How About Affordable Housing at Arapaho DART Station?

The area around the Arapaho DART station is ripe for redevelopment. The entire East Arapaho/Collins neighborhood is a target for enhancement/redevelopment by the city, in fact, the largest such area in Richardson. So, it's not too early to get my careabout added to the wishlist, right?

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I have favored the construction of affordable housing not just in south Dallas, not just in north Dallas, too, but even in Richardson, a market lately overlooked, even shunned for truly affordable housing. I have called for linking up-zoning requests by developers to commitments to include subsidized housing in the development, and passing a housing voucher non-discrimination ordinance. Now Jim Schutze of The Dallas Observer raises another intriguing possibility that could be right at home in east Richardson.

One of the better ideas being floated out there these days involves building affordable housing on or over the parking lots at Dallas Area Rapid Transit stations.

Source: Jim Schutze.

All that parking around the Arapaho DART station is going to have to give way to redevelopment sooner or later. Maybe a little creative thinking at city hall and DART can prevent it from being developed the way all the other apartments in Richardson have been — targeted at young, urban professionals. Maybe, just maybe, DART can be persuaded to give up some of its concrete landing pads for cars in favor of parking garages topped with subsidized affordable housing.

It seems like a win all-around. Richardson gets redevelopment in what's now a vast wasteland of parking lots. Those who need affordable housing get a place to live within walking distance of outstanding public transit. And if all those warehouses and light industrial buildings to the east get redeveloped to where they need more employees, the workers will be living close at hand. And it's all away from established neighborhoods where homeowners are bound to object to anything like this close to them. What's not to like?