City of Dallas- LAST DAY!

Paul Dyers of the Parks and Recreation Department described the difficulties of getting fellow council members on board to invest in downtown parks. He decided that he really needed business folks to be involved and a master plan. Businesses in the area got involved and gave the city $400,000 for parks. They came up with the "Forward Dallas" plan has three levels of city involvement: 1- taking care of problem areas 2 - infill areas for recreational centers 3- build new things such as water parks or skate parks. Although the Parks Department assumed that the council would only want to take care of problem areas, surprisingly, the city council went for some of each, and were excited about some of the level 3 projects. It helped to break things down instead of simply presenting a huge budget that seemed out of reach.

Unfortunately, the city often has to use eminent domain rights to obtain downtown land property. They have to get "condemnation rights" in order to be successful in court against land owners. They always get appraised values, though. They put 80 M into parks such as Main St. Gardens, Bilow Gardens, and Beck Park.

The city planned for a 6 acre bridge park over Woodall Rodgers. When 16.6 M came into the state from the stimulus package, Dallas raised it's hand! Total cost for the bridge is 106 M. The new Trinity River project and park which was bought from John Simmons and will include playgrounds, lakes, kayaking, and soccer complexes. However, the levy system needs to be resolved.

Mayor Tom Leppert touched on three aspects of the city of Dallas in comparison to other cities.

1.) Better Growth Prospects in Dallas
- Dallas could do large manufacturing such as bottling plants

2.) South Dallas Opportunities
- Lancaster Corridor is a great place to join two TIF distrcits
- Studies done on Red Bird Mall
- The Trinity River project changes everything: suddenly the west will be an addition to downtown

3.) LEED
- Dallas is #1 Green specifically in wind energy, and clean water. They obtain 40% of their energy from wind
- 2000 of it's vehicles are hybrid
- it's easy to get the big guys certified, but not so much the smaller guys
- realizes "green" is becoming a fundamental issue
- 2 tranches in 2011 requiring all new buildings to be Leed Certified
- It's important to give developers and builders flexibility and options
- Debate on making regulation for making "renovations" green... yet to be tested, and costs could be high

Theresa o' Donald - Director of Sustainable Development and Construction

Economy has problems.
- North Dallas depends on residential not commercial for economic sustainability.

Dallas is a great city.
- medical District is the 2nd largest jobs market besides downtown in Dallas
- there are 110,000 daytime workers in downtown.

Future is in re-development.
- Dallas is land-locked.
- Infrastructure planning is critical
- areas the city is considering: North Park and Presby, 511 (5 point - a crime ridden area)
- change/re-develop areas by buying land and building schools and libraries

Responsible owners vs. non-responsible owners.
- A responsible owner can keep a wonderful development that is a great service to the community while an irresponsible one can be a city's worst nightmare. ie The Village vs. 5 point. Both were built during the same time about 30 years ago, but one is a thriving, safe, clean community, and the other is crime-ridden, unkempt, and deteriorating.

"Regional Fair Share"
- homeless problem: why do they all come to Dallas? Theresa wondered why other cities sent homeless to Dallas as opposed to taking their "fair share" so to speak. While Plano complained about 6 homeless people, Dallas deals with 6,000!


David Whitley over the Trinity River Project focused on the importance of design in the Trinity River project and all over Dallas. The goal is to set overarching urban design statements. They have asked Larry Beisly who designed the Olympics in Vancouver to help with design here in Dallas. When talking to residents on the west side of the Trinity River, the big theme is that people want a preservation of their communities. They need grocery stores. There needs to be a strategy for reuse of buildings and a sense of energy. Phil Ramano, and Butch Mc Gregor- land holders in the area are aiming for homegrown restaurants, and creative art production. They could make it a Municipal Management District. The city is trying to create wealth opportunities for developers.



Karl Zavitkovsky spoke about the CDRC (City of Dallas Regional Center) program in which foreign investors who are willing to invest $500,000 in the Dallas economy, can receive their green-card. The goal is that the money has to create at least 10 jobs for U.S. citizens, and will be paid back in 5-7 years. The good thing is that the investors are generally not worried about a return, and they are simply interested in the opportunity to receive a green card. Karl said that there had been a lot of interest from South Korea, China, and Mexico. Another benefit is that the foreign investors are not required to live in the States. The CDRC is a regional center that has been set up to organize and manage the foreign investments.
Karl noted that after his trips to Asia, it was very clear that there was a healthy competition between the states and Asia to keep up with the technology and and transportation of each others' countries. The North Texas council of Governments are trying to understand and implement sustainable transportation. In his view, there was not a collaborative effort between cities in North Texas. I think this could be simply because there are large distances between the cities making face to face communication much more difficult.

Nearly all the speakers made reference to a new UNT campus located in South Dallas, mentioning that it will be an important campus in the next 10-15 years and an opportunity for both land planning and to make a real "college town." Both the Mayor and Theresa mentioned that residential taxes - not commercial have driven taxes in the economy. Several of them also brought up the importance of the new "Calatraba" bridge and the Trinity River Park and how it will change the landscape of Dallas and allow for new development opportunities, as well as expansion and growth of the urban core in Dallas.