Back Talk Oak Cliff

Davis/Bishop land use study: Take the survey

Up until this point, the committee of neighbors studying possible zoning changes along Davis and Bishop have been collecting informal feedback, but an official survey is now posted online on committee member and Lake Cliff resident Michael Mendoza's blog, on which he's been posting updates of the group's progress since May.

The survey includes three questions, and Oak Cliff residents are encouraged to give their feedback:

1)  Without agreeing to the current recommendations, do you believe that there is a need to implement a holistic plan for the area that will determine the kind of development that will happen in our community?  

2)  Do you think that the recommendations made by Good, Fulton and Farrell are appropriate? 

3)  If not, what modifications would you recommend?

Easing credit crunch puts the convention center hotel back on track

Good news for fans of the taxpayer-owned downtown convention center hotel, as well as for the pending DISD bond issue: The credit market, at least for public works projects, appears to be easing enough to allow AA-rated and above public entities to obtain financing. A DMN story indicates the city of Dallas intends to close on $253.3 million in water improvement project bonds this week; a few weeks ago, this and just about every other bond project in the country were frozen due to lack of capital or political will or lenders — take your pick. The $550 million convention center hotel, which Mayor Tom Leppert and many city councilmen have vowed to fund in January, requires issuance of municipal revenue bonds to generate the cash, so now that the market is coming back, lack of available funding shouldn't hold back Leppert or the council. I guess we'll see if the May referendum on the project causes the council members any heartburn when it comes time to approve the bonds in January.

Dallas home resale price drop is minimal compared with other U.S. cities

Another of the many stories in the good news/bad news vein these days: The DMN headlines its latest residential real estate story "U.S. home resale prices dive 16.6% as Dallas' dip 2.7%." Further good news for our area from the story: Among the 20 major U.S. cities tracked in this particular study, our area had the smallest decline in home prices compared with sales in August 2007, while Phoenix and Las Vegas both reported drops exceeding 30%. More bad news nationally was that the results from 13 of the 20 markets surveyed had worsened from the month before, including the Dallas-Fort Worth area (but by a pretty negligible 0.2%). Bottom line: Things aren't great in the rest of the country, but we're doing pretty well here on a relative basis. I couldn't find the DMN link for its story, but if you want to look at the actual study, click here and then download the August study pdf.

Now what's going to happen to those retail banks on every corner?

Quick quiz: You see construction at a key neighborhood retail corner, and you wonder what's being built.

For the past few years, the answer would have simple: Another bank! But those days are over now, thanks to the multi-billion-dollar bailout of the banking industry, which has been leading to mergers galore the past few weeks.

Davis/Bishop Corridor study: The presentation

Kudos to quick turnaround on the part of Davis/Bishop Corridor committee facilitator Bob Stimson — the presentation promised to be e-mailed to everyone in attendance at last week's neighborhood meeting was sent out today. You can view or download the PDF of Larry Good's presentation below.

In his e-mail, sent out to 108 people (it appeared that more like 200 were present), Stimson notes: "The huge turnout indicated a strong interest in creating a Davis Street plan, though there is still much work to be done to create the final product. ... Thanks for your interest in making Oak Cliff better."

Stimson also says that over the next few days, information will be sent out regarding how to best provide input for the plan, but for now, comments can be sent to davisstreet@oakcliffchamber.org.

Download bishop_davis_land_use_study_102208_presentation.pdf

Davis/Bishop Corridor study: ‘Progress is meeting Oak Cliff’

The tension between history and gentrification was thick in the air last week during the first neighborhood meeting to discuss the Davis/Bishop Corridor. Larry Good, president of Dallas architecture firm Good, Fulton & Farrell, has headed up the committee of 12 Oak Cliff “stakeholders”, as he calls them, since May, and he made the presentation of the committee’s proposal.

People seemed to like the committee’s goals, which were presented right off the bat. They include statements like “Protect the stability of neighborhoods in the corridor, including architectural integrity” and “Encourage shopping and dining locally, supporting neighborhood establishments.”

Tom Leppert: 'Doesn't give a darn about the citizens of Dallas'

So, do you think Mayor Tom Leppert cares about the citizens of Dallas or not? Councilman Mitchell Rasansky tells the Observer Leppert doesn't care — "doesn’t give a darn about the citizens of Dallas". Rasansky goes on to mention that Leppert was on the board of directors of Washington Mutual even as that financial institution bit the dust, saying Leppert's comments about WaMu's financial health a few weeks prior to its bailout — “the feeling is that there's sufficient capital and good things ahead" — is indicative of Leppert's go-for-broke actions with the convention center hotel, regardless of a possible pending referendum on the project and a disintegration of the bond market. It's worth clicking on the post, written by Sam Merten, because it has a whole list of interesting information and story links. As for me, I tend to think that it's not that Leppert doesn't care about the rest of us. I think he just believes he knows better than everyone else what's good for us. Come to think of it, that was the prevailing attitude on Wall Street for a few years, too, and look what happened to those guys...

Davis and Bishop: Neighborhood meeting on land use study

Tomorrow night will be the first of two neighborhood meetings concerning a new zoning proposal for the Davis and Bishop corridors. Thanks to Lake Cliff resident Michael Mendoza, you can catch up on the progress made since May by reading over his blog.

Mendoza is one of 12 neighbors on a committee appointed by councilmen Dave Neumann and Elba Garcia to study land uses up and down the two streets. Larry Good of architecture firm Good, Fulton and Farrell is heading up the committee, and Oak Cliff Chamber of Commerce president Bob Stimson is facilitating. More details are in a story in November's edition of the Advocate CliffDweller (which should reach neighbors' doorsteps next week), but the gist is that there seems to be general agreement among residents and businesses right around Bishop and Davis that more Bishop Arts-style retail and restaurants would be welcome, but the zoning in place is causing major speed bumps.

Pop culture: How Hank Hill deals with the McMansion issue

I usually try to catch "The Simpsons" and/or "Family Guy" Sunday nights on Fox (no doubt we all needed a little laughter after watching our football team's wheels fall off yesterday).

"King of the Hill", for whatever reason, is not usually on my radar. But last night I managed to catch an episode that turned out to be worth a watch. It caught my attention because it delved into a subject we get really hot about around here — McMansions (or as Hank Hill most-colorfully describes them, “Jackass McMansions”).

When a developer tries to build a big castle on a tiny lot, Hank and his buddies get pretty agitated and end up trying to fight it at city hall. The “speculation home” has no yard, is made from cheap materials, and it blocks sunlight out of the neighborhood. Then a rain storm nearly tears it apart before a mob of angry neighbors finish the job … and that’s just the beginning. I guess they have teardown-McMansion issues in Garland, I mean Arlen, too. 

You can watch the entire "King of the Hill" episode, Square-footed Monster, here. 

Victory after 10 years: Iconic but not helping downtown

Not long ago, the DMN published a series of stories titled "Partial Victory", which was a rather ingenious way of highlighting the big, new "Times Square for Dallas" surrounding the American Airlines Center downtown. The good news, according to the story: Ross Perot Jr. says that Victory is farther along, development-wise, than he thought it would be at this time. The bad news: Apparently, if you don't live there (and not many people do), you don't know what's happening at Victory and you aren't participating in terms of spending money.

As it stands now, about 10 years into what Hillwood describes as a 25-year process, there are about 13 restaurants, a dozen retailers, more than 750 residential units and quite a bit of office space, including WFAA-TV's Times Square-like station on a corner near the AAC. But the place has become more upscale, to the exclusion of everything else, than the developers apparently planned, so while it's easy to find a $1,500 hotel room and a $400 dress, you can't find an inexpensive lunch, a drugstore or a grocery store, according to the News.

Interestingly enough, that's the same complaint that the people living and working downtown — and I mean the original downtown — have, too. And it's interesting to remember that one of the sales pitches we were given when the developers floated the $230 million arena bond in 1998 was that Victory was an important step in downtown's revitalization. As we can see now, that hasn't been the case — the distance between Main Street and Victory is too far for the average person to make the walk, and whatever good is happening at Victory isn't trickling over to downtown.