Dear City Plan Commissioners and Council Members
My name is %first_name% %last_name% and I live at the address listed at the end of this email. I write to oppose Case Z-25-000069, a request for a general zoning change from single-family to multifamily.
This application represents the fourth attempt by the same applicant, on the same parcels, to secure multifamily zoning even after a prior unanimous City Council denial. That denial was based on incompatibility and scale, and the current request does not materially address those concerns and continues to lack staff support.
This zoning application is not a technical zoning correction or a consistency adjustment. It is a purely discretionary request—spot zoning—to fundamentally change land use within a single-family district to allow apartments on a dead-end residential street. It therefore should require a clear and compelling public benefit and strong alignment with adopted policy. Neither standard is met.
Granting a general MF zoning change in the post–SB 840 would maximize development entitlements by law while eliminating key compatibility tools, including meaningful RPS constraints and restrictive setbacks. And because this is a general zoning case, no site plan is required, and any conceptual plans presented by the applicant are not binding or enforceable.
Importantly, the Texas Legislature has already provided two explicit, by-right pathways to increase housing supply in large cities like Dallas—SB 840 and SB 15. Multifamily is now permitted by right in commercial districts, and small-lot single-family development is permitted in large non-platted tracts. These reforms were intended to expand housing supply without requiring discretionary upzoning of established single-family neighborhoods. This application bypasses those tools and instead seeks the most disruptive land-use option available.
The request also conflicts with ForwardDallas 2.0. where multifamily development is not supported within the Community Residential place type without compelling public interest. Additionally, while ForwardDallas emphasizes that robust community engagement is paramount when upzoning is contemplated in these areas, the applicant recently amended the boundary of the application by a few feet to eliminate approximately 20% of the homeowners from the notification zone. The scale, intensity, and location proposed here are inconsistent with both the land use guidance and the process principles of the City’s adopted comprehensive plan.
It is also important to state plainly: the current housing crisis is fundamentally a crisis of attainable homeownership, not a crisis of apartment supply. Our area already has abundant rental options, and vacancy rates suggest oversupply in that market segment. Granting additional multifamily zoning here does nothing to address the real structural problem of creating ownership opportunities for the working families in this community.
Environmental constraints provide an independent and compelling basis for denial. The site is directly adjacent to Coombs Creek. The Flood Plain Information and Management Report for Coombs Creek, prepared for the City of Dallas by Powell & Powell specifically identified this segment of Coombs Creek as among the most susceptible to damaging runoff and erosion and explicitly recommends caution when increasing land use intensity to mitigate the threat to life and property from flooding risks. Millions of public dollars have already been spent along this reach on streambank stabilization and erosion control. Granting maximized multifamily entitlements at this location would increase impervious cover and runoff in direct conflict with the study’s findings and recommendations and worsen downstream risks to life and property.
Finally, on October 15, 2025 the applicant testified to the Plan Commission and the community that the application would be amended to include the full site and would not include MF zoning. That representation was false. Repeated filings, shifting representations, and unresolved community concerns undermine confidence in the process and weigh in favor of finality.
Community engagement is a core part of this process and is in fact codified in the rezoning process itself. Caring about what is built immediately adjacent to one’s home is not a character flaw. It is a rational response grounded in safety, financial investment, quality of life, and environmental impact. Please do not dismiss my opposition with the label of NIMBY, but instead weigh the merits of my argument.
Taken together—lack of staff support, conflict with ForwardDallas 2.0, availability of by-right legislative alternatives, environmental risk, partial-site rezoning, and a decade-long history of repeated denials, withdrawals and resubmittals—this case does not meet the threshold for discretionary approval.
For these reasons, I respectfully urge you to vote to deny Case Z-25-000069.
Thank you for considering my comments and for your service to the City of Dallas.
Sincerely,
%%your signature%%
