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On Monday, Dallas City Council member Cara Mendelsohn broke quorum when she walked out of the Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee meeting. The meeting ended shortly after.
“I have been on boards of directors since I was 14 years old and never done that,” Mendelsohn explained in a social media post after the meeting. “Why now?”
She said she did so because an item was up for consideration that she felt needed more time to be considered.
Pam Thompson, a program manager with the Department of Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization, had just finished telling the committee their recommendations for something called One Dallas Options. It’s an expansion of the city’s Mixed Income Development Bonus program. When Thompson was finished, Mendelsohn had a lot of questions, but the meeting was already running over time.
“I have 10 pages of questions,” Mendelsohn told the committee at the meeting. “I think we need to hold this item for next month please.”
City Council member Jesse Moreno said he was instead ready to vote on the item. That’s when Mendelsohn got up and walked out, breaking quorum. “Sorry,” she said as she grabbed her things and left.
Mendelsohn explained her position on social media shortly after. “Instead of holding the item for next month or calling a special meeting to consider the item, there was a motion to send it to the full council with the committee’s recommendation to approve with no discussion/questions,” Mendelsohn said. “This is not the way Dallas City Council should operate.”
I broke quorum by walking out of the Housing & Homeless Solutions committee meeting today. I have been on boards of directors since I was 14 years old and never done that. Why now? 1/
— caraathome (@ðŸ¡) (@caraathome) March 28, 2022
She added: “By walking out, the meeting was forced to end (three council members had already left since it was 30 minutes past the posted time). Staff could still move it to the full council agenda if they wish, but not with the committee’s recommendation.”
The committee has been briefed on recommendations for the program four times between October 2020 and December 2021. There have also been two housing policy task force meetings, four zoning ordinance advisory committee meetings, and three City Plan Commission meetings.
The goal of One Dallas Options is to increase affordable housing development in the city. It’s looking for different ways to incentivize that development. One of those ways could be a “fee in lieu” option, which would have builders pay into an affordable housing fund rather than face requirements that they include affordable units in their projects. The council could also make amendments to the city’s housing code.
In 2016, the City Council amended the code to require developers looking to get funding from the city to lease 10% of their units to housing voucher holders. If it couldn’t meet that 10%, those units would be required to be held as vacant, which means those units are out for the count and people looking for affordability have that many fewer options. Changing the city’s housing code to remove that 10% requirement for voucher holders, could open up more units for more people.
While they couldn’t agree to bring these recommendations to full council just yet, all the members of the Housing and Homelessness Solutions Committee likely agree Dallas needs more equitable, affordable housing.
When the city approved its first comprehensive housing policy, it found Dallas was lacking some 20,000 affordable units. More recently, a report on this policy found it was “silent on equity.”
One Dallas Options is still scheduled for City Council consideration by the end of April. Moreno told the Observer that after Mendelsohn left the committee went on a short recess. When they came back, they had a quorum and voted to take the recommendations to the Economic Development Committee before sending it to the full council.
