What Does Mayor Mike, City's 'Plan For Growth in Southern Dallas' Consist Of? Everything.

DaTruth

Can someone make a Venn Diagram of John Wiley Price, Mike Rawlings, and residents of South Dallas?

Anon

N Oak Cliff is developing because people cared. they took huge risks because they cared about the area and they wanted to make things better for the place they lived. only now in 2012 is the big money finding its way there, which is probably the surest way to screw things up. this is a direct result of the city's rezoning efforts in the area. no one is going to turn around S Dallas because the city made a cool powerpoint presentation.

dallasmay

Love the bishops photo. It's amazing what a few trees can do.

Erik

My prediction is that south Dallas will get developed. The finished product will just be much whiter than it is now. Watch out black people, whitey is coming for your land.

Guest

Looking at what success is happening in Oak Cliff and Southern Dallas in spite of the various plans and interventions from City Hall, you'd think the lesson would be that the city should stay out of it.

whycertainly

So do N.Oak Cliff and N.Dallas inhabit the same land area, demographics, population numbers?

Urbandweller203

This"diamond in the rough plan' has been the most obvious plan for decades,yet horded by manipulative and visionless leaders who sold out the area decadesago. For some gut feeling, I'm thinking Rawling may be able to get this thingmoving if a few key issues transpire. The first good thing is the QoL committeeand the Dallas studio; great concepts to city planning.

Now, let seeif Rawlings can break those South Dallas shackles he created to get into cityhall. If he can't do it, the plan gets corrupted once again. If I remembercorrectly, he said in a campaign speech which included a map to designate thesedevelopment areas to community leaders…although I think his plan is good, but his approach is a bear trap, a Don Hill repeat.

Also, ifthis diamond (Southern Dallas) is to be clean and shined, the demographics mustchange to foster educated leadership. There is no way the current demographiccan support viable and desirable commercial retail. In addition, bold andcreative individual and families will have to move into the area as trailblazers to start the change. I believe this is happening with the new development.

Oak Cliff Townie

Maybe a better question is

How can a city UN-DEVELOP what is already there ?

Thelisma Partridge

If there's money to be made then the plan will go forward. It may not succeeed but it will go forward. Look at all the potential for profit on the west side of Stringy Thing. People in the know (and who had the means) were buying up property on the cheap YEARS before the bridge would be completed. Now they stand to reap the profits after sitting on property for all this time. By "in the know" I mean those businessmen and politicians who knew beforehand the bridge was a sure thing. Follow the money.

DCtoo

Respectfully, but sorry you are not following the money. It's too hard. You follow the big things, The Stringy Thing, The Hotel, The Tollroad, The Stadium. Over $40millions$$ in 2006 bond money and over $200million$$ in Housing dollars (according to this presentation) have been spent. Where is that money? Or the hundreds of million$$ more in HUD and LIHTC funds? Did not go to the Stringy Thing or Downtown Hotel or any of the easy things to tsk tsk over. It went to big and small developers, forprofit and nonprofit, obscure and locally famous. It went quietly in dribbles with no one on Council, at City Hall, in the media, or at HUD watching. Where would you look for $240million$$ in new taxable property? You won't find it as long as the City stays busy assuming (tax exempt) ownership of stumbling projects for its pals.

It's a half baked plan that will go nowhere. City Hall staff flunked again.

DCtoo

rc you are right. A bunch of OLD half baked plans with hundreds of thousand$, millions$$, of City and HUD dollars already 'invested'. Halfbaked and just as playtime as Bexar Street amatuer hour and your money will continue to flow to them any way.

DC (are you DC of the Washington Post?), yes the pics are so pretty. They've been passing the same slides around for a long time. Did you see recent HUD audit disallows Houston HUD spending for perpetuating segregation; the whistleblower article you link to might be the first of many? You need smart readers of this blog to do what the paid media doesn't have time to do, look up every single deal on DCAD, in the Dallas County official public records, and the Dallas County property tax records.

For example, pretty pictures of 10 Seeds of Change Jubilee senior deal but the deed reveals a 100% public funding with a requirement to transfer ownership to the City for seniors public housing when finished. (over)Pay bcWorkshop to design it, (over)pay a broke non-profit to build it, (over)pay >$100,000 unit to build it, and lose $75,000-$100,000 annually in tax receipts. Permanently. Provident deal just passed Council committee with no discussion. Lose $100,000 in tax receipts, save a forprofit developer's investment with new municipal bonds and $600,000 in TIF affordable housing cash, then give $50,000 year to one of the usual HomelessIncNon-Profit. DISD forfeits almost $50,000 annually. Why would DISD approve? They probably don't know?

Bexar Street? Property taxes due? Mechanic's liens? How much private funding did the Plano developer bring to the deal? The deal is stalled waiting on the next round of City funds to pay off the plumber, the brick mason and the taxes.

Get the VA to help build a pedestrian bridge to the empty property across the DART rail? A ped bridge to the empty property the City has given nearly $5million to an inexperienced, unknown developer to acquire? And voted, with no discussion, another $100,000 to last week. Who is Sapphire and how much private investment did the Arlington developer bring for those million$? Not a single dollar?

Lorlee said the media won't cover this stuff because it's too "arcane". Maybe. Or maybe the media doesn't think it's important to question the developers, forprofit and nonprofit, that they like? So the DMN says Frazier Revitalization's Hatcher Square is good because it's a great local nonprofit deal with great local "donor" behind it? In County records City gave $750,000 to Frazier Revitalization nonprofit and $250,000 to a supposed nonprofit Frazier HS. ButFrazier HS is a forprofit and now holds $1million of city funded land. Does the City even know? But the reporter just takes Mr. Generosity's word that it is a nonprofit and there is other investment in it? Really?

Paid media would have to start questioning Mr. Jubilee, and the divine Mr. BB at bcWorkshop, and Master Frazier exactly the same way they want to question the sneaky JWP, and Perot Jr, and the Equity fellas. Then someone might realize the dirty business starts long before cash stuffed envelopes in parking lots and includes all sorts of super duper dogooder folks along with the greedy slimers.

PoPo

Houston's housing and segregation situation was so bad, the federal government had to step in and take over the entire City Housing Department. I am sure something similar will happen in Dallas. How much FRAUD will be tolerated???

Go read about it:

http://www.chron.com/news/hous...

Watchdog

Yes, lots of corrupt real estate dealings to come out soon. Wait til you see who at City Hall is implicated. Huge news......stand by!!!!

Replay

Ya' know, there is an entire room over at City Hall with copies of previous Mayor's plans for South Dallas. Throw this one on the pile.

Fieldofdreams

I optimistically and perhaps foolishly disagree. From what I have seen from Rawlings before and after becoming mayor, his is not a gas bag. He only sets out to do things if he really plans to do them. He has not succeeded in everything, but he has in most things, by being a doer, not a talker.

Seriously, its good that they are at least taking the initiative to come up with nice marketing/propaganda materials to give the illusion they care about the concentration camp, we know as South Dallas, but the facts remain, that the politicos have caused this state of affairs with illegal actions over the past 50+ years, and the current group of politico's have contributed greatly during their tenure.

Pretty pictures, and nice sounding words is only a possible start. Lets see actions!!!

Of course, South Dallas has the greatest prospects for turnaround and growth. Any area that has been a dumping ground and illegally neglected for decades has the highest opportunity merely because of this fact. As Dallas is now experiencing, its getting things started/rolling when your coming from such a horribly negative place. Who wants to catch a falling knife?

Here is the root cause of the problem in South Dallas that is going to take decades to remedy:

http://blogs.dallasobserver.co...

http://www.dallasobserver.com/...

DallasJarrod

Do they have to kiss JWP's ring to get this done?

Montemalone

I don't think it's his ring he wants kissed.

Shelley

As long as the "Imma get me mines" attitude prevails in South Dallas, there will never be any progress

Downtown_worker

Was Schutze's suggestion to turn Fair Park into an industrial zone some sort of joke, cause I didn't get it. There are two transit stops in the neighborhood that can take people to other employment centers.

Fair Park is the only place in Dallas that can accommodate tens of thousands of people. It's the only place in the city where I've seen black, white, brown, rich and poor congregate at the same time. If you don't recognize how rare and valuable that is, then you don't understand Dallas.

Robert Wilonsky

I believe he would call it some kind of a ... modest proposal?

Montemalone

MMMMMMMmmmmmmmm.Roasted kid.

Fieldofdreams

Mayor Rawlings knows how to do this sort of thing. Whether you like Pizza Hut or not (or any of the other projects he has successfully pulled off), we might just want to wait/see how he executes this plan. It may succeed, it may fail. But it will be a real plan, not smoke and mirrors. This guy is not perfect but he is a doer.

jfpo

I hear nothing but typical CEO bullshit, where perceived quality is more important than actual quality. He left out important corporate gibberish like "merging of synergies" and "shifting the paradigm." This is nothing but an unfunded marketing program designed to improve our perception of the mayor. He's selling, I'm not buying.