On April 8, 2024, the Richardson City Council received a briefing from consultants on progress on updating the City's Comprehensive Plan. The "Key Policy Areas" presented were placetypes, missing middle housing, and vision for reinvestment areas. Upcoming public engagement opportunities will allow the public to comment on the consultants' recommendations. Here I will report on the City Council's own feedback on placetypes, as expressed in the City Council meeting.
The current Comprehensive Plan, adopted in 2009, defines "generalized land uses and their relationships. It is not intended to reflect precise development densities or property dimensions, nor does the Future Land Use Plan constitute zoning regulations or establish zoning district boundaries." The updated Comp Plan will not deviate from that, but there are hints of relaxation in the "generalized" land uses in the Comp Plan. For example, whereas the current Comp Plan defines "Neighborhood Residential" as including "a variety of single-family housing types available for ownership, from detached single-family homes and patio homes to duplexes and single-family attached homes (townhomes)", the new placetype "Neighborhood Residential" allows for "Secondary Uses" such as "Office, Open Space, Public/Institutional Facilities, Retail/Restaurant, and Single-Family Attached." If adopted, this would allow, say, corner bodegas in residential neighborhoods. It would be a game changer for future Richardson development.
Here's what our Councilmembers had to say. Their comments have been slightly edited for clarity and brevity.
Councilmember Joe Corcoran: "Something that we don't have in Richardson, and I've wondered where it would fit it, is high-rise apartments." The answer given was that a high-rise apartment might be a part of a mixed-use building or a multifamily building. The Comp Plan is not setting a certain density, which will be set in the later zoning process. This answer is true, but unsatisfactory. The "Regional Employment" placetype explicitly calls out "mid- to high-rise office buildings" as an allowed use. Yet none of the placetypes calls out "high-rise apartments" as an allowed use. That could come back to bite us during the zoning process. Don't leave any room for future City Councils to reject an application for a high-rise apartment because it's not spelled out as allowable in the Comp Plan. Kudos to Corcoran for raising the question, but disappointment that he left it unclear exactly what he supports.
Councilmember Curtis Dorian: "Has anything been discussed about having a secondary, or tertiary, means of transportation, such as trolleys?" The answer was, "The transportation component is under development." Kudos to Dorian for raising a longstanding pet issue of mine. In June, 2011, I tweeted, "Richardson has 4 DART stations and lot of big gaps in between. A streetcar line up Greenville Ave. could tie it all together." In a 2013 blog post, I wrote: "Make Greenville Ave., not Main Street, the spine and you create a nice little network with Phillips, Kaufman, and Polk Street for development to spill down." Now is the time to get it in the City's long term plan. Councilmember Dorian, push for it.
Councilmember Dan Barrios: "What's the distinction between placetypes 'Neighborhood Residential' and 'Compact Residential'?" The answer suggested the difference is driven by lot size. Larger lots can support ADUs (Accessory Dwelling Units), whereas smaller lots cannot. Kudos to Barrios for uncovering this detail. This distinction came out again later in the briefing, in the presentation on "missing middle housing," where it appeared that ADUs will be allowed in placetype 'Neighborhood Residential' but not 'Compact Residential'?" The devil is in such details, and I fear neighborhood wars if one neighborhood is zoned to prohibit ADUs but the neighborhood next door is not. Barrios should insist that we don't kick the can down the road to the zoning process without establishing guidance on basic questions like that.
Mayor Pro Tem Arefin Shamsul: "We have to have revenue from new sources to get our infrastructure fixes...Are you going to define what density we can handle as a city? One of the things that I like...what do you call that thing?...A?...ADUs. Are you going to make some bold recommendation that might be uncomfortable for some, but might be something practical for the whole city?" In 2024, it's not "bold" to say our neighborhoods do not have the density to support the aging infrastructure needed by them. Despite Arefin's difficulty in even remembering the term ADU (which suggests he's more familiar hearing the term spoken by others than promoting ADUs himself), kudos to him for coming this close to saying he wants to see ADUs allowed in Richardson. Next time, just say it, Arefin. Don't ask the consultants if they are going to.
Councilmember Ken Hutchenrider: "In the plot box north of Renner Rd and east of Shiloh, that's not an area that has 'innovation/industry' in it. It has a long-term care facility and secondary medical spaces in there and it should be marked 'institutional/campus.'" Hutchenrider admits that he's "getting into the weeds." I don't disagree with his recommended change, but this is the kind of detailed change order that should have been reported outside meetings like this. The consultant should have published this presentation to the public well before the meeting and asked for a punch list of details needing review, saving meeting time for identifying strategic mistakes. Hutchenrider also suggested changing the placetype "Innovation/Industry" to "Innovation/Light Industry," revealing his natural weakness towards getting sucked into wordsmithing. In this case, completely inappropriately. See my analysis below of Councilmember Joe Corcoran's simple question, "What kind of industry does TI do?"
Councilmember Jennifer Justice: In the survey about the public's desire for various uses for the "Parks/Open Space" placetype, "what accounts for the really insignificant numbers" of responses? The answer was that members of the public didn't want anything built in our parks. They want them to remain parks. I found that answer to be obvious, but maybe it's good that Justice pointed it out.
After the first round of feedback, some Councilmembers came back with more.
Councilmember Curtis Dorian: "Some of these more boutique neighborhoods that have not yet been exposed to transition, with homes being torn down and larger monstrosities being built, is there some way of looking into how some of the integrity of the neighborhood can be preserved?" The consultant's answer sidestepped the question by saying later implementation decisions, such as zoning regulations and ordinances, would answer those questions. City Manager Don Magner stepped in with an even less satisfying answer. He said that won't be addressed by this process. He said the tool for this is already in place, called a Neighborhood Development Overlay, adopted in 2008, where homeowners in a district can come together and voluntarily ask for restrictions in order to preserve the integrity of their neighborhood. I guess that means there'll be no general role for the Comp Plan to play in preserving Richardson's history while defining its future redevelopment. I hope Dorian doesn't accept that answer. Suggest something, Dorian.
Councilmember Joe Corcoran: "What kind of industry does TI do?" The preliminary Comp Plan treats all manufacturing the same. It's all allowed in zones marked "Innovation/Industrial." Corcoran didn't explain why he asked. Perhaps he is open to creating different placetypes for heavy industry vs light industry. Or perhaps he was responding to Hutchenrider's suggestion to rename the placetype to "Innovation/Light Industry." TI engages in heavy industry. It is energy intensive. It uses a range of heavy metals, acids, alkalis, solvents, and toxic chemicals. It uses a lot of water. The City of Richardson is taking parkland at Point North Park to build a 5M gallon storage tank and is laying new underground pipes along Renner Rd in the direction of TI's two megafabs. Water gets contaminated during the semiconductor manufacturing process. In 2007, the Hamilton Park neighbors of TI's Expressway site alleged that groundwater contamination by TI had damaged their property values. Limiting the "Innovation/Industry" placetype to "Light industry", as Ken Hutchenrider suggested, would make TI's manufacturing operations a non-conforming use. Clarifying this in the Comp Plan is worth the time and effort invested in it. Still, City Manager Don Magner's answer was unsatisfactory: "This is the kind of clarity we will get from the community." I've participated in those community summits. Clarity is seldom an output.
Councilmember Dan Barrios: We should take "a holistic approach when we're looking at stuff, knowing where we are with infrastructure." City Manager Don Magner replied, "We have rezoned Main, 75, West Spring Valley, the IQ, CityLine, UT-Dallas. We are confident today that all of the planning work we've done around our core infrastructure can support that." Let's just say Barrios and Magner are both right. The City should prepare our infrastructure for the expected demands placed on it by the new Comp Plan. And each time the City Council is considering approval of something, they should ask the City Manager for, not just a traffic impact study, but a complete infrastructure impact study, including emergency services.
Mayor Bob Dubey: "I would caution us as we try to focus in on exact definitions — is it industrial, light, heavy, whatever. I think our goal is that we want to be user-friendly. We want to be able to be a city that is known for working with applicants." The Mayor's chiding those on the Council who seek clarity just sets up problems later. Imprecise language is not user-friendly to anyone. The Mayor is right that the way to make sure TI is not zoned out of Richardson is to not limit industry to only "light industry." But if we don't want a new concrete mixing plant anywhere that the Comp Plan says "industry" is allowed, then maybe we should distinguish between light industry and heavy industry in the Comp Plan. We should at least talk about it now. Leaving such details up to the whims of a future City Council on a case by case basis isn't user friendly to anyone.
Part 2: "Council Recap: Missing Middle Housing"
"Placetypes presented.
Land use rules may see changes.
City's future mapped."
—h/t ChatGPT
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