As Dallas works to rewrite the rules on gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the City Plan Commission made its latest recommendation Thursday, supporting a strict ordinance that would require a 1,500-foot setback from homes, businesses and churches, the Dallas Morning News reports.
The current ordinance requires only a 300-foot setback.
The CPC’s recommendation doesn’t completely restrict drilling on parkland, but it would require a three-quarters vote by the City Council.
Council members demonstrated their opposition last month, denying three permits requested by Trinity East that could have led to drilling on L.B. Houston Park.
But that vote didn’t tell the whole story, said Advocate columnist Ellen Raff when she tackled the topic in our October issue, writing that Mayor Mike Rawlings and Lake Highlands councilman Jerry Allen voted in favor of the permits to avoid a lawsuit, since Trinity East had leased the land under the city manager’s pretense that drilling would be allowed.
“Now is the time to strengthen our ordinance before another company comes in and gets the wrong idea from another city manager,” Raff writes.
The city hasn’t set a date for when the final recommendations will make it to the City Council for a vote.
