Dallas to Address Inequity in New Land Use Plan

A land use plan years in the making in Dallas seeks to redress historic inequity in the city’s land use patterns, reports Leah Waters in The Dallas Morning News. The city will now hold public meetings to receive community input on the draft plan.

The plan, known as ForwardDallas, “will be the city’s first comprehensive land-use plan, which will be one factor in future zoning decisions, including how the city will accommodate more housing for a growing population,” said interim director of Dallas’ Planning and Urban Design department Andrea Gilles.

Rather than a strict rulebook, the plan will be a guide that “will help decision-makers understand how the land should be used without restricting certain kinds of development,” according to Gilles. It will also create more clarity around land use in areas that currently have no clear development guidelines.

“ForwardDallas’ color-coded map designates 12 particular “placetypes” or kinds of uses, such as Traditional Residential, which should be used for single-family homes and auxiliary dwellings, and Blended Residential, which is meant for single-family and multifamily homes,” but none of these types are limited to just one use. The plan is designed to allow for ‘context-sensitive’ land use decisions.

“The plan also allows the community to influence the “adjacency uses” of placetypes, which would allow neighborhoods to shape how near industrial development is to their homes,” Waters adds.