They’re baaaaack!!! and the Planning Commission’s got ‘em

One of my all-time favorite residential neighborhoods is called Bryan Place in Dallas. Bryan Place came into existence just east of downtown Dallas in the early 1980s during the height of that area’s boom in suburban housing sprawl. New residential subdivisions were sprouting like wildflowers, mainly north and east of the Dallas city limits, in places like Mesquite, Garland, Richardson, Plano and Carrollton. Many of these subdivisions featured residences designed for first-time home buyers and built by a company called Fox & Jacobs. A 1978 story appearing in D Magazine began: "Fox & Jacobs sells houses the way Procter and Gamble sells detergent. And as a result, it sells more of them than anybody else." The magazine estimated Fox & Jacobs was building and selling in the neighborhood of 100 homes a week, all of them priced under $50,000.

That D Magazine profile specifically mentioned the possibility of a Bryan Place: "Fox & Jacobs has no intention of cutting back, either. With the initiation of the project to build houses in East Dallas, just a few blocks from downtown, F&J struck out in a direction that clearly indicates its desire to seek out buyers other than middle-income suburbanites."

Still, it was somewhat of a surprise when Fox & Jacobs built Bryan Place, an atypical F&J  community completely unlike anything the builder provided before or since that for its first 20 or so years of existence was a collection of zero lot line homes along narrow streets with virtually no front-yard setbacks. All the previous F&J developments -- those described in that D Magazine article -- were for those young, first-time homebuyers trying to escape the big city. Bryan Place, on the other hand, was smack dab in the middle of the city designed to attract the empty nesters, the young married professionals who did not necessarily want children at this stage in their lives or the single person who wanted to own, not rent. The hearty folks who first purchased those homes were regarded as some form of urban pioneers, home buyers brave enough to fly in the opposite direction of the typical white flight migration to the suburbs. Today, Bryan Place has been augmented by townhomes, condos and apartments. And those charming zero-lot line homes that sold for under $50,000 in the early 1980s are now priced at between $300,000 and $500,000. Bryan Place is now one of the most sought-after places to live in Dallas and, as I said at the beginning, one of my all-time favorite residential neighborhoods. (Here's a picture of a typical Bryan Place Street.)

I have no idea whether that land pictured above immediately north of Scott Street between the Kyle Public Library and Opal Line will be transformed into a community as unique and as charming as Bryan Place. That depends on KB Homes, which could build a wonderful community with homes such as this in that area. It also might depend on whether Kyle’s Planning & Zoning Commission has the strength and the leadership to do the right thing by rezoning this 86 acres to its "highest and best use," as it is commissioned to do, or whether it displays weakness by bowing to the public pressure that might be applied by a handful of neighborhood residents who are resistant to any kind of change and who are being energized by the lies being fed to them by the city’s no-growth contingent,

The Planning Commission is scheduled to make these decisions when it conducts public hearings and then votes on two separate items (Agenda Items 5B and 5C) at its meeting Tuesday, which begins at 6:30 p.m. in City Hall.

If there is the resistance I halfway expect to occur, those who will be arguing against will claim their challenges are based on water runoff and traffic concerns, neither of which contain any validity. (They may also be arguing against rezoning the land to R-1-A, which is what the agenda item states, but actually the applicants will be asking the commission to re-zone the land under the provisions of the recently created R-1-3 zoning category, which is more restrictive than R-1-A. That latter zoning, which also permits attached residences, would have permitted between 310-320 new homes on the site. The R-1-3 zoning reduces that number to 270. It is this R-1-3 zoning that could create another Bryan Place-type development.)

"It needs to be stated that as a function of initiating any new development project in the City of Kyle, development professionals are required to make provisions for storm water management and traffic based on the expected impact the project will have on property following construction," according to materials provided to the commission by the city’s development staff. "City of Kyle regulations do not permit stormwater discharges from new development to discharge at a greater rate than predevelopment conditions."

That takes care of the flooding argument, not that the protesters will pay any attention to that, however.

As to the traffic, studies prove that more compact, denser residential neighborhoods such as the one proposed here actually promotes walkability and an accompanying reduction in vehicular uses. Or, as the city staff states: "The development of the property adjacent to and in proximity to public services (public library, parks, public schools, etc.) reduces the reliance on the automobile in these areas (emphasis mine), while increasing desirability and value of residential development."

To put it simply, this development, if done correctly, makes Kyle stronger and more economically viable because, as the staff analysis says, "Due to downtown Kyle’s central location creating convenient access to nearby emerging residential, more citizens will naturally travel to the central business district, which is expected to increase the demand for more businesses supporting that new housing."

Which is why, even if the Planning Commission is too timid to buck that vocal minority that wishes to turn back the clock, the City Council would undoubtedly vote in favor of it when it considers the same proposal at its Feb. 21 meeting.

In fact, if I lived in the neighborhood, I would not be against this new development, but would, instead, be advocating for a more direct link between the library on Scott Street and Rebel Road. Then I would be pushing for a developer to locate something like a Whole Foods or a Sprouts or a Trader Joe’s — some kind of unique grocery outlet — near the corner of Rebel and Center Street that not only would be easily walkable from this new development but also from Silverado and Hometown Kyle. How sweet would that be?

Then, again, in the spirit of love and harmony that is supposed to accompany Valentine’s Day, perhaps the protesters will be a "no-show" Tuesday. One can only hope, but I usually prepare for the worst.

 

The Planning Commission’s agenda also contains one other item along these same lines, the one on the more heavily wooded property pictured above located on the opposite side of Beebee Road from the relatively new Hays Village Apartments. This agenda item also seeks to have those 53 acres between Beebee and the Amberwood Loop zoned R-1-A, but I also believe that applicant would rather have that new R-1-3 zoning as well. The reason I believe that is because all three of these items have appeared on the Planning Commission’s agenda twice previously and both times the applicants have asked their requests be postponed. The city created that R-1-3 zoning between that last postponement and Tuesday’s meeting and this time around, it does not appear any additional delays are being sought.

The Commission will also be asked to rezone the land pictured here from agriculture to retail services because, according to a letter sent to the city from one Diana Salazar, administrative assistant with Capital Construction Management of Houston, "We are building a gas station with a fast food retail center, and car wash" on the property. It is located on Dacy lane immediately in front of the Bluebonnet Estates manufactured home park that is going in there. The property is bisected by Fountain Grove Drive (the above picture is looking north from the Fountain Gove-Dacy Lane intersection) which connects the manufactured home park to Dacy Lane.

"The property requesting to be rezoned is sited in an area that is rapidly developing into a hub of commercial and residential activity," according to the city staff’s analysis of the zoning request. "This ‘node’ is centered on the intersection of Dacy Lane and Beebee Road. … The section of Dacy Lane adjacent to the parcel has already been widened to allow appropriate increased traffic and Hays County is in the process of widening Dacy Lane north of Beebee Road to improve traffic flow. Beebee Road is also planned to be improved in the future. With its location along the Dacy Lane collector, proximity to residential and commercial growth, the future of Vista Park, the rezoning of this parcel from A to RS is appropriate for the City of Kyle and the development of the area."

 

Somewhat more problematic, to me anyway, is the item on Tuesday’s Planning Commission agenda to rezone the land pictured above from Agriculture to a Public Utility District, which allows for a number of zoning uses, in this particular case neighborhood commercial, condominium and agricultural. The reason why the applicant, Garza EMC, LLC, of Austin, wishes to cover this many bases is because it plans to use the property "for the purpose of providing housing and care for elderly and disabled residents needing a wide range of medical assistance." The development will include "residential cottages" ranging in size from 800 to 1,100 square feet each (hence the condo zoning request) and a 10,000-square foot community activity center and administrative facility (which, I guess, the neighborhood commercial allows for). In my mind, I never associate "residential cottages" with "condos;" however, the city defines a condo as any residence "designed to allow ownership of a dwelling unit … without also having to own the land."

The problem I have with the property is that pond pictured in the above photograph I took yesterday of the property and what this says about the water table there. Of course, there’s always the chance that Garza EMC, LLC, plans to do a much better job of draining the swamp than Donald Trump did. Or the pond could become a decorative feature outside that 10,000-square-foot community activity center. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.