The City of Dallas’ Development Services Department is somewhat notorious for poor performance. Just last April, the department could not move into its $14 million new building – because the space did not meet building code.
This is a source of frustration for architects, developers and contractors. But there is reason to believe the situation is getting better, according to Mark Lamster, the architecture critic at The Dallas Morning News.
This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:
Texas Standard: So how exactly are things improving at the city’s building department?
Mark Lamster: Well, in a few ways. First of all, the Planning Department and the Permitting Departments, or basically the Building Department, have been merged. So, they previously were two departments, and they are now coming together. So that should streamline a lot of the processes within the department.
And the department also has new leadership. And I think that leadership is pretty forward-thinking and has started to make some smart changes within the department.
And the department is also launching a new integrated digital interface system – they’re calling it DallasNow – that should facilitate permitting, platting, all of the different types of public things that the department does, and so hopefully that will make things move a little bit more smoothly.
Well, you write that although this topic might seem somewhat boring, it’s really important for cities to have a building process that functions. For those who might not get that, could you explain why?
Of course – I mean, yes, building permitting is about as boring a subject as you can imagine. So my apologies to your listeners. But it is critical because in the building industry, time is money, right?
It costs an enormous amount to build any building, and if you’re sitting there waiting for your permitting to go through, it can cost developers, contractors, architects enormous amounts of money.
And if things don’t move forward efficiently, things maybe just don’t get built at all, or the projects move to the suburbs of Dallas, which typically have smoother, faster processes. So it really can hurt the economy of the city if the permitting department isn’t functional and efficient.
And in Dallas, which has a massive need for housing in particular, it’s a real problem if things don’t move quickly.
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So are all these things that you’ve been profiling in place now, or are there more reforms on the horizon?
I mean, we’re always trying to improve. So the City Council has just passed this change to the code to allow for the change in zoning of small apartment buildings, basically.
Minimum parking requirement issues are still on the table, as are what kind of density the city will allow in previously single-family neighborhoods. And that’s a key to creating more housing in the city.
I know in the Austin area there’s been a lot of pushback to that density issue and the idea of neighborhoods really hesitant to see what they see as the character of their neighborhood changing. Is there that same kind of pushback in the Dallas area?
Absolutely. Call it NIMBYism; you can call it bananas, as in Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything, right, and that has been a long-time problem in Dallas. And it’s something that the city is negotiating at the moment.
I think there’s a lot of misperceptions about what slight upzoning would do to single-family communities. I mean, if you look at duplexes and quadplexes, they really don’t harm neighborhoods. There’s no evidence that they will really detract from the quality of life or property values in single-family areas. But people are nervous about it.
The home is a major investment in most people’s lives, and they are understandably concerned about, you know, what the value and experience of their life will be like with changes.