LH Press Library
Urban Center Plans Progressing
The Dallas Morning News, by Wendy Hundley
July 11, 2004
A long-discussed revitalization project that would create a town center for Lake Highlands appears to be gaining momentum.
Dallas City Council member Bill Blaydes said he hopes to make an announcement next month about plans for an urban-style development where people could live, work and shop.
"We're well under way in its planning," Mr. Blaydes said of the proposed project, which would require a zoning change and approval of the Dallas City Council. "We've got the core area under approved letters of intent" to sell property for the plan.
Mr. Blaydes declined to give specifics but said a developer is interested in building a high-density, mixed-use project near the DART light-rail line.
"It's definitely more than a concept. A lot of work has gone into it," said Mike Miles, DART's senior manager of community and member city relations. "It certainly matches the kind of [project] we like to see with transit-oriented development."
He said a group that includes DART, developers and city officials has been discussing the idea for months.
"We're pretty pumped up about it," Mr. Miles said. "I've never seen a group work together like this."
Mr. Blades said the development would create a sort of downtown area for Lake Highlands, a community now centered on Lake Highlands High School. He plans to give more details at a town hall meeting at the school on Aug. 24.
"The entire area has wanted a town center for 30 years," said Mr. Blaydes, who represents District 10, which includes Lake Highlands. "There is no downtown. We've got a dying retail system. This is revitalization on an urban corridor."
He said the development would combine offices, stores, restaurants and dwellings -- lofts, townhouses and zero lot-line homes.
Although he foresees the possibility of some upscale apartments, Mr. Blaydes said most residences would be owner-occupied.
An increase in homeownership is seen as one of the long-range goals for District 10, which stretches from Northwest Highway to the Richardson border.
The area has a housing imbalance because 67 percent of residents rent their homes and many multifamily complexes are in poor condition, according to the District 10 Land Use Plan Interim Report.
As a whole, Dallas has a 57 percent housing rental rate.
The District 10 report recommends increasing homeownership from 33 percent to 50 percent. It also encourages development around DART light-rail stations.
"Diverse housing types are what we're looking for in District 10," said Shawn Holyoak, chief planner for the city's development services department. "Homeownership brings stability. A good, healthy community has a good mix of housing choices."
He said a town center could be the first project zoned under the urban corridor category that was approved two years ago.
"It's not been used except as the basis for several planned development districts," he said.
The urban corridor zoning category was designed to help builders "move away from the suburban development style where everyone has to drive everywhere," he said. It encourages high-density, mixed-use, pedestrian-oriented developments along mass transit routes.
"It's almost a back-to-the-future approach," Mr. Holyoak said. "It's looking at what we gave up when we got in our cars and went to the suburbs."
This "new urbanism" concept has been used at Mockingbird Station and Uptown in Dallas. It has also transformed a 130-acre field into Southlake Town Center and pumped new life into downtown Plano.
Mr. Miles, a Lake Highlands resident, said the area needs this type of reinvestment. "I think the community would fully embrace it."
Lake Highlands has a strong sense of community but "doesn't have an identity of where the town center is," he said. The proposed development "would bring focus and design to that city center that [Mr. Blaydes] envisions."
Reprinted with permission of the Dallas Morning News.
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