My Vision of Dallas

[Considering Coming Back]

Pretty sure those newish $900 a month apartments on Henderson aren't for the "rich and famous"

[binkyman]

Originally Posted by Considering Coming Back

Pretty sure those newish $900 a month apartments on Henderson aren't for the "rich and famous"

Having only the rich and famous downtown isn't a bad thing as long as the purpose is renewal. For example, the Bishops Arts district has benefited because of how North Oak Cliff is being transitioned into downtown Dallas. Therefore, the Bishops Arts District should be developed to the extent that it also helps reawaken neighborhoods located a few blocks from there and so on.
The reason we can't have our cake and eat it to is because, if we are the only ones eating the cake, then nobody else will know that we have it.
There are neighborhoods beyond which will never benefit from renewal if the Bishops Arts District, the Jefferson Commercial corridor, and all else are allowed to grow thorns rejecting any further development.
The whole of the city needs to acknowledge that a agenda exists which is more important than the sum of each individual neighborhood. Failure to do so is surely going to allow the city of Richardson and the Telecom corridor to the north to steal away a lot of thunder.

[rantanamo]

Originally Posted by kidicarus89

I'm not very familiar with Dallas zoning regs (I just moved here), but are they trying anything as far as attemping to mix affordable housing with higher-end development to mitigate gentrification? I live close to Cityplace and it seems like the area is following what is happening in Austin (albiet at a far greater scale) - that is, pricing poor people out of their traditional neighborhoods, razing older houses and planting high rises on them. It seems like you can look at one block with pricey, upscale development and walk a few blocks over and find crumbling neighborhoods. One of the popular ways of preventing this is for a developer to build say, 300 apartments (or could be houses, doesn't matter) and set aside a certain number of them as affordable housing. Any insights on this?

Following Austin? Austin just jumped on this stuff about 5 years ago. Dallas has been gentrifying and redeveloping its inner city for 15-20 years.

Back to the actual questions, the gentrification is happening because the land prices are simply too high to justify single family or low rent uses. Its no different than any other city in the world. It just took longer for the sprawly sunbelt cities to realize this. Its just simply economics, not some evil by developers. If the city wants to grow its tax rolls(residents complain about things like streets and services), then they had darn better do this if their borders don't have the option of annexation. Does it price me out in the future? Probably, but I have no right to live anywhere. Do I like that it zaps away some of the culture institutions and diversity? no, i don't. It will certainly be sad when all of the feel of Fitzhugh in East Dallas is gone.

Are there affordable housing policies in Dallas? Yes, there are. It is not per building or per block. I believe there are certain builder incentives to include low or moderate priced units. So far, downtown residential projects have been the biggest takers. There's the Mosaic, which is a residential highrise downtown. I believe the continental building is the nicest of them downtown. It has a certain number of units in the $600-$700/month range and a $900/month penthouse that goes up for auction. Very hard to get into these buildings because there's a lot of demand. I believe one of the Lone Star Complex towers will be affordable units. You also have the Matthews Southwest development that's going up in the Cedars. You will also see a significant amount of units in west Dallas with a couple of the planned developments as well. Dallas isn't dense or populated enough though to completely gentrify and eliminate most of these neighborhoods yet.

[binkyman]

Originally Posted by rantanamo

Following Austin? Austin just jumped on this stuff about 5 years ago. Dallas has been gentrifying and redeveloping its inner city for 15-20 years.

Back to the actual questions, the gentrification is happening because the land prices are simply too high to justify single family or low rent uses. Its no different than any other city in the world. It just took longer for the sprawly sunbelt cities to realize this. Its just simply economics, not some evil by developers. If the city wants to grow its tax rolls(residents complain about things like streets and services), then they had darn better do this if their borders don't have the option of annexation. Does it price me out in the future? Probably, but I have no right to live anywhere. Do I like that it zaps away some of the culture institutions and diversity? no, i don't. It will certainly be sad when all of the feel of Fitzhugh in East Dallas is gone.

Are there affordable housing policies in Dallas? Yes, there are. It is not per building or per block. I believe there are certain builder incentives to include low or moderate priced units. So far, downtown residential projects have been the biggest takers. There's the Mosaic, which is a residential highrise downtown. I believe the continental building is the nicest of them downtown. It has a certain number of units in the $600-$700/month range and a $900/month penthouse that goes up for auction. Very hard to get into these buildings because there's a lot of demand. I believe one of the Lone Star Complex towers will be affordable units. You also have the Matthews Southwest development that's going up in the Cedars. You will also see a significant amount of units in west Dallas with a couple of the planned developments as well. Dallas isn't dense or populated enough though to completely gentrify and eliminate most of these neighborhoods yet.

More like thirty-five. Fox and Jacobs got it started sticking its neck out building those little homes east of downtown. Then Harwood, Southland with its CityPlace, and Rose Hunt all went beyond downtown to establish their developments. The Arts District also helped push development north of downtown. The infrastructure for Uptown was already established early as well with the burying of Woodall Rogers below grade.
The Katy trail works because it parallels what was already the classic Turtle Creek. Having a trail travel level and at grade, because it was a railroad track before, is fascinating. For example, Houston has a similar trail made from a converted rail but the ground around it is just as flat as it is. In contrast, the Katy, as a former rail line converted to a trail, slices through the broken kinds of rising and falling ground that one finds around creeks and rivers.
In other words, the Katy trail isn't just a path.
Lots and lots of pieces have fallen into place to establish what the core city of Dallas now has going for it today.