Twenty-nine minutes into Tuesday night’s meeting, Theresa O’Donnell, the city’s director of development services, uttered the d-word. And save for a couple of other mentions throughout the 90-minute event, that was it.
The d-word, of course, is density –as in more buildings, be they residential or commercial, in a smaller area. Most of the debate about development in Lake Highlands is about specific projects (which Keri has outlined nicely below). The larger issue, which most city officials and councilman Jerry Allen haven’t really addressed, and which I’m not sure most residents realize, is why almost all new development in Lake Highlands means higher density.
We’re going to have much more about this in the April magazine, but I think the debate boils down to this: A significant number of Lake Highlands residents want the town center, they want to spruce up the neighborhood strip centers, and they want traditional single-family homes to replace all those aging apartment buildings. City officials and many neighborhood leaders agree with the first part of that assessment, probably have a different approach to the second, and completely disagree with the third.
In other words, the residents see a renovated Lake Highlands as University Park — the town center as a super-sized Snyder Plaza surrounded by single family homes (and the upscale condos and town homes that are also there). The other group sees a renovated Lake Highlands as a West Village/Uptown knockoff, with the same sort of housing mix, the same sort of retail development, and the same sort of density. "Lake Highlands is going to face change for at least the next 20 years," O’Donnell told the audience, which filled up about two-thirds of the freshmen center. "It’s about how we manage that change. Everything in Dallas will increase in density."
Which is why Allen and city officials don’t see anything especially wrong with the proposed retirement home at Church and Skillman. It seems perfectly natural, given the mandate for higher density in Forward Dallas, the city’s comprehensive zoning plan, in the District 10 portion of that plan, and in the Skillman TIF plan. And the three city types at last night’s meeting went to great lengths to note that each of those documents was put together with input from Lake Highlands residents. (They also spent a great deal of time fawning over the town center and taking credit for it, but that’s a post for another day.)
I also think it’s why Allen is so baffled by the resistance to Skillman/Church (and to a lesser extent, the other recently proposed developments). He said again last night that there are two sides to every issue, and that those opposed to Skillman/Church are just more vocal than those who support it.
Which is where I think he might be wrong. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other about Skillman/Church or the other projects (I’m in this strictly as a neutral, reporting the news), but I do know this: Ask most Lake Highlands residents if they would prefer living in Lake Highlands or in a West Village-like Lake Highlands, and they would choose the former. And, I’m willing to bet, that they don’t understand why Lake Highlands needs to become the latter.
Until Allen and the city do a better job of explaining why the latter has to happen, the opposition will continue.
