City to provide feedback updates on ForwardDallas Comprehensive Land Use Plan progress

After hosting workshops over the past months aimed at gathering resident feedback on an update to the ForwardDallas Comprehensive Land Use Plan, leaders from Dallas’ Planning & Urban Design Department are ready to share the feedback they received and garner additional input as they prepare to develop a draft map of land-use options across the city.

The department recently listed five new listening session events from Jan. 31-Feb. 3 on its website, where it will focus on specific topics and community stakeholders as it looks to finalize the ForwardDallas update, which will help guide future development in the city.

”We want to make sure that people feel engaged in the process, understand what it means to have a comprehensive plan, understand what the place types mean, and give people the space to ask questions and provide us feedback,” PUDD Assistant Director Andrea Gilles previously told Community Impact.

Focuses of the upcoming virtual meetings include sessions on housing options and environmental justice, while the others are designed to receive feedback and discuss implications of the update for groups, such as nonprofits, business owners and developers.

The initial ForwardDallas plan was adopted in 2006 with input from more than 2,000 residents and a goal of being a document that would make recommendations on things, such as land use, economic development, housing and transportation. The initial plan contained seven policy sections, called elements, to touch on those topics. In that time, five of those elements have been updated through the adoption of other, more specific policies, leaving only the land-use element and the urban design element as the remaining two in need of an update.

Through the spring, city staff plan to continue to gather feedback on the ForwardDallas update through community meetings and via an online portal where residents can leave area-specific comments. City staff expect to begin to produce a draft map of land-use after wrapping up its initial series of workshops in the spring. After that, there will be more feedback meetings with the hope of taking a final draft to City Council for approval in the fall.

For more information on upcoming listening sessions, visit https://dallascityhall.com/departments/pnv/Forward-Dallas/Pages/default.aspx.