Part of the three-phase plan is built-in flexibility to accommodate changing economic conditions, community needs and a larger population. "Every chance we could, we said, 'Guys, these are a cartoon,'" says David Whitley, associate director of the CityDesign Studio. He means the plans are a flexible guideline, not a dictate.
Then he hit on what seems to be the community's raw nerve. "I don't think the skepticism is completely gone. How it happens is the real test," he says. Most who've seen it agree the plan looks great on paper, but if and when disputes arise between new developers and old neighbors, the question is whether the plan will remain intact. Development projects that require zoning changes will be evaluated in the context of the Design Studio guidelines. "We'll be a player" in implementation, Whitley says, but "to some extent, we've passed the baton."
Danny Fulgencio
Danny Fulgencio
Monte Anderson focuses on developing
"small, affordable, cool spaces."
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It's this baton pass that concerns Rosa Lopez, director of Vecinos Unidos, a West Dallas nonprofit that supports affordable housing. "As much as the community wants the improvements...will there be a balance in trying to help the community maintain its presence?" she asks, echoing Losada. "We've got a lot of older folks in the area. We know that they've had difficulty maintaining their houses...They want to stay here. They want to be able to afford their property taxes."
Even if the NSO is put in place and zoning restrictions work in favor of La Bajada protection, "it's never a guarantee," she says. "It is a gamble. Everybody's just guessing at this point. It's all a gamble. It's all a design...Is it going to happen in five years, 10 years, 30 years? Something is going to happen."
Much of the outcome rests on developers. The developer whose name is most commonly heard in La Bajada is Larry "Butch" McGregor. He and his partners in West Dallas Investments own more than 60 acres of land, including several buildings along Singleton Avenue painted in bold and neon colors. McGregor works behind a desk in the bright red building, one of the first they purchased nearly 10 years ago.
"He's been seeing the light for a long time," Lopez says of McGregor, acknowledging with a laugh that the Trinity River is what's driving the development. "He's been seeing the water for a long time.
"He's a businessperson. I would say he's out for the best interest of Butch McGregor. His idea is that he owns the property, and people will have to pay to have a spot. I think that's just par for the course. Anytime business people want to come into the community, I think people are going to be concerned. But that's the way of the world, that's capitalism. There's nothing wrong with being a businessperson. It's just a matter of the way businesses want to be connected to people in the community. I don't think I've heard a lot of negative things about Butch McGregor. Now is Butch coming over here as a business person to preserve the neighborhood? No. I don't think he is. But he certainly has made his point about wanting as much land as possible along the riverfront."
McGregor might have nodded along with Lopez's characterization.
McGregor, like many West Dallas residents, wants to attract grocery stores, dry cleaners, coffee shops, restaurants and all the makings of an active, busy neighborhood full of pedestrians. His company's profits depend on it.
In his purchases of West Dallas land, he has stayed away from La Bajada. Mostly. Several properties came along with other land acquisitions as a package deal. Then, there were a few instances in which he asked whether the property owners adjacent to what he owned would be interested in selling. Once, he even offered to build a woman a nicer home right across the street.
She turned him down. "She grew up there. Her kids grew up there, and her grandkids," McGregor says. He lowers his voice to a whisper. "The house needs to be torn down. It's pitiful."
"I keep hearing that they want to save the La Bajada neighborhood in its entirety. You know, sometimes you ask for things that you may or may not really want," McGregor says. "Do you want to keep the drug houses? Do you want to keep it the way it is with no grocery stores, no neighborhood services? So, when you say you want to keep it in its entirety, you have to be very careful."
To attract businesses, West Dallas needs one key ingredient: more people—specifically, more people with more money. The neighborhood overlay Losada advocates would preserve La Bajada for single-family homes and work against high-rise development, so it's not in step with increasing population density. Additionally, McGregor says, a rise in property values is a good thing. "These homes are these people's greatest asset, just like most Americans...and they want their greatest asset to be worth as much as possible...By putting that NSO on it, it certainly doesn't do that...If you're a developer and you want to come in and buy a piece of property to build a high-rise apartment condo project on it, you can pay a lot of money for it. If it's got an NSO on it, you're not going to touch it."
