The Last Word: On the Dallas City Council Adopting the ForwardDallas 2.0 Land Use Planning Guide

“Not the perfect ground, but a middle ground.”

Gay Donnell Willis
City Council Member
City of Dallas
.…on the city council adopting the ForwardDallas 2.0 land use planning guide by a vote of 11-4 Wednesday, via the Dallas Morning News.

After a long and often contentious process, the Dallas City Council voted to adopt a new land use planning guide known as ForwardDallas 2.0 Wednesday by a vote of 11-4. The vote followed months of debate between housing advocates and single-family homeowners on the best way forward for the city’s growth over the next decade. 

The four votes against the plan came from Mayor Eric Johnson and council members Carolyn King Arnold, Cara Mendelsohn, and Jesse Moreno.

The bottom line: the city is looking for ways to increase its supply of housing while preserving and stabilizing single-family neighborhoods, and arrived at something of a compromise in its newly passed planning guide. Goals range from decreasing the percentage of industrial sites near residential areas to adding housing units in transit-oriented areas to recommending building standards for residential neighborhoods.

The Dallas Morning News’ Devyani Chhetri details all sides of the debate and the guide’s key goals—after “more than 50 speakers” spoke for and against the plan at a public hearing—in her comprehensive report.

For more of who said what about all things North Texas, check out Every Last Word.

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