Legacy residents in the Elm Thicket/Northpark neighborhood near Love Field spent more than five years advocating for a zoning change to limit the massive new builds going up in the historically Black community. Council eventually passed rules in 2022 to rein in the size of the homes that were dwarfing the old cottages. And then the city, it appears, did not update the zoning information in its system that it uses when considering approving construction permits.
“The initial fact finding revealed that permit applications for projects in the Elm Thicket-Northpark neighborhood reviewed between October 12, 2022 and June 2, 2023 were evaluated using outdated zoning information, and some permits may have been approved in error,” read a memo from Assistant City Manager Robin Bentley. “We are working to determine what led to these errors. “
In the weeks after the vote, says Jonathan Maples, the president of the Elm Thicket/Northpark Neighborhood Association, he began noticing homes with foundations that appeared to take up too much of the lot. Others were going up in violation of the code’s requirement that rooflines be hip-and-gable, whose sloping edges and sides create a triangle. “We had to watch out for ourselves and trust that the city was doing what it was supposed to do, which is put the new info in the database,” he says. “Well, somewhere along the line, someone must have dropped the ball.”
The City Council was notified Friday that staff identified 29 homes to investigate. Of those, 19 violated the new zoning. Five had not begun construction, but their plans were non-compliant. The rest were “in various stages of construction with violations.” Staff issued stop-work orders and began working with developers to bring them into compliance. Developers are appealing the orders to the Board of Adjustments, and one told the Dallas Morning News that it could cost another $100,000 to bring his construction into compliance.
Bentley says Interim City Manager Kim Tolbert “is looking at larger systemic changes to ensure this type of error does not occur in the future.” Tolbert recently combined the planning and zoning departments, which previously operated separately. Dallas allowed the situation to marinate for years, dividing the legacy residents and the newer neighbors. By the time the City Council voted unanimously to change the zoning, the new rules were presented as a “tip of the cap” to the history of the neighborhood, which was where Black residents found new places to live after being pushed out of State-Thomas in Uptown during the construction of Central Expressway.
Maples says he’s frustrated that the neighborhood is still having to be vigilant about ensuring developers follow the rules. “I don’t like to play the race card, but I will shine a spotlight on instances where, well, what else could it be?” Maples says. “For Black and Brown people, even when you win, you lose or you’re still fighting.”
Neighborhood Spotlight
Love Field
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