New Civic Atlas tool makes Dallas zoning cases, building permits ‘just as easy to use as Zillow’

By |Published On: October 9, 2024|Categories: Development + Zoning, West Dallas|

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As plans for a 400-foot office tower on the edge of West Dallas wound their way through contentious community meetings and hard-to-follow public hearings, John Devine knew there was a better way.

“I saw there was an incredible amount of mistrust generated when people couldn’t keep track of when zoning cases were showing up on meeting agendas,” says Devine, 28.

It was spring 2021, and the COVID-19 pandemic had delayed Devine’s plans to pursue a master’s degree in urban planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Stints at Trinity Park Conservancy, [bc]Workshop and the erstwhile CityDesign Studio had immersed the Dallas native in how local government processes work, and he wanted to make them work better.

During the lockdown, he learned to code “out of boredom” and realized a lot of problems in urban planning have a technical solution, so switched his study focus to public data transparency.

The culmination, three years later, is the Civic Atlas. It compiles City of Dallas zoning and building permit data and makes it “just as easy to use as Zillow, Airbnb or Google Maps,” Devine says.