7 January 30 - February 5, 2025 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents las and Collin counties have recorded: access to affordable housing. The report points to the COVID-19 pan- demic as the hitch in the nation’s housing supply and demand issue, something that has resulted in homeowners spending a larger percentage of their wages on housing across small and large metros. “Former top performers with low hous- ing affordability, such as Dallas-Plano-Ir- ving, find themselves among Tier 2 large metros in this year’s ranking, making this the tier with the least-affordable housing costs,” the report reads. The report estimates that only 65% of residents in the Dallas area have access to af- fordable housing, an issue that was brought up time and time again in Dallas’ 2024 Bond, Forward Dallas and parking minimum con- versations. Dallas is still ranked higher than some other cities in the Lone Star State. The San Antonio-New Braunfels and Houston- Woodlands-Sugarland regions clinched No. 26 and No. 27 on the list, respectively. Fort Worth-Arlington came in at No. 30. But all three of those cities improved from their 2024 ratings, with San Antonio rising nine spots, Houston 35 and Fort Worth two. The Austin-Round Rock area was the only Texas metro to crack Milken’s Top 10, maintaining a streak of more than a decade as one of the highest-performing cities in the U.S. The study lauds Austin’s thriving labor market and short and long-term ca- reer growth opportunities, but warns that the capital city seems to be slipping in the ranks in large part because of housing af- fordability. Raleigh, North Carolina, claimed the overall best city award, benefiting from proximity to several top universities, a healthy employment market and housing af- fordability despite rapid population growth. ▼ TRANSPORTATION A MAXIMUM DISAGREEMENT LINES OF SUPPORT, OPPOSITION TO DALLAS PARKING REFORM DRAWN BY GENERATION. BY EMMA RUBY L ast week’s City Plan Commission meeting called to discuss long- awaited changes to Dallas’ parking code may not have ended in a vote, but it did reveal that commissioners do not feel a city- wide total ban on parking minimums will be an effective strategy for Dallas. Reevaluating Dallas’ parking code, which was written in 1965, has been a five- year-long process. On Jan. 16, commission- ers spent seven hours parsing through 72 pages of an amended parking rulebook pro- posed by Dallas’ Zoning Ordinance Advisory Committee (ZOAC). While commissioners seemed open to eliminating parking minimums in some parts of the city — like areas directly sur- rounding a light rail station or outside of small restaurants or retail areas — they hesitated to embrace ZOAC’s recommen- dation of total elimination. Melissa Kings- ton, commissioner for District 14, expressed concern with ZOAC’s all or nothing approach, stating that a total elimination of parking minimums could create problems for Dallas’ leaders down the road. “We can’t take a look five years from now and say ‘Mm, that’s not working for us,’” Kingston warned. “The only way to reim- pose [parking minimums] would be to do what we did back in the ’60s and create this fictional theory of delta credits.” Delta credits are a sort of nebulous cre- ation of the city that credit business own- ers whose properties were built prior to a parking minimum requirement. City staff warned that if Dallas leaders eliminate parking minimums now and decide to re- instate the requirements in a decade, the city will find itself keeping track of delta credits for any business that opened within that time. Tipton Housewright, commissioner for District 10, proposed a set of guidelines for when parking minimums are or aren’t ap- propriate, which the commission will dis- cuss on Feb. 13. The suggestions seemed to draw a thin line between the dozens of public speakers who addressed the com- mission Thursday, balancing the perceived benefits of eliminating parking minimums with the concerns of property owners around the city. As with the conversation surrounding Forward Dallas last year, lines of opposition and support for eliminating parking mini- mums seemed to be drawn by generation. Of the dozen or so Gen-Z and millennial speakers who addressed the commission Thursday, all spoke in favor of eliminating parking minimums in Dallas. Some spoke to the impact that decreasing car dependency would have on walkability and public transit ridership, while others took a business- minded approach. Andy Bartels, an East Dallas resident, told the commission that parking require- ments have prevented him from opening a sporting goods store in his neighborhood, despite his renting a storefront with 18 park- ing spaces in front of it. “Lifting this parking requirement will al- low people like me to open businesses and use existing buildings as they stand,” Bartels said. “[It] will have an immediate and posi- tive impact on the area from the small busi- ness perspective as well as a tax revenue standpoint.” But other residents warned that elimi- nating parking minimums may not be ap- propriate for every corner of Dallas. City staff presented several strategies for de- creasing car usage in the document — such as requiring businesses to install bike racks and offering incentives for businesses to in- stall showers for employees who chose to bike to work — but Ellen Taft from Dallas’ “very Southwest-most corner,” stated many of those strategies would not apply to her neighborhood. “We have no transit. We have no bus ser- vice, we have no DART service, the closest grocery store is four miles away,” Taft said. “It’s unacceptable to say that we can do without any parking regulations. One size doesn’t fit the whole city of Dallas.” Taft’s concern was one echoed by Com- missioners Deborah Carpenter and Darrell Herbert, who represent West Dallas and parts of Oak Cliff, respectively. Both sug- gested that an ordinance that eliminates parking requirements in lieu of public tran- sit will negatively impact communities that have been historically underserved, whether they be food deserts, have mini- mal access to DART service or a combina- tion of the two. But several older Dallasites who spoke in opposition to eliminating parking mini- mums seemed to echo concerns waived during the Forward Dallas process: by get- ting rid of parking requirements in retail and restaurant districts, parking will inevi- tably spill out into nearby neighborhoods, they said. Just as many hot-button local issues of the recent past have played out, this dis- cussion found its way to debating the sanctity of the single-family neighbor- hood. For Abraham Moreno, a Dallas ISD senior and member of Dallas’ Youth Com- mission, the concern is a somewhat fair one — older generations have known Dal- las a certain way for decades. Why would they change it? That change is inevitable if Dallas doesn’t want to get left behind, he be- lieves. Last year, Austin became the largest city in the country to implement a total ban on parking minimums, and Atlanta began axing requirements in certain dis- tricts. Some commissioners warned that both Austin and Atlanta’s initiatives are too fresh to offer tangible data to Dallas’ policy mak- ers, but Moreno believes those cities’ actions are a sign of the times. “We have to start acknowledging that Dallas is not a small town anymore. It’s a big, thriving city with people who want to take transit, who want to walk. There are people who want to live in apartments and townhomes and duplexes,” Moreno told the Observer. “It’s not this endless urban sprawl where everyone takes their car to go home. It’s not that anymore. Dallas is a changing city.” The City Plan Commission will take Commissioner Housewright’s suggestions into consideration on Feb. 13. Among the recommendations are keep- ing parking minimums for bars and restau- rants but changing the requirement to one space per every 200 square feet as opposed to the current 1:100 ratio; eliminating the re- quirements completely for bars, restaurants and retail spaces of less than 2,500 square feet; keeping minimum requirements for schools, churches and commercial amuse- ment spaces; eliminating parking mini- mums in areas within a half-mile of a rail station; allowing paid parking citywide; and requiring loading spaces for any multifamily developments. Kingston said Housewright’s plan in- cluded “a lot she could get behind,” while a more measured Carpenter remarked she “needs more time to think through” the changes. “I think we have a consensus that an ordi- nance that originated in 1965, 60 years ago, needs some attention,” Housewright said. “I think it’s time to move forward to eliminate minimums wherever possible.”
