Slam Dunk

09/11/03 City is Violating State Zoning Requirements

Who cares? Who's going to make them follow the rules?

Cities are allowed to have zoning by state legislation. Houston does not have zoning. Deed restrictions are their only vehicle to protect their property from undesirable uses. That's why Houston has plumbing companies plopped down in the middle of residential areas. One day you can be living on a single family street, and the next day your neighbor is a restaurant and they turned the backyard into a parking lot. You then have hundreds of strangers coming and going all hours of the night with engines starting up and car doors slamming and drunks laughing and yelling. But, that's Houston.

Stan Aten:
Thank you for explaining the zoning case that was discussed for over an hour last Wed. at Dallas City Hall. Your story made the passions clear unlike the story in the Dallas Morning News.

Thanks for taking the time to enlighten all of us.

To have zoning, a city must have boards and commissions to allow property owners to petition to change their zoning. Doesn't mean they automatically get the zoning change or variance they are requesting, but there must be public hearings on the issue with proper notification.

Our Board of Adjustment is a quasi-judicial body. Their testimony is sworn, and their decisions are not appealed to or confirmed by City Council. Only a district court or higher can reverse a BOA decision.

Jim Drebelbis:
   It's deja vu all over again. 'Cept this time the distorted zoning issues are the inverse of the mess we had in Junius Heights. I gotta admit while I sympathize with homeowners living near MF-2, it does seem a bit unfair to back-zone and devalue properly zoned property.
   Zoning is political and like politics, reality equates to favoritism. At least in Houston, they learned property owners must have covenants to survive peacefully, and City Councils can't touch covenants.
   As we learned in JH, 20% approval does not force the Council to a 2/3 super-majority. It is 20% of the land mass of the area being zoned or 20% of the land mass of the defined surrounding area, including streets, right-of-ways, churches and city property, as well as the privately owned land. We found getting 20% approval actually equated to getting over 50% of the owners of privately held property to vote for the zoning change. That is a tough job. We did it in JH.
   We forced the Council to a super majority only to have the Council impose on us an unenforceable Plan Development as a compromise.
   Same old City Council dirty tricks. Deja vu all over again.

Most of us are more familiar with the City Plan Commission. That's where zoning is changed, special use permits granted, planned development districts approved. CPC decisions go to council for confirmation. Council can override a CPC decision. If there is 20% opposition (500' radius of site) to a zoning change, it takes a 2/3 vote at council to approve that change. That was put in place to protect property owners from a connected clique or developer from running roughshod over a neighborhood. That safeguard no longer works in Dallas.

There were two zoning cases on the Council's 9/10 agenda relating to the same area and the same abuse of zoning procedures in the Bluffview area just East of Love Field and Lemmon Ave. If you only see the area from Lemmon, you probably are not impressed. Go east on Bluffview toward NW Highway and turn into the neighborhood, you get a completely different view. Very beautiful large acreages with great houses -- some more great than others, but an expensive area.

As rural as the area may look, the zoning on the ground for much of it WAS multi-family since the 60's. If not most, many current area owners bought their property after 1965. If they did not know the zoning on the ground, they did not pay attention to the title company agent who closed their purchase. The title company explains to you in the closing about restrictions on your property and legal uses for your property. (9/21 Mitch Rasansky advises that a title company can only discuss deed restrictions, not zoning.)

Tim Dickey:
   Why should a settled, stable neighborhood of single family houses have to live under the perpetual threat of incompatible apartment development just because some developer was able to pull off a switch to MF-2 Zoning in back in 1963?
   I wish we could back-zone some of the hundreds of acres of apartments in the Bachman area that Robert Folsom and his gang of robber barons was able to overbuild back in the late '60's and early '70's! The investors have recouped their investment and much, much more (including lucrative tax breaks!) on most of those run-down, poorly maintained cash cows.
   Big-property owners who don't live in the neighborhoods they invest in have always had a huge advantage over local residents in these zoning struggles. I'm GLAD to see the resident majority prevail in this case, and I hope to see more in the future!
   This vote doesn't harken the zoning anarchy you're trying to scare us with.
   Still, there should be public hearings on zoning cases. I wasn't aware that hearings had been halted. Did I miss a Charter change???

Editor's Comments: The hearings are only charades. The council only vote as the district representative instructs. That is not a hearing. The people in opposition on Colcourt were resident homeowners who did not want their property back-zoned to single family when they are surrounded by car dealerships and share the street with a nursing home.

When I bought my house in NW Dallas last year, the title company agent reminded me there could be no new extensions to the front of my house due to deed restrictions but there were no building or coverage restrictions on the back.

Apparently, some developer approached one Bluffview owner about buying her house and lot and advised her of the multi-family zoning and his plans to build on lots he had already acquired. That set in motion a chain of events similar to what happened in Oak Lawn a couple of years ago and what was done to Greenway Park a few months ago -- all by Neil Emmons and Veletta Lill.

There are no longer public hearings on zoning cases at City Hall. As Casey Blank (an property owner on Culcourt) asked at Council --

Why are we here? Is this just a protocol?

Mr. Blank's questions should have been in the form of a statement:

We are just here going through a charade of a hearing to give legality to an illegal event.

There was no hearing on either of these cases at Plan Commission or City Council. With ward politics in control at City Hall, only the district plan commissioner and council member make decisions on all zoning cases in their district. Bill Blaydes eloquently challenged the idea of back-zoning property when there was such a high percentage of opposition. Only Blaydes and Ed Oakley were willing to challenge the wrong being done in this case. Mitch Rasansky made a ridiculous argument trying to justify his support for back-zoning despite objection by many affected property owners.

I am a neighborhood person and totally believe we must have stable single-family neighborhoods to make this city work. But, you have to do it right. You have to do it fairly. That is not the way it's done in Dallas anymore.

One thing that came out in the testimony was city staff put out notices of a "community meeting" by leaving the notices on the doors of the houses in the area, rather than mailing them to the property owners. Many homes are not owner-occupied, and the owners of those houses did not get noticed of that "community meeting". I have never heard of such a thing, and neither has anyone else familiar with zoning.

Whether the Bluffview property should be single family or townhouses is not the issue. I think it should be single family, but those lots had been zoned multi-family for 30 years! Some people bought those lots because they could eventually redevelop them.

Much of the neighborhood where I lived for 30 years near Turtle Creek was zoned MF3 (that's highrise residential with related uses) and had been since the 70's. Due to economic downturns and time to collect properties, it was only in the 1990's that the dreams of the late Bud Oglesby (noted local architect) began to be realized. It was a shocker to some in the neighborhood who had never bothered to find out about the neighborhood to have highrise condos go up across the street.

The way these 2 Bluffview cases were handled is what makes them so wrong. Two wrongs do not make a right. Nor do the ends justify the means. The only thing important in football may be winning. In real life, the only way people can live together peacefully without anarchy is to have rules that are fairly applied and followed.

More egregious than the back-zoning on the Bluffview lots was the wrong done to property owners on Culcourt. Look at the map below. Culcourt is that little appendage marked by the star (off Bluffview at Lemmon). You can't get to it from the residential areas of Bluffview or where Joyce Lockley lives on Wateka. There is a nursing home on Culcourt that was left out of the back-zoning. All but one property owner on Culcourt opposed having their lots back-zoned. They are surrounded by car dealerships and share their street with a retirement home. Culcourt is cut off from all nearby residential areas.

The sole owner (an absentee landlord) who spoke in favor of the re-zoning sounded like she had doubled up on her meds. People who live on Culcourt were adamantly opposed to this. Their arguments fell on deaf ears -- literally.

When you see how far away Joyce Lockley lives from Culcourt, it ought to make you nervous about what can be done to you if some well-connected person decides they want some different zoning on your property.

The only person missing from Wednesday's farce was Lordi Palmer, but don't think she was not involved. The faces behind the slam dunk were Pat White, Joyce Lockley, CPC Commissioner Neil Emmons, Councilwoman Veletta Lill and Lordi Palmer. With Bill Blaydes on the council now, Palmer will not be a regular public facilitator for Lill's little clique. These are all her little dolls, and Lordi Palmer pulls their strings.

It may be time for disenfranchised property owners in Oak Lawn, Greenway Parks and the Culcourt and Bluffview areas to join forces in a class action lawsuit against the City and Veletta Lill in particular.

At least two council members flat out told Casey Blank they would not get involved in his zoning case because they did not want any other council members getting involved with their district zoning cases.

One of the council members who refused to help Casey Blank told me the same thing when I requested he step in and help Greenway Park homeowners who were opposed to Lill's conservation district.

As Casey Blank told me, when you have zoning cases solely controlled by one plan commissioner and one council member, you have an absolute opportunity for corruption and bribery.

Look at the mess Beat that Indictment Fantroy is in right now over his accepting a contract with a developer who has a huge case before the council. $200,000 worth of contracts! That may be chump change for some, but it is big $$ to Beat that Indictment Fantroy. Mayor Miller is right to pull this case and investigate Fantroy's conflict of interest. The damage is already done. Everyone on the council knows he is for the project. If they vote for it knowing Fantroy is getting a kickback, they are part of the crime. If that vote against it, Fantroy will be gunning for them.

Bill Blaydes will vote NO, Sandy Greyson will likely vote NO, Mayor Miller will certainly vote NO, but the rest of them are a toss-up. We can no longer count on Mitch Rasansky to do the right thing (9/21 Mitch Rasansky advises he has concerns about this case.) We can only hope Ed Oakley will do what's right. Veletta Lill and Lois Finkelman will do whatever they think will get them the most points, which is usually the wrong thing. The rest of the council - Griffith, Loza, Garcia, Salazar, Hill, T-Reese, Chaney -- will find a way to support the deal for Fantroy.

It's not going to get any better unless someone with deep pockets steps up to the plate and lays money out for a class action suit.

Judge Roy Bean was the only law West of the Pecos. We have even less democracy in Dallas.

So -- just shell out some $$ for a fancy dinner for Lill or Finkelman and save yourself a lot of money on zoning lawyers. If you are not part of their clique, you are disenfranchised and have no voice at City Hall.

Everything is decided before any public hearing, and what you see or hear at the council horse show is just melodrama with a pre-determined ending and frequently pre-written script.

When a player gets a slam dunk, more often than not he has to extend himself a bit. At Dallas City Hall, when a council person's pet wants something done, the basket is lowered to their standard.

That's what goes for a SLAM DUNK at Dallas City Hall.