At a meeting late last month, Marcos Narvaez, deputy director of planning for the city of Farmers Branch, said there have been some concerns by residents about the number of multifamily developments in the city. About 27% of the city is made up of single-family homes, townhomes, condos and vacant lots that will have this type of housing in the future.
The city could soon have around 16,000 multifamily units: about 11,000 already exist, 500 are under construction and another 4,600 units could be built by right. However, because multifamily units are high density, they occupy only about 6% of the land in Farmers Branch, Narvaez said, but multifamily makes up 64% of all housing.
Farmers Branch City Council member Omar Roman said he often hears from residents that the city is oversaturated with multifamily developments but he said he has no way of gauging this. He asked Narvaez if there is an industry standard for determining if an area is oversaturated with multifamily units. He also asked how Farmers Branch compares with other cities.
Narvaez explained there’s not necessarily an industry standard and that every city is going to be different, but he could look into comparing Farmers Branch with cities like Carrollton and Addison, which also have a lot of apartments.
When it comes to adding more single-family developments in Farmers Branch, Narvaez said there simply isn’t the land to do so. “So, if anyone’s going to build more residential units in our city, the kinds of requests we're going to get are for multifamily, without a doubt,” Narvaez said.“It really depends on what kind of city we want to be." – Marcos Narvaez, Farmers Branch
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He said the city he came from had a cap on multifamily developments in its comprehensive land use plan. Multifamily developments couldn’t exceed 10% of the city’s housing units. “We could try to stay at 65% for the most part,” Narvaez said, suggesting a number that leaves plenty of room for apartment building growth in the city. “That’s almost like putting a moratorium on apartments.”
There are still thousands of apartments that could be built by right in the city. “It really depends on what kind of city we want to be,” Narvaez said. “If we want to lose the suburban characteristics of our city, and we want to be more urbanized, we want to see more entertainment and we want to bring in more people, we need to allow these apartments to continue in our city.”
Farmers Branch City Council member David Reid asked if there was a transient nature to people staying in multifamily units. “I don’t mean to use transient in a negative connotation,” he said. “It’s that versus permanent. But with that high concentration of transients, it seems difficult to build a community-type feel in those areas.”
Farmers Branch City Council member Roger Neal said he recently knocked on a lot of doors for his re-election campaign and a majority of the people he spoke to were not in favor of more apartments in the city. “I’ll be supportive of my constituents against additional apartments,” Neal said. He also asked whether the city has the infrastructure to support more multifamily developments.
Someone with the Farmers Branch public works department said the city has the infrastructure to sustain more multifamily units.
Farmers Branch Mayor Terry Lynne said the city can’t put a moratorium on more apartments because that would be against the law. He said he’s been in talks with the city manager about having a town hall on two of the biggest issues facing the city: multifamily developments and code enforcement. “Rather than sitting downstairs and letting people just fire at us for three minutes, let’s truly engage with our residents and let them have a say,” the mayor said. “When we talk about how do we satisfy the critics? Well, we have to listen to them.”
He added, “They also have to know, as we do too, it’s a balancing act. We’re juggling the future of the city.”
