Meetings of Interest
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Meetings of Interest 10: March 10, 2024

Meetings of Interest 10: March 10, 2024

Meetings of Interest: Zoning Out 🏖️

March 10, 2024 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Good evening:

The Dallas City Council is on recess for the next two weeks, so DDI will (sadly) not have any meetings to track for you until the last week of March.

But I still have plenty to share with you today. The annual two-week break follows a week of meaty discussion on major Downtown projects. Read on for more on:

Proposed high-speed rail lines from Dallas to Houston and Dallas to Fort Worth.
The latest on the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center Dallas redevelopment plan.
Plans to take down and trench Interstate 345 between Downtown and Deep Ellum.

⚡ Highlights From Last Week's Meetings of Interest:

-- The Dallas Charter Review Commission on Monday night

rejected a plan to strip the Park & Recreation Department of its independence

by putting its director under city manager control instead of continuing to report to a board appointed by the City Council. The unanimous vote followed testimony from dozens of parks supporters, including DDI President & CEO Jennifer Scripps and me. The thrust of our arguments: Don't "fix" what is not broken. The commission will take up a separate amendment on March 26 that would remove Park Board authority and have the director report directly to the City Council.

-- The latest renderings of a proposed Dallas-to-Fort Worth high-speed rail line show a seven-story track that would bisect the Reunion area from the rest of Downtown. At a time when Dallas and many other major American cities are working to undo decades of damage caused by highway projects that ripped through urban neighborhoods, the current plan is cause for concern. Most City Council members appear skeptical about the plan and pointed to the fact that they have not taken a formal vote on it in nearly a decade.

The Dallas Morning News

editorial board today calls for the city to

go "full steam ahead" on the separate Dallas-to-Houston line

, now backed by Amtrak. But

The News

sensibly encourages a pause on the Dallas-to-Fort Worth leg, noting "the creation of an unacceptable physical barrier along the western edge of Downtown."

Read the briefing from Wednesday's City Council meeting about these and other major Downtown transportation projects

-- Officials are reporting 41 bookings for the planned $3 billion Downtown convention center redevelopment, expected to open to new events in 2029. Learn more and sign up for email updates

here

. The City's own recap highlights the project's focus on

integrating communities to the south of Downtown

-- DDI continues to work with our partners on the Streetcar Central Link to connect the existing McKinney Avenue Trolley system and the Dallas Streetcar that runs from the edge of Downtown to Oak Cliff. That Downtown expansion was among the transportation priorities noted during Wednesday's briefings.

-- Plans to remove and trench Interstate 345 are advancing. The project is now projected to cost at least $1.65 billion and will impact nearly 3 miles of roadway, as

reported by D Magazine

. Public meetings are planned for later this month,

according to this briefing

Thanks to DDI's Nikia Summerlin, Urban Planning Manager, for monitoring hours of meetings every week and contributing to the above summaries.Questions? Nikia can be reached at [email protected].

📝 Memos of Interest:

-- Dallas Police 911 response times are improved when compared to this time last year, but remain short of department goals in every category of call type,

according to the latest public safety dashboard

(see chart above). Priority 1 calls are the most serious emergencies, with a goal of an 8-minute response. The goal for Priority 2 (prompt) is 12 minutes, Priority 3 (service) is 30 minutes, and Priority 4 (non-critical) is 60 minutes.

-- The lagging response times are the main reason Dallas Police officers will no longer respond in person to minor hit-and-run accidents with no injuries. Victims instead are expected to report those crimes online, the latest expansion of the Dallas Online Reporting System (DORS).

-- Based on recent legal advice, City officials no longer plan to hold informational community meetings about the $1.25 billion May bond program,

according to this memo

. City resources cannot be used for political advertising. The concern is that any staff discussion about individual bond projects may be considered political advertising. A detailed proposed bond project list still has not been released. A privately funded campaign is in the works to encourage passage of all bond propositions.

-- Community listening sessions on the City budget will be held later this month. Check out the schedule

here

-- The latest community survey to assess resident perceptions and priorities will launch this month. Randomly selected households will receive surveys by mail and follow-up phone calls. Results will be briefed to City Council in June.

-- Check out all the latest City Hall memos

here

and

here

Did we miss anything? Do you have any questions? Just want to talk about meetings?

Let me know