Image push 40 away12/28/2023 ![]() Median real estate taxes increased at least 33 percent between 20, the city found, and home prices doubled in the last 12 years. According to Census data, the neighborhood was over 90 percent African American 20 years ago. The city’s research shows how the neighborhood has changed in recent years. “This is an African American neighborhood that wants to maintain its integrity, that wants to keep our children and grandchildren living in an area that our parents fought for,” said longtime resident Zac Thompson. Resident and professor Clarence Glover told the Council how the Works Progress Administration described Elm Thicket in its Dallas guide as “a village of Negro residences and business enterprises in extreme North Dallas.” Others brought up the now-infamous “Tron house,” the $3.9 million gray manse on Wateka Drive that has drawn the ire of legacy residents who hold it up as the reason these zoning changes are necessary. Supporters of the zoning change spoke of that history. The residents moved east as their community shrank.Įlm Thicket is also known for its dense tree coverage. The city seized the course in 1954 and about 300 homes to build the airport. The community was also home to the Hilliard Golf Course, Dallas’ first course for Black golfers. A tall hedge still spans the length of Roper, which was used to separate that military housing from the Black neighborhood that stretched just past present-day Mockingbird. ![]() Army Air Service in World War I, there was military housing just beyond Roper Street. When Love Field was a training base for the U.S. It was established as a Freedman’s town, was redlined in the 1930s and 1940s, and served as a relief valve for Black homeowners who were pushed out of the State-Thomas neighborhood by the construction of Central Expressway during those same decades. The 521-acre northwest Dallas neighborhood is bounded by Lemmon Avenue to the west, Inwood Road to the east, Lovers Lane to the north, and Mockingbird Lane to the south. … I ask you, City Council, which side of history are you gonna be on?” “This city has a history of systemic racism and redlining. “My people were told where we could go, where we could live,” said Jonathan Maples, the president of the Elm Thicket/North Park Neighborhood Association, who led the community effort in support of the changes. The changes were repeatedly referred to on Wednesday as a “tip of the cap” and “a nod of respect” to the history of the neighborhood, even though council members acknowledged the new regulations will do little to address the rising property values that attracted the city’s attention in the first place. City staff proposed changes to “soften the development styles” and address “scale and massing” to make the big homes sync better with the smaller ones. The city, in 2016, began to explore how to manage development in this community. ![]() “I want to encourage development in a responsible manner while giving a nod to the existing context and culture of the area.” This does not prevent builders from building,” said Councilman Jesse Moreno, whose District 2 includes Elm Thicket. Council’s decision also lowers the height restriction here from 30 feet to 25 allows duplexes to be built on two north-south thoroughfares, Mabel Avenue and Roper Street and limits the style of roofs on new homes to hip and gable, which require sloping edges and sides that create a triangle. The previous maximum was 45 percent, which is how most of the city’s single-family lots are zoned. The Council approved zoning changes that block new single- and multi-story homes from occupying more than 40 percent of their lots. It was the conclusion of the city’s protracted attempt at controlling the style of home that can exist in this northwest Dallas neighborhood, where old cottage-style bungalows now sit beside modern, flat-roofed, square-shaped new builds that often tower over them. The Dallas City Council on Wednesday closed the chapter on a contentious zoning battle that took nearly seven years to settle in the historically Black neighborhood of Elm Thicket/North Park.
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