Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson and others are determined to see at least $350 million of the new borrowing go toward parks and recreation and $375 million for streets and transportation.
A community bond task force helped come up with these figures.
City staff have other ideas about what to do with the money. They’d like to see more than $532 million spent on streets and transportation and only $225 million be set aside for parks. City Council members were divided on which recommendation they should listen to, the task force’s or city staff’s. One thing the bond task force and city staff did agree on is how much to spend on housing, homelessness and economic development. Although they differed on the specifics of the allocation, they both recommended $100 million go toward those areas despite a group of advocates pushing for $200 million to be spent solely on housing. City staff recommends $70 million be spent specifically on housing, while the task force recommended only $25 million.
It’s a far cry from what members of the Dallas Housing Coalition have been asking for. The coalition has been fighting hard for $200 million to be spent on housing to help close the affordability gap in the city. The group was heavily represented at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, with many showing up in blue T-shirts bearing the name Dallas Housing Coalition."We’re here so future generations of Dallasites can afford to live here.” – Bryan Tony, Dallas Housing Coalition
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“Today we represent 180 members from all parts of the city of Dallas,” said Bryan Tony, a principal organizer of the group. A false narrative has been spread, he said, that there isn’t a specific plan for the $200 million he wants to see spent on housing. On the contrary, there is a plan.
Tony previously told the Observer that $80 million could go to homeownership production focusing on condos, townhomes and duplexes. Another $70 million could go toward new targeted area investments, with $20 million of that set aside for the city’s International District. About $50 million could go to housing preservation with $10 million of that to be used for single-family-home repairs and owner-occupied housing. The other $40 million would be used for rental housing rehabilitation.
He asked the members of the coalition to stand. “We are and represent teachers, the service industry, construction workers and contractors, veterans, seniors, young professionals, students and first responders who are housing-cost burdened trying to rent or dreaming of owning a home,” Tony said. “We are here for those who can’t be. We are here so people can start families. We’re here so people can age in place. We’re here so future generations of Dallasites can afford to live here.”
Lisa Marshall, a member of the coalition who started a group called Fighting Homelessness, shared with the City Council the story of people she’s been advocating for who have struggled to keep roofs over their heads because of the cost of living in Dallas.
Marshall said that in April 2022 she brought to City Council five tenants whose apartment complex had just been bought and were facing displacement because of rent increases. Two of those people were Hector Hernandez and Alecia Sanchez. They both live on fixed incomes and for a brief time were staying together so they could afford rent more easily. Today, they each live on their own, spending 80%–91% of their fixed income on rent. Hernandez is left with $105 at the end of each month to cover other expenses. This shouldn’t be the case, she said. “Relocating the proposed $200 million bond toward affordable housing guided by policy changes, lot sizes and density could significantly impact the lives of the vulnerable,” Marshall said.
But the mayor isn’t having it. While he wasn’t at Wednesday’s City Council meeting, the mayor used his state of the city address to share his thoughts on the bond package."You can't put a value on creating an affordable city to live in." – Adam Bazaldua, Dallas City Council
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“Unfortunately, but predictably, we have heard from a few loud voices who believe the proposed parks allocation should be cut in favor of more taxpayer-supported housing,” Johnson said during his address. This would be a mistake, he said, because the government isn’t good at playing the role of a housing developer. But it is good at parks and recreation, he said. “That’s why we must press forward with an unprecedented investment in our city’s parks in the next bond program,” Johnson said.
He'd rather see the local government do all it can to make things easier for developers to help facilitate the construction of affordable housing. Arun Agarwal, the chair of the community bond task force, agrees. He told City Council members last week, “When it comes to housing, the local government has to drive the policy, rather than handing blank checks to the developers,” said Agarwal, who is also chair of the city’s park and recreation board. “When you drive those policies, then it’ll automatically incentivize developers to create that affordable housing that is badly needed.”
Johnson and Agarwal think parks spending will give the city the biggest bang for its buck. Dallas City Council member Adam Bazaldua isn't so sure. During budget town halls, Bazaldua said he heard from residents that housing, homelessness and streets were some of their biggest priorities. "I think it's being sold disingenuously that investment in parks will give us the biggest return on our spending," Bazaldua told the Observer. "You can't put a value on creating an affordable city to live in." He said he's leaning more toward staff's recommendation because it has a bigger allocation for housing, but he said both recommendations could go even further on funding housing, and that homelessness should get its own allocation in the bond package.
The City Council will continue to discuss the bond package in the coming months, with a plan to bring it to Dallas voters in May.
