City of Dallas fails to protect character of La Bajada neighborhood
“Progress through pain” is how activist Maria Lozada Garcia describes the process of protecting her native West Dallas neighborhood, La Bajada. Over the last year, Garcia has watched as large two-plus story homes have come into the historic Latino barrio, despite a zoning law neighbors worked to put into place more than 10 years ago.
“My father and residents of La Bajada fought to implement the neighborhood stabilization overlay to protect our neighborhood of essential workers,” Garcia told the City of Dallas Board of Adjustment during a July meeting. “Please explain how this exorbitant monstrosity of a house is compatible with modest working-class homes in La Bajada.”
In 2005 the City of Dallas formed NSOs, or Neighborhood Stabilization Overlays, to allow residents to create guidelines for yards, garages and building heights. Citywide, there are now 14 active NSOs.
The NSO ordinance paved the way for Dallas residents to protect their neighborhoods from a “teardown trend” — when real estate developers tear down an existing home and build a much larger one in its place, often as tall and as close to the edges of the property as Dallas building codes allow. Maximizing a lot allows developers to maximize their profit from a home’s sale.
La Bajada’s NSO restricts the height of a house to no more than 27 feet. Garcia, daughter of the late community activist Felix Lozada Sr., said the intention of the restriction was to preserve the community’s character and to stabilize property values.
La Bajada is the easternmost West Dallas neighborhood, adjacent to the Trinity River and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge, which was completed in 2012 to connect West Dallas and Downtown. La Bajada finalized its NSO the same year, as residents watched swift redevelopment of their neighborhood and anticipated more developers would suddenly value their historically devalued community. They feared this could drive up property values for everyone and leave longtime homeowners unable to pay the rising property taxes.
Longtime homes in La Bajada are around a thousand square feet and are valued at around $200,000, according to Zillow reports and the Dallas County Appraisal District’s website. In 2012, these same homes appraised for between $25,000 and $40,000.
Conversely, new homes often comprise more than 3,500 square feet and can sell for almost a million dollars.
Garcia believes the city’s lack of enforcement shows disregard toward the historically working-class community.
“Approving the variance in height and allowing them to build higher states that the Board of Adjustment and the City of Dallas does not care about the stress and hardship that the residents endured to obtain the NSO,” Garcia said at the meeting. “Approval states that the City of Dallas values money and wealth over equity and equality.”
Garcia and other La Bajada residents spent their afternoon asking why the 2012 zoning ordinance was not being enforced.
The City of Dallas does allow residents and developers to appeal for zoning exemptions if they can show “hardship” circumstances, such a restrictive lot with an irregular shape or slope, or can make a case that the variance will not adversely impact the surrounding community. Appeals are reviewed by city employees in transportation engineering, public works, planning and other relevant departments, and final decisions are made by the Board of Adjustment, composed of City Council-appointed volunteers who represent the “geographical and ethnic diversity” of the city.
La Bajada residents have expressed frustration that the height and size of several new homes in their neighborhood are incompatible, bu