Q&A On The Davis/ Bishop Plan – Part Two
In our ongoing coverage of the Davis/ Bishop Plan, we have another Q&A for your reading (and commenting) pleasure. As we posted yesterday, Go Oak Cliff plans to cover the issue of the Davis/ Bishop plan by offering our readers a series of Questions and Answers from folks in the community who are impacted by the plan and who have participated in the process. We look forward to creating a healthy dialogue as North Oak Cliff tackles this issue.
Q: Attorney Bob Rodriguez lives with his wife and two daughters in Winnetka Heights, a few blocks off Davis Street.
I think it’s great that the Bishop/Davis Plan will save our old buildings by giving them a break on city-imposed parking requirements, but patrons of those businesses will still have to park somewhere. I’m concerned that my street in Winnetka Heights will constantly be lined with cars belonging to people from outside our neighborhood. My friends and family are used to parking in front of my home, and we are used to a quiet street. How will the proposed rezoning ordinance address my concerns?
A: Paul Maute, a registered architect with expertise in historic preservation, is a 20-year resident of Winnetka Heights and a member of the Bishop/Davis steering committee.
Our portion of Davis Street grew up at a time before the automobile ruled. It’s a classic Mainstreet USA, with commercial storefronts at street level and apartments above. When most folks got around on foot or via mass transit, there was no parking problem. But over the years, we switched to automobiles for our transportation, and zoning came to mandate that new developments provide all their own parking. However, new development was suburban in nature, and the parking requirements extremely conservative. That’s why you see so many big-box parking lots that are always half empty: they’re required to provide parking for peak demand – the day after Thanksgiving. Those suburban parking requirements simply don’t work for a vintage, urban neighborhood. So the Bishop/Davis Plan seeks to strike a balance between the old and the new, like this:
- Reducing parking requirements for vintage structures. Many of these buildings have been legislated out of business by suburban parking requirements. The existing requirements are actually an incentive to demolish old buildings. This parking reduction wouldn’t apply to restaurant uses; they truly need a lot of parking. These reductions are a fraction of those that have worked well in Bishop Arts for a decade.
- Creating incentives for small parking lots shared by more than one business, like extending the distance between a restaurant and its parking lot. This strategy has worked elsewhere in Dallas.
- Making commercial districts less dependent on the automobile. Our commercial districts must become more walkable, so that those of us that live close will leave our cars at home and walk or ride a bike to Davis. That’s what my wife and I did the other night when we attended a show at the Kessler Theater. So did other people, because the place was full and parking didn’t extend into the neighborhood.
Although we’re blessed to have residential neighborhoods that resemble Primrose Lane, remember that Oak Cliff is an urban neighborhood. In order to get out of the unhealthy habit of driving across town for what should be neighborhood errands, our development model has to support that. That might mean more cars parked on our streets. But remember, we don’t own those parking places – the city does. And research shows that parking on the streets slows down traffic and creates a “fence of steel” between street traffic and kids on the sidewalk. More people on the sidewalk make our streets safer. It’s what folks in real cities do.
The safeguard for our community is our activist nature; we’ll remain engaged in this issue long after the ordinance has passed. If necessary, we’ll pressure our commercial neighbors to share parking more aggressively. Or, alternatively, to control parking in the residential areas by adopting a resident-only program.
So in other words, you have no parking plan.
Anyone been to Greenville Avenue lately?
James, the specter of Greenville Avenue was something Paul Maute and his steering-committee colleagues specifically sought to avoid. Here are some important distinctions: Bars and nightclubs predominate on Greenville; under the proposed zoning, bars are not allowed near Winnetka Hts or other residential neighborhoods, and they won’t qualify for the deep parking discounts Paul describes. Greenville is in a “wet” area, and even if the November referendum passes, only restaurants will benefit from the relaxation of alcohol regulations. Greenville has a much larger stock of big-floor-area buildings than Davis, so we simply can’t host the same size of crowds. Finally, Greenville has been playing catch-up because there was no forethought given to growth, which is what the Bishop/Davis Plan is all about. An example of pre-emptive parking-control measures is the shared-parking incentive that Paul mentions. Anyone who knows Paul as a neighbor would say that he’d never be responsible for inviting the problems of Lower Greenville to his own backyard.
Yes. I have been to Greenville Ave. and I have lots of friends that live in the M Streets and the areas around Greenville. Despite what you may hear, they love being there and they use the shops and restaurants much like Paul describes. When Terilli’s and those bars and restaurants burned down recently, neighbors put flowers out and solicited donations to help the workers who had become their friends. Even Avi Adelman supported them! The Kessler Theater that opened recently right near Winnetka Heights is a perfect example of what Paul is talking about. It uses parking sharing arrangements with businesses around it such that even when it is full, there is virtually no overflow into the neighborhood. If we require the strip mall approach to parking (X number of offstreet spaces per square foot), we will get exactly that: strip malls. The walkable, urban neighborhoods we want will be impossible. The plan that Paul sets out is important because it strives to preserve the neighborhood feel of our streets. It may not be as definitive as you would like, but the flexibility, I think will be its biggest benefit in the long run. I live in WH also, the first house off Jefferson and next to a commercial building with an overflowing parking lot. I know what it is to have people park in front my house, but, to me, that is an acceptable tradeoff for living in and helping build a sustainable urban neighborhood.
Yes, yes, yes, we all want a more-walkable neighborhood. When I lived off lowest Greenville, I often walked down to the pubs and such. I didn’t walk every time, but often. Nobody walks when it rains or when it’s over 100. That’s the reality, and that’s why we have cars.
Nevertheless, I do want a much more walk and bike friendly ‘hood. It’s a noble goal.
However, having that goal and getting there are two separate issues. Reduced parking requirements alone does not begat more walking. People will have to change their behavior first. That’s a much different endeavor. Just ask anyone who’s stopped smoking. A long-time habit and behavior dies hard. We all know that. So, let’s stop equating less parking with more walking. Cars be a serious habit. Zoning alone isn’t going to change that. One may hope it will. But, it won’t.
I think there are many like me who think that the reduced parking requirement for the old, character buildings makes a lot of sense. I like that something seemingly as simple as requiring fewer parking spaces can make one of our grand old buildings much more viable. I know that many Cliffites like this aspect of the zoning proposal a lot. I give this a “way cool.”
Where there’s push back is that the same reduced parking will apply to new buildings too. Obviously, the revitalize-an-old-building case doesn’t apply here. The old buildings on Davis may have smaller footprints than those on Greenville, but with new construction, the sizes are anyone’s guess. They aren’t limited in the proposed zoning either. If they are, please point it out in the PD. I haven’t been able to find it. (Really, I can’t find size limits anywhere.)
When you couple the lack of size restraint issue with the fact that the zoning will allow for restaurants in the new buildings, it’s not a comfortable thought. The zoning will allow those restaurants to sell alcohol (with SUP, of course). So, in affect, we could have “bars” of unlimited size quite close to our homes. Having visited my fair share of bars, I know that they get more people–therefore more cars–then even restaurant parking requirements can handle.
Those buildings will have relaxed parking too. Guess where they will have to park all the time. Yep, on the street. In front of many family homes on streets that were never car lined before. This is already assumed. (See “answer” above)
With respect, I don’t buy the argument that a frequently car-lined street, or “wall of steel,” is more desirable then the occasional car going too fast down the street. Give me a driveway to back out of without cars on either side of it and across the street any day.
Look, I’m not against the spirit of the rezoning proposal at all. I look forward to the day when I can once again walk to the end of the street to a quaint neighborhood pub or a coffee house. If the issues to which I have objections had been addressed in this rezoning proposal, I’d be onboard this progress train. It’s the ambiguity and lack of concrete stipulations are what I just can’t do.
I know that life offers no guarantees, but very detailed zoning can get pretty damn close.
“I didn’t walk every time, but often. Nobody walks when it rains or when it’s over 100.”
Hi Lance,
I think this is a great point, but one that I feel can be a misnomer. Every city has issues with climate, whether it’s 4 months of brutal winter in New York, 180 days of rain in Portland, or stifling heat and humidity in New Orleans, but I think that it is not necessarily the primary reason why people drive, because in these other cities, modal share for walking/biking/public transit is much higher than here. I think the major factor that gets people driving over another mode is convenience, whether that be through inexpensive fuel, lack of ped-oriented environment, dense development in short commutes, et cetera. The strongest case in point I can think of for this is when fuel prices climbed over $4 in summer of 2008. It was still extremely hot, but bicycle ridership in Dallas went up exponentially. Transit ridership also increased.
I do think that the built environment can shape behaviors radically which we showed at our Better Block event. Anita Mills, a 62 year old resident living off Tyler and Eighth, met with us afterward and said that by simply thinning the street and making the space more inviting for people, she herself has begun walking to Norma’s and other business establishments in the area that she’d typically drive to. It’s the same premise behind the Mural project we’ve developed…help residents see that walking/bicycling can be a viable alternative. I’ve noticed a major increase in bicycling just due to some very simple changes and fostering of the culture. Will we receive a massive decrease in cars? No, but even a place like Portland, dubbed the Bike Capital of the US, has only 6% bike modal share…but that 6% makes a radical change to the area, and gets more and more people changing habits.
We have another reality confronting us as well: 1 Million people are set to come to Dallas by 2020. Since we live in an urban neighborhood, and the trends we’re seeing nationwide are that people are moving more toward the inner city, the desire to not have “car lined streets” may be overly optimistic. .. especially if you reside beside an arterial street…which is exactly why we all should be championing multi-modal infrastructure development.
Just my two cents, but would be curious to hear more of your thoughts.
Admin,
I agree–a walking/biking culture is possible in Oak Cliff, but only by changing the built environment. I would LOVE to ride my bike more, but it’s just not safe with my two kiddos without bike lanes. It’s impossible to protect them from speeding cars and distracted drivers, especially when cars are parked on the road and we have to ride in the street. I can’t wait to get a bike lane on Colorado, but we really need some along the Zang St. Bridge, along Bishop, and along Davis (or at least the streets parallel to Davis). I know that’s another battle, but wouldn’t it be great in our overall vision for Davis St? To provide routes for people to SAFELY bike to all these new businesses we hope to attract?
http://thinkdavis.wordpress.com/
On dependence on the Automobile:
Davis Street, between Cedar Hill and Tyler carries more than 12,500 vehicles each day. Between Polk and Edgefield vehicle traffic jumps to more than 17,000 trips. Compare these totals to Oak Lawn at Wycliff carrying 16,000 and Lovers Lane at Inwood carrying 18,000 trips per day.
The proposed land use plan addresses traffic issues by encouraging a built environment promoting active travel and localized public transportation.
MM