,” Atkins said. “I think it just requires more engagement about this, and fine tuning what protections will be moving forward for Queen City.”

Before City Council approved the strategy at the April 10 meeting, West Dallas neighbor Ronnie Mestas shared his support for it, hoping that the new historic initiatives will help preserve his Los Altos neighborhood.

“We built homes, we built affordable homes … and now how do we preserve those homes?” Mestas said. “How do we keep those families in the community? I think this plan covers all of that.”

Currently, West Dallas does not have any historic or conservation districts, but does have one neighborhood stabilization overlay in La Bajada.

What does this mean for Queen City?

Recently, the Queen City neighborhood in South Dallas was approved to begin the historic designation process. Neighbors like Eva Nally Jones, Brown and Atkins have been vocal in their support of the process, believing that it could provide stability to Queen City, similar to overlays in Park Row/South Boulevard and Wheatley Place.

Atkins sees the overlay as an opportunity to highlight the neighborhood’s history as a Freedman’s Town, which already has been acknowledged by the Texas Historical Commission and the National Register of Historic Places.

“[During Reconstruction] we see those who are coming in from oppression and struggle beginning to lay roots down in Dallas,” Atkins says. “And it’s because of that desire that Queen City was established, and because of that, those who have remained here have been pillars in our community.”

Atkins says the most challenging — but also most rewarding — part of the application process has been digging into the stories of Queen City, through records and conversations with legacy neighbors.

“We want to make sure that those who are coming in — and even my generation and my children’s generation — realize that this is not just a community, but this is a part of the life of the City of Dallas,” Atkins says. “Although we have been lost in the shuffle for so many generations, we’re reimagining that.”

How do neighborhoods add historic overlays?

To achieve a historic preservation overlay, neighbors first approach their local Landmark Commissioner — appointed by their city councilmember — to request a letter of intent and host a community meeting for feedback. 

Currently, West Dallas is represented by District 6 commissioner Rosemary Hinojosa, who has served since November 2017, and South Dallas by District 7 commissioner Traswell Livingston III, who has served since March 2022. 

The letter of intent is submitted to the Designation Committee, a subgroup of the Landmark Commission, who decides whether to recommend it to the commission to initiate the process.

If the Landmark Commission approves the process, the Designation Committee will meet with neighbors to gather feedback and develop a historic preservation plan. This information will then be gathered into a Designation Report, including a nomination form, zoning ordinance and preservation details, all of which is considered the application for a historic preservation overlay, like these documents recently submitted by South Dallas’ Queen City neighborhood.

This report is then passed to the Landmark Commission, whose 15 members vote on whether or not to recommend it to the City Plan Commission, or CPC. CPC then reviews the same application and notifies all property owners in the area about the hearing before voting on whether or not to move the application to the City Council.

All property owners are notified again before the City Council reviews the application and votes to ultimately approve or deny.

“This process can be intimidating for new applicants,” the strategy report states, under the goal to “make it easy for all residents to navigate the City’s historic preservation program.” During the community engagement process that led to the strategy, the team learned that “even experienced architects, developers, and landowners find navigating the Historic Preservation program intimidating.”

According to the City Council-approved strategy, the City will fix this problem by simplifying processes and incentivizing Dallas residents to do what they are already asking for — preserve the history important to them.