Preston Hollow is LOSING Housing

If you follow us on Social Media, you have likely seen one of our "Neighborhoods that need more Housing" posts. Using census data, we have been looking at specific census tracts and how they have not been building enough housing. These neighborhoods have mostly been wealthy, white, northern neighborhoods with almost all single family homes. And while there are plenty of these neighborhoods, the most egregious of them are in Preston Hollow. Using census data from PolicyMap.com, I looked at the area outlined below and found that the amount of homes in the area has DECREASED since 2000. Yes, the amount of housing has gone down. For reference, since 2000 the population of DFW has increased by 2.5 million people.

This area encompasses about 11 square miles in some of the most centrally located land in the city. You can get to downtown in 15 minutes, Love Airport in 10 minutes, DFW airport in 25 minutes, and Addison in 15 minutes. The area has tons of amenities with a high concentration of grocery stores, North Park, and Northaven trail. There are even articles bragging about the big yards and plentiful trees. And for the last 20 years, this area has been walled off from any expansion in housing because its rich and predominantly white residents refuse for it to be built there. 

Preston Hollow residents might try to argue that they already live in a developed area of Dallas and that is why no more housing is being built there. This argument is nonsense and misses how under-built the area is. The area I have outlined has 15,000 homes. However, 5,400 of those are in the sliver of land between 75 to the east, Walnut Hill to the south, Boedeker to the west, and Royal Lane to the north. Without that stretch of apartments, the area outlined averages LESS than 1 home per half acre. Less than 1 home per half acre is genuinely bonkers. I don't have time to get fully into how wasteful this is, but that we are permitting this land use to continue in the middle of a housing crisis is bordering on a crime. Land is a limited resource, and this is resource hoarding by rich people, plain and simple. 

This isn't to say that houses aren't being built in Preston Hollow. There are, but they are teardowns of the old ranch style homes and replaced by even larger mansions. This is idiotic and broken housing policy. It's also policy that dates back generations and is rooted in racism (https://www.whitehouse.gov/cea/written-materials/2021/06/17/exclusionary-zoning-its-effect-on-racial-discrimination-in-the-housing-market/). The homeowners in Preston Hollow have no problem with these policies, and they actively fight against any increase of housing in their neighborhood because they like the system the way it is. Forget trying to put more housing on quiet residential streets next to single family mansions. Preston Hollow residents will fight you if you try to put housing next to 635 or along Northwest Highway. And it says something that the two examples there are not even in the originally outlined area because there are NO examples of housing being built there.

The implications of this stretch even beyond housing. I am a teacher at E.D. Walker, a DISD middle school on Montfort/Nuestra Drive between Forest and 635. On my commute, I drive by apartments just south of 635 that are walking distance from Walker. And I see middle school students queued up to take the bus to Franklin Middle School in Preston Hollow. These students are forced to get on a bus because there aren't enough kids living in Preston Hollow who go to Franklin. And those kids who do live in Preston Hollow typically go to private school instead of DISD. Without enough kids attending Franklin from Preston Hollow, DISD is forced to extend the attendance boundaries of Franklin up north all the way to Addison. Think about how much better a school experience it would be for kids living in apartments (who are almost all Black or Hispanic) if they could walk to school instead of having to wake up early in order to catch a bus in a different part of town. Think of how much easier it would be for those parents to come to school events too. And to bring it back to housing, those apartments, long a source of "naturally occurring affordable housing", are seeing a steep increase in rent from below $1,000 to now $1,000-$1,200 for one or two bedroom apartments. Working families are being priced out of these apartments because the neighborhoods in Preston Hollow aren't allowing any more housing. It's a sick cycle that benefits only wealthy homeowners. 

It's important not to let other neighborhoods off the hook and allow them to say, "we aren't taking any more housing until Preston Hollow pulls its weight!" While Preston Hollow is the worst in terms of not building enough housing, there is more than enough blame to go around for different areas around Dallas. Instead, we should focus on citywide zoning changes like allowing replatting (the process of splitting up an existing lot) by right for any lot zoned residential and greater than 10,000 square feet. We can also allow for quadplexes by right for those same kind of lots. These changes will help us get some MUCH needed housing in the wealthiest parts of the city without any cost to the city. These changes also will not cause displacement and destruction in neighborhoods like South Dallas because the lots in South Dallas are smaller and will not be governed by these rules. 

We are in a housing crisis, and it is long past time that we started acting like it. Preston Hollow's exclusionary zoning is racist and classist. It makes the entire city worse off, and we can't allow for wealthy, white homeowners to veto anything they don't like. I don't want to hear about "neighborhood character" or how they "pay taxes". Legalize housing in Preston Hollow.