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WATCHFUL EYE ON DEVELOPMENT

By D Magazine |

Neighborhood organiza-tions have kept a watchful eye on City Hall since plans for a major redevelopment of southern Dallas were announced last May.

The ground-clearing techniques that Realtor David Fox and former city manager George Schrader used in building Bryan Place have made the Concerned Citizens Coalition for Southern Dallas vow, “Never again.”

In order to “gentrify” the decaying Exall Park neighborhood near downtown, Fox required nearly 60 acres of land. The city’s building inspectors obligingly blitzed the Exall Park area with tickets for building violations. In 1975 the number of citations had jumped from less than 10 the previous year to more than 150.

In other areas of the inner city during the Seventies, army reserve units on summer duty helped officials red-tag buildings.

Property owners were given little or no assistance to bring their properties up to code, says the coalition’s researcher, John Fullinwider. Instead, a buyer came behind the inspectors with offers to purchase the plots of land, usually at low prices. When the dust settled, nearly 300 structures had bit it, and at least 1800 people had been forced from the Exall Park area.

The coalition hopes to get the jump on the developers this time. It represents 18 citizens groups from “southern” Dallas, which includes Oak Cliff, South Dallas and parts of the east and west. Such groups as the Coalition of Redbird Neighbors, the Lower Peaks Branch Corporation and the Bois d’Arc Patriots are involved.

One of the coalition’s aims is to stop developers from razing entire neighborhoods by changing the development requirements. This could come in the form of guaranteed loans for renovations of existing housing and the development of already vacant lots.

The city council is already going along with the coalition in some respects. A January council vote requires that 60 percent of the 15-member board of directors of Dallas’ new Industrial Development Corporation come from southern Dallas.

The resolution implementing industrial planning for West Dallas now calls for the study of possible pollution.

Most importantly, the term “economic development” in the planning for West Dallas is now linked with “neighborhood preservation” in the council’s resolution.

“It’s only two words,” Full-inwider says, “We’ll have to fight it out to see what it means later.”

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