South Dallas’ long road to community-approved zoning

An area plan intended to dramatically change the way South Dallas land is used could take a major step toward approval on Thursday, as the City Plan Commission will vote to send it to City Council for a final vote.

The South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan, which aims to spur business growth and protect neighborhood integrity, has taken five years to reach this point. However, even if the plan is approved by City Council, an authorized hearing is still required to turn the plan into policy, rather than being just another document sitting on a shelf.

What is the South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan, and what can it do?

When the plan initially was presented to the community in 2022 for public input, community leaders posed the question: “Where do you go on Saturday morning?” In other words, what needs to change in South Dallas so that neighbors can find everything they need in their community? 

“[The plan] details the community’s vision for vibrant walkable mixed-use areas and corridors like 2nd Avenue, Elsie Faye Heggins, Robert B. Cullum, the DART MLK station and more,” says Patrick Blaydes, City of Dallas chief planner, who has been working alongside neighbors for the past several years. 

It also includes design standards for new housing in South Dallas neighborhoods that aim to prevent ‘incompatible’ housing, he says.

Nearly two dozen residents and community leaders participated in the South Dallas Area Plan Task Force and have spent years shaping a vision for their community via the plan. But as city staff noted early in the process, at least 100 different planning and visioning documents have been crafted for South Dallas in some form or fashion. At least three plans have been crafted since 2013 with no implementation.

Area plans or guidance plans, such as the recently approved Forward Dallas plan, act as guides for city staff, who then make recommendations to elected city council members and their appointed 15 member city plan commissioners deciding zoning changes. But plans themselves don’t have any teeth — unless the City changes zoning to reflect the plan.

Tabitha Wheeler-Reagan, who became the District 7 plan commissioner after co-chairing the task force, said neighbors reviewed recommendations from previous plans and found the same recommendations year after year — but the plans never came to fruition.

Turning the South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan into a zoning ordinance, or city law, requires an authorized hearing.

Wheeler-Reagan and the task force believe the authorized hearing can move promptly because of all the community and city staff collaboration already done over the past several years.

“Ours is more of an implementation plan than just an area plan,” she says. “We took everything that has ever been said [over the years], and we started identifying things that we can do right now.”

What is an ‘authorized hearing’ and how is it different from a zoning change?

Dozens of zoning change requests from individual property owners appear on City Plan Commission agendas biweekly. The commission considers land used and development standards to determine whether zoning changes should be approved.

Authorized hearings are different because they allow a coordinated review of zoning across multiple properties, and only a few of them come before the City Plan Commission and City Council each year, says Seferinus Okoth, City of Dallas chief planner. 

Property owners initiate zoning requests, but authorized hearings can be initiated only by City Council or the City Plan Commission when they believe a neighborhood or area might benefit from consistent zoning standards across multiple properties.
That’s what happened in 2001, when South Dallas leaders came together to create Planned Development District (PD) 595, which blankets the South Dallas neighborhood with a zoning ordinance. At the time, its goals were to police alcohol sales and prevent gentrification.

Almost 20 years later, another group of neighborhood leaders saw the need for an updated plan to continue protecting the community and encourage local entrepreneurs.

If the City Plan Commission and City Council approve the South Dallas Fair Park Area Plan, Blaydes says staff will begin the authorized hearing process, starting with redrafting zoning regulations for the area.

“There are subdistricts within PD 595 right now that allow for retail, commercial and office land uses,” Blaydes says. “The plan says those areas should be mixed use, not just commercial areas. So the authorized hearing would then change the zoning to allow retail, commercial, office and residential land uses.”

The plan recommends new “neighborhood mixed-use” zoning in almost every focus area — 2nd Avenue, Elsie Faye Heggins Street, Malcolm X Corridor and Martin Luther King Jr. DART Station. If the zoning change happens through an authorized hearing, a developer could begin construction immediately on a project with retail spaces on the ground floor and residential units above.  Right now, they would need to go to the City to request a zoning change for an individual property — a process that can cost thousands of dollars and take months, sometimes without any success. For small businesses and community developers, this can be insurmountable.

Community buy-in + City of Dallas leadership = a smooth process

When community involvement and buy-in are part of the planning process, it makes the zoning process smoother because neighbors already told the City what kinds of development they do and don’t want to see.

Likewise, the authorized hearing process doesn’t move forward without sponsorship from either the elected council member or their appointed plan commissioner, Okoth says, and if both support it, the case becomes even stronger.

Authorized hearings can take years if they lack community buy-in or council support. That has been the case in West Dallas. 

Janie Cisneros of Singleton United/Unidos, requested an authorized hearing in May 2022 to rezone her residential neighborhood from industrial to single-family residential. Cisneros made her request in a letter addressed to her councilmember, Omar Narvaez, as well as Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and city staff, but the plan has yet to move forward.

Blaydes doesn’t think that will happen in South Dallas. He believes the plan could become a zoning ordinance by this summer because community members have been involved throughout the five-year process, including the current plan commissioner Wheeler-Reagan, who co-chaired the task force that developed the plan.

“In some of the other authorized hearings, the vision is not clear,” Blaydes says. “Staff and the community sometimes spend a good amount of time defining that vision before even talking about the zoning. Here it’s already accomplished through the plan.”

District 7 City Councilmember Adam Bazaldua — who was re-elected to office for a fourth and final term Saturday — created the task force in 2020 and during his recent campaign said he would approve the plan.

Bazaldua also said he initiated an authorized hearing three years ago.

“The authorized hearing was unanimously approved by council. That hearing has been working simultaneously with the area plan as it’s been built,” Bazaldua said at a District 7 City Council candidate forum in April. “It has already gone through CPC, and it should be coming through Council within the next couple of months.”

Based on what Bazaldua said, staff shouldn’t have to wait for an official memo or vote to move forward with an authorized hearing once City Council approves the plan.

However, there’s no documentation on the City of Dallas’ website of an authorized hearing for South Dallas. Dallas Free Press reached out to Bazaldua and his team on multiple occasions for clarification and did not receive a response. 

Blaydes says once City Council approves the plan, staff will redraft the zoning laws outlined in the plan, share them with the public for comment, then hold public hearings at City Plan Commission and the City Council meeting before both bodies vote on the ordinance change.

How can neighbors weigh in on the plan and zoning changes? 

The City Plan Commission will vote on the plan this Thursday, April 24. Neighbors can: 

1. Review the full plan.
2. Share your questions with Dallas Free Press and we will work to address them.
3. Submit public comments to the City through an online form.
4. Sign up to make public comments to the City Plan Commission at Thursday’s meeting, either virtually or in person.

If City Plan Commissioners approve the plan this Thursday, it will go before City Council for a public hearing, Blaydes says, which is another opportunity for neighbors to weigh in with public comments, either through the online form or by registering to speak at the meeting via email or by telephone at 214-670-3738.

If the City Council votes to approve the plan, the public hearing process would begin all over again with the authorized hearing.

Task force members include: