Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Dallas City Council approves developer-neighborhood recommendations for form based zoning

By Pegasus News wire

DALLAS — Today, the Dallas City Council announced today that they have unanimously approved the Developer-Neighborhood compromise for the Form Based Zoning ordinance. The Real Estate Council (TREC) has worked for almost two years with city staff and members of the Dallas Homeowners League, Preservation Dallas, the North Dallas Neighborhood Alliance and the Old Oak Cliff Conservation League on the city-appointed forwardDallas! Development Code Advisory Committee to craft a balanced and favorable compromise.

A significant objective of the Form Based Code is to provide a usable tool to help create more walkable urban neighborhoods, thereby reducing automobile dependency. TREC worked to ensure that the ordinance was well balanced between developer and neighborhood interests.

Included in the Developer-Neighborhood compromise are several key issues that were critical to the development community. Among these key issues include reasonable and flexible open space requirements and parking reductions for projects located within close proximity to transit stations.

“The passage of this compromise is a testimony to what can happen when groups often on opposite sides of the fence work together for a common goal,” said Neal Sleeper, president of Cityplace Company and chairman of TREC’s Government Affairs Committee. “This ordinance is the result of great cooperation between the development community and Dallas neighborhood groups. Because each party was willing to give and take, we were able to strike a balance that satisfies everyone.”

Source: The Real Estate Council

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Comments

Matt Wolfgang Verified

Good to see. Having walkable neighborhoods is a key to urban development.

8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Blake Ramick Verified

I'm excited to see this as well.

8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )

Michael Davis Verified

It's been a long-time getting to this point. We had the ad hoc meetings at City Plan Commission in May of last year.

We got the neighborhoods and the developers to agree! They all compromised and everybody won.

8 months, 2 weeks ago ( Link to this comment | Suggest removal )