DALLAS — This story originally appeared in the Dallas Business Journal, a WFAA news partner.
A proposed 30-story apartment tower that could bring more rental options to the Turtle Creek area has gained a crucial approval from the Dallas Plan and Zoning Commission.
Luis Gonzalez's Validus Development Corp., which has built single-family homes and apartments in Highland Park and University Park, plans to build the 104-unit high-rise on a vacant three-quarter-acre corner lot north of Hood and Brown streets.
The commission on Feb. 1 approved the developer's request for changes to development standards to increase the allowable floor area while limiting the number of units for the site to the proposed 104, a response to neighborhood concerns about density and traffic.
Recommendations from the commission are then voted on by Dallas City Council, although it wasn't immediately clear when that would happen in this case.
Project plans, shaped in part by community feedback, call for burying all the parking, creating a landscaped parkway around the site and making access easy for delivery vehicles, said Evan Beattie of architecture firm GFF Inc. Sustainability was also a focus for the developer.
"This was a project designed with quality being top of mind," Beattie said.
Commissioner Melissa Kingston, who represents District 14, where the project is located, praised the project's larger units as ideal for families. The average unit size would be 2,229 square feet, according to documents presented last year to the Oak Lawn Committee.
"The vast majority of housing units that get built in this part of the city are one-bedrooms or efficiencies," Kingston said. "We rarely get the size of units that this building will be full of, and for the diversity of people living in the city, in this part of the city, we need this type of units."
Proposed tower attracts backers, opponents
The Oak Lawn Committee supported the project after two meetings with the developer last year. Tony Page of the Vine Condominium Owners Association, who lives along Carlisle Street about a half a mile away from the project, also spoke in support, praising the design's pedestrian experience and sustainability features.
Homeowners in a condo complex across Hood Street, however, opposed the size of the project given the growth of the neighborhood and traffic concerns.
"A lot of the concerns that I have heard is people who just don't want construction and don't want redevelopment, and that's not realistic," Kingston said. "it's going to get developed and it's going to get redeveloped with density."
Representing the developer, attorney Suzan Kedron of Jackson Walker LLP disputed the traffic concerns by saying the 104 proposed units are much less intense of a use for the site than the roughly 300 units that could legally be built there otherwise. Steve Stoner of Westwood Professional Services Inc., a traffic engineer for the developer, said his team found through a study that the development would have little impact on traffic around the property.
To get the increase in floor area, the developer is taking advantage of a city incentive program in which it agrees to create about five housing units, or 5% of the apartments, that would be affordable to households making 81% of the area's median family income level.
But the developer's attorney said they may instead pay a fee to the city to create housing elsewhere in lieu of providing those affordable units on site.
Commissioner Tabitha Wheeler-Reagan criticized this potential move.
"In this particular area, there is a need for affordable housing," Wheeler-Reagan said. "For us in the southern sector, we don't believe that's a great choice. ... We would like to live on that side of town too."
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