Meetings of Interest: Zoned Out 🤫

Dallas zoning cases lead to some of the most contentious neighborhood battles across our city.

Developers come armed with professional consultants to guide the process, working closely with city staff and members of the City Plan Commission and Dallas City Council.

Neighborhood groups rarely have the budget — or the savvy — to know how to work the system so well. In some cases, residents feel blindsided or even steamrolled by those pushing projects they don’t want in their backyards.

One of the mechanisms opponents can use to delay a zoning case before it comes to City Council or the City Plan Commission is to literally buy some extra time. Currently, anyone can pay a $150 fee to City Hall and submit a formal letter of request for delay. The automatic postponements also trigger an additional mail notification about the pending case to affected property owners, as well as a new notice in the newspaper.

In a system that can often feel stacked against average residents, this section of the Dallas Development Code can offer a path to reset negotiations on what may or may not be acceptable to a neighborhood.

On Wednesday, City Council members will vote on whether to do away with it.

Background documents justify the Code amendment — approved by City Plan Commissioners last month — this way:

Since 2021, staff reports 25 zoning cases were delayed by this mechanism. That’s a relatively small percentage of the hundreds of overall cases.

Delays can be costly to developers and the City. And the people and organizations investing big dollars in projects that grow our tax base deserve a reliable timeline.

But at what cost?

📖 Table of Contents

• 📰 Highlights From Last Week's Meetings

• 📝 Memos of Interest

• 🤝 Meetings of Interest: June 23 - 27

  • Tuesday, June 24

    • DART Committee-of-the-Whole

    • Fair Park First Board

    • DART Board of Directors

  • Wednesday, June 25

    • Dallas City Council Meeting

  • Thursday, June 26

    • City Plan Commission

    • Park and Recreation Board

📰 Highlights From Last Week’s Meetings of Interest

• City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert must close a projected $36.5 million budget shortfall in the planned budget for next fiscal year. “We will balance the budget before we bring it to you in August,” Chief Financial Officer Jack Ireland told City Council members. Major expense drivers include police, fire, and civilian pay and pension. Read more from KERA.

• Council Member Jesse Moreno is the new Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member Gay Donnell Willis is the new Deputy Mayor Pro Tem. They were elected to the positions on Monday by their City Council colleagues. Check out the vote totals here.

• Here’s where City Council members will sit around the City Council horseshoe for meetings and where their offices are now located.

• The City may soon move alley trash and recycling pickup to front yard curbs for thousands of Dallas residents. Read more from The Dallas Morning News.

📝 Memos of Interest

• Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert highlights improvements on Downtown homelessness and public safety, including the recently launched “Safe in the City” initiative among key successes over the past 100 days. Read her full update.

• The Dallas Police Department now has 3,215 officers, the highest number of cops since 2018, according to this memo.

• Here’s the complete City Manager memo packet for Friday, June 20, 2025.

🤝 Meetings of Interest: June 23 - 27

Tuesday, June 24

Dallas Area Rapid Transit Committee-of-the-Whole, 2:30 P.M., DART Conference Room C – 1st Floor, 1401 Pacific Ave., Dallas, Texas 75202

• Board members will be briefed on the impact of the ongoing Downtown convention center redo to light rail and bus operations. Read the briefing.

• DART’s CORE Program seeks to collaborate with cities to improve the bus network. It includes an emphasis on speed, reliability, safety, and improved pedestrian connections in Downtown Dallas and other areas. Read more.

Fair Park First Board of Directors, 4 p.m., Vista Bank, 3225 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Dallas, TX 75210

• This is the first meeting of the nonprofit board since the City sent them notice of termination of its contract to manage Fair Park. Board members are scheduled to discuss matters related to the termination in closed session. The termination is effective 90 days from the date of last week’s notice.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) Board of Directors, 6 p.m., Board Room, 1401 Pacific Ave., Dallas, Texas 75202

• Board members are expected to vote on a $2.7 million lease agreement for additional train cars to run on the Trinity Railway Express line for the 2026 FIFA World Cup. The funding comes from the North Central Texas Council of Governments.

Wednesday, June 25

Dallas City Council Meeting, 9 a.m., Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• Item 3 expands the potential candidate pool for new Dallas police officers by allowing for applicants without college credits or law enforcement experience who are “at least 21 years of age with a minimum of a high school diploma or general education development (GED) and 36 months of full-time, consecutive employment experience.”

• Item 4 is acceptance of donations of structures and cash for a new Dallas Police Academy Reality Based Training (RBT) Village near the current police academy in southern Dallas. The training structures “provide hands-on, stress-inoculation training for recruits and officers.” The donations are being made by QuickTrip Corporation and the Assist The Officer Foundation, according to this memo.

• Item 6 is a resolution to rename three West Dallas lakes along the Trinity River in honor of Native American tribes historically associated with the region.

• Item 19 is a three-year renewal contract with Visit Dallas “for convention and public event facility promotion, advertising and tourism development services” through Sept. 30, 2028. Read more.

• Item 20 is a construction manager at risk agreement with HJ Russell - Phillips May - STSW, A Joint Venture, for pre-construction and construction services for the redo of The Black Academy of Arts and Letters, a component of the Downtown convention center redo. Read more.

• Item 42 is acceptance of a $150,000 grant from the Downtown Dallas, Inc. Foundation for creation of a garden and patio space at the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library across the street from City Hall.

• Item 69 is a resolution directing City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert to review and potentially pause any city programs or policies that violate recent presidential executive orders, including those targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Read more from The Dallas Morning News. The resolution also directs Tolbert to report back to City Council on any paused programs or policies and present recommendations for final action.

• Public Hearing 1 is the previously mentioned Dallas Development Code amendment to kill a mechanism for zoning case opponents to delay cases by paying a $150 fee. Read more on what’s driving the proposal.

Thursday, June 26

City Plan Commission, 9 a.m. Briefing, 12:30 p.m. Public Hearing, Council Chambers, 6th Floor, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

Dallas Park & Recreation Board, 10 a.m., 6FN Conference Room, Dallas City Hall, 1500 Marilla St.

• The Board, on which I serve, will be briefed on department recruitment, retention, and succession planning. Read more.

🗣️ Quote of Interest

Did I miss anything? Do you have any questions? Just want to talk about meetings and memos and other fun stuff? Hit me up.