Dallas News Blog

I think Mr. Escobedo is on to something here, speaking environmentally, of course.

I have wondered for years why the city of Dallas insists on planting grass in medians and parkways. It generally looks terrible; it either is dead from lack of water, brown from cold temps, or it needs to be mowed.

Couldn't we save alot of gasoline (for the mowers) and money (to hire people, to buy and repair mowers, and to buy gas) if the city planted groundcover instead of grass? Something native, drought-tolerant, and low-growing? Wouldn't liriope do better than grass?

Every time I see the medians being mowed down to a brown nubble I think, "What a waste of money."

That said, I wouldn't want my neighbor installing astroturf in a residential area. As it is, my neighbor has fake flowers in front of his house and he is convinced no one can tell they're plasstic. We pretended to be very surprised when he "confessed" his secret to us, but I would draw the line at an entire yard of astroturf.

So I guess we're supposed to be grateful that he didn't go totally El Paso and do a gravel front yard?

Hey, why stop at the grass? Shouldn't the trees and bushes be plastic, too?

The house next door was recently sold.

This looks kinda good in the photo, sort of airbrushed like they do for the girls in...

However this is a historic district - so if you want something fake, move to Frisco.

I know we are weird but we like a little grit in East Dallas - if that makes the Frisco folks freak, all the better. Look up 'patina'.

From wikipedia: "Apart from the aesthetic appearance and practical protection of patination, antique experts confirm that an object's value increases when its patination is intact because it is an important effect of the ageing process and this evidential history is reflected in the value of the piece".

Her green plastic watering can
For her fake Chinese rubber plant
In the fake plastic earth.
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans
To get rid of itself.
It wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out.

I want to hear more about the man's disrespectful attitude. That's where the entertainment value lies in this story. Details?

"however, this is a historic district- so if you want something fake, move to Frisco."

Or lakewood.

This is a great human interest story.

actually his faux lawn is not as environmentally as you would think. It actually increases the amount of run-off during a rainstorm. if there were a real lawn the ground would absorb the rain instead of running into the streets.

@Peterk
Faux lawns are porous and drain faster and better than real grass.

Next week, the Landmark Commission is going around ripping out the air conditioning on houses in which it's not period-appropriate.

Where exactly in Frisco are all the houses with fake lawns?

Should we remind Mr. cruz that this country was founded on freedom of speech to critize the government. How DID the man disrespect the commission, did he use profanity, then it is the chair's responsibility to rule him out of order or the security to remove him. Please don't give anybody any more ideas or support for the artificial flowers, we're trying to figure out how to tell our neighbor in a nonhistoric district, that artificial is cool at the cemeterary but not in our middle class
manicured homes.

PeterK...why is run off so bad? doesn't it just go back into the system(as pure)? Isn't water a commodity?

To Bobby and PeterK, the artificial turf would have little to do with how the yard drains. That is more related to the soil beneath the turf. Our soil absorbs water at approx. 1/1700 inch per hour.

I wonder though about the trees I see in his yard. Those trees may well need water, have likely grown and adapted to being watered to support a lawn. If we go a month with no rain, he could easily loose his trees. Judging by the tree in the foreground in the shot, his entire yard is a network of tree roots.

I hate it as I can't make money off of him. Anyway, I guess it's his yard. Yes, telephone poles, electricity should all be removed as they don't comply with the original intent.

@LakeWWWooder,

I'm not interloping into your lives in Dallas; I am mocking them.

Well the guy was just on Channel 8 speaking English! Has anyone ever gotten anything from the city which wasn't also in Spanish?

This 'bungalow heaven' neighborhood went through a two-year process of applying for historic designation - it fills in the gap between the Swiss and Munger Place Historic Districts, the 7-acre Woodrow and Long Historic Landmarks and Hollywood Heights Conservation District. Junius Heights is an important piece of the puzzle which now makes Old East Dallas one of the largest official historic areas in the nation.

I don't think most folks who like astroturf would want to live in such an area or would have spoken up during the application process. In English or Spanish.

BTW JH is served by Lipscomb Elementary, just ranked exemplary for the fourth year in a row and the aforementioned Woodrow, ranked by Newsweek as a top school for its AP program. Next year it will be one only three dozen schools in Texas to offer the International Diploma Programme.

I think this man's lawn looks great and as an East Dallas resident who likes a little "grit", I'm fine with it. I wonder if the outcome would have been different if his name was Ellis and he didn't need to use a translator? I guess we'll never know.

RoB, the number is accurate 1/1700ths of an inch per hour is the percolation rate for the Black Gumbo that is so common here. I learned this in horticulture class at Richland from Bart Blaydes.

Fun with tags: Landmark Commission Tells Junius Heights Man to Yank His Fake Lawn

@Human Being: Brilliant!

Plano Dave,

Your very moniker mocks itself.

Scott, so you're saying that Texas soils can't absorb more than about five inches of rain per year? Everything else is runoff?

1/1700 inch per hour is 15 microns per hour. That would be a slow rate of evaporation, much less absorption into soil.

Come on people that grass stays the same color for 20 years it as holes every for inches so water can go in. Stop stryin to get in other people stuff jelous because your house doesnt look as nice as his. Get a life and stop gettion in his life. The landmark should of done something of the new house a couple of houses down it looks like an office that as notting historic about it i wonder if they toke money in order forthem to build it. Historic I see nothing historic and ive lived here for 15years. Plus how wants to live in the 1900s nobody hello we all deppend on computers, tv, phones, why cant you have a nice lawn to!

In fact, who mows most of our lawns? Mexicans do. So if people start replacing their lawns with astroturf, the mexicans will be out of a job and have to go back to mexico. So maybe cp and his fellow astroturfers are the ones with the secret plan to get rid of mexicans.....

maybe if he spoke the language of the land he would have adhered to the warnings

El Paso is in a fucking desert, so the city actually provides incentives to switch per sq ft from grass to rock/natural vegetation. There are also bans, where you can only water once every few days. Even our fields at our schools--where children play--are maintained with the purple pipes (read: recycled water).

Most of the people I know in Austin from Highland Park perceive it as some neoconservative suburban hellhole. I'm kind of more interested in how he offended the commission.

i doubt that in the 1900's they had beautifully manicured lawns either. probably just dirt and goats.

I read an article a couple of months ago about a college in Canada that wanted to replace sod with turf and do in with zero environmental impact from the manufacture of the turf and transporting it. This college needed to plan some 1200 trees and water them for ten years to zero out the impact. What would that mean to an average home owner? 120 trees planted and watered for ten years. Don’t know about you but our yard would not hold 120 trees. Let alone 20!

Looks awesome! Some busy body gets their panties in a wad and they yell "New rule! New rule!"

I suppose they should ban air-conditioners too. The lawn looks far more authentic to the early 1900s than a huge compressor on the side of the house LOL

Shame there are no private property rights anymore in freeking America...

@ Gaia- gentrification= n. The restoration and upgrading of deteriorated urban property by middle-class or affluent people, often resulting in displacement of lower-income people.

Any of that going on in Old East Dallas? Nah, didn't think so. Prolly why Rod Dreher's all scared to let his kids play outside, what with all the new white homos moving in and all.

@ Observist- I agree that the paved over lawns for more cars is a problem, but let's start with where it needs to start: how many people in one house does it take to make it a "single-family residence"? If there are 4 or 5 trucks at one house and they were all parked on the street, it's a code violation, So they pave over the yard to make a bigger driveway and now it's no longer a code violation. What do you suggest that the City do to alleviate this concern? Hint- it's not a Landmark Commission issue.

@ Not From Around Here- who cares what he did to "offend" the commission! Unless he flipped em the bird and started screaming profanities, the fact that they would frown upon him due to his alleged lack of respect is telling about the little-hitler control freaks who are APPOINTED (in other words, not professional architects and such) to serve the people of the City of Dallas. This is supposed to be an impartial panel- like ALL appointed boards and commissions- so the fact that he "offended" them somehow, is offensive to me and should be to you too. Was he chewing gum? Did he look off in the distance when he spoke? Who cares? None of that is pertinent to the case at hand! This isn't the Supreme Court, for cryin' out loud!

"Where exactly in Frisco are all the houses with fake lawns?"

exactly what I was thinking. Folks in San Francisco don't even have lawns.

Also, Fred, don't call it Frisco. No one in the Bay Area calls it Frisco and only tools who have never been call it that.

Fake grass rules man! The grass isn't any more fake than the fake smiles and fake titties of your average Texas girl.

On a related note, why is everyone from Texas retarded? Seriously, it's laughable how Texans think they're better than the rest of the US when clearly...they are...in fact...retarded

My god I'd give my right nut for a nice green lawn like that!...thats if I had nuts. LOL

Also those lawns still need tending, they get organic debris on them just by being outside. Then weeds take hold in any organic debris logged in it and grow. Yes weeds will grow on astroturf too. I bought an old house were someone put astroturf on the front porch. Dirt kicked up by people and cars got on it along with leaves and such. I laughed so hard when I saw weeds growing on it.

close minded peeps! get a life! let him have the aftificial grass!

It's his property and his right to do with it as he pleases so long as his actions do not harm his neighbors.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard in my life-while other cities are encouraging people to use alternatives LIKE astroturf, rock or natural foliage, Dallas is forcing this man to pull up his astroturf! Which he recycle from an old school, BTW! Instead of going into a landfill, it went into his yard. The environmental impact seems to be up in the air so even besides that-as he grows old in his home he will not have to worry about the additional expense of watering a lawn (which is a HORRIBLE WASTE of water), mowing, weeding, etc. As a homeowner myself, I am SICK and TIRED of city government trying to tell me what I can and cannot do with my property. I pay MUCH MORE THAN A FAIR AMOUNT of property tax on property that has been in the family for over 100 years, just as this man was living in his house BEFORE it became part of a historic district. He has made an intelligent, economical decision to keep his yard looking decent after trying the conventional methods. LEAVE HIM ALONE, it is HIS house. It kind of looks to me like someone is trying to make trouble for him because THEY WANT HIS HOUSE. I will definitely be watching this story unfold and you better believe that I will take action for his legal defense if necessary. This is absolutely RIDICULOUS and so typical of the kind of bigotry I have come to expect from Dallas officials.
By the way, I think the house and lawn look lovely.

Those saying "less government" and "down with HOAs" are putting your right-wing fanaticism in the wrong place. I am not one of Mr. Esobedo's neighbors that reported him, but do I live 2 blocks down the street. I had not noticed the lawn until I saw the article, but I must say it does NOT look as good up close in person- very "Disney". The decision is NOT solely his, property owner or not, it is actually a decision jointly for the City and his neighbors which is part of choosing to live in a protected historical district. I hate foolish HOAs and I moved from Frisco just to get away from their stupid rules. But the rules of Junius Heights are there for everyone's protection when people started tearing down houses for McMansions.

This is a neighborhood in transition and was drug-infested not 6-7 years ago according to my neighbor, a resident of 30 years. Only since designated a historically protected district did people start buying these beautiful, but neglected houses and restoring them to their former glory. The difficult thing is the gentrification and flight of the latinos out of the neighborhood. As a latino couple, my husband and I feel mixed about this. Simply put, we love the diversity, but also appreciate people that can afford to take care of their houses well. There’s no easy answer.

However, zeroscaping is not the answer for this neighborhood either. A great lawn can be accomplished cheaply with the proper aeration, feeding, and grey water. This is how we care for lawns in my hometown of San Diego. Astroturf is far from environmentally friendly- it only limits chemicals in the soil, but other than that it harms beneficial insects, prevents water from reentering the water table (increasing runnoff) and bottom-like looks awful in person. Leave the astroturf for the magazines, keep Junius heights’ natural setting.

100 years ago, most homes in this country didn't have lawns!