The District 14 crime rate changed less than 1 percent year-to-date from 2022, but residents in East Dallas and downtown neighborhoods are divided on a public safety and housing matter that could at long last come to a head this week: short-term rentals.
District 14 has, by far, the most registered STRs, according to data presented Wednesday at a Dallas City Council meeting. About 1,800 STRs are registered within the city with an additional 1,300 pending registration. About 689 are within District 14.
East Dallas residents Norma Minnis and Olive Talley emerged last year as unofficial spokespersons against party houses, neighborhood nuisances, and crime-ridden rentals.
“It’s time to fix the problem and end the civil war that’s raging in our neighborhoods over short-term rentals that are destroying our neighborhoods and eroding our housing market,” Talley said during a City Council meeting in April. “That’s the choice: homes or hotels.”
Nearby, also in East Dallas, are hardworking, taxpaying STR operators who make a good case for how a zoning change or neighborhood ban just won’t work.
District 14 resident Rob Stokes said in a June 7 council briefing that recent legislation (Texas Senate Bill 929) will force municipalities to compensate STR operators for lost income if the city doesn’t grandfather them in.
“I’m in a district with the highest number of STRs,” Stokes said. “We stand to lose the most. We are not being heard or represented even though we are good hosts. I’m here fighting for my livelihood.”
Crime in District 14
The most common crimes in D14 include theft, vandalism, and assault, only one of which (vandalism/destruction of property) increased over the last year. The area’s murder rate and overall crime rate are among the lowest in the City of Dallas.
A reporter at daltxrealestate.com filed an open records request seeking data on violent crimes reported in shopping centers throughout Dallas since 2018. At Lakewood Shopping Center on Gaston Avenue, the data shows a robbery in 2019 and an aggravated assault in 2021. That’s it.
We even compared the Lakewood Shopping Center figures to another dataset to make sure the respondents understood the question (they did). Where two violent crimes were reported over a five-year period at a small East Dallas shopping center, almost 100 were reported during the same time period at the much larger and heavily populated Bishop Arts District. It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but it is fair to say we hear more complaints about STRs than shopping center safety in District 14.
District 14 is one of the least diverse in Dallas; 67 percent of D14 residents are white. New redistricting maps were approved last year and became effective May 6.
The Dallas Police Department crime dashboard, which hasn’t been updated in over a month due to a ransomware attack on city servers, only tracks reported crimes. Police Chief Eddie Garcia explained in a recent council meeting that a staffing shortage has resulted in decreased response times, particularly for low-priority calls.
Residents representing districts throughout Dallas said during a June 7 council meeting that they’ve witnessed shootings, prostitution, and out-of-control parties at STRs in their residential neighborhoods.
Crime And Short-Term Rentals
District 14 Councilman Paul Ridley, an architect, urban planner, and attorney, was re-elected last month with 62.52 percent of the vote over two opponents.
Ridley has staunchly advocated for the Keep It Simple Solution in dealing with STRs. Recommended by the City Plan Commission, KISS would define STRs as a lodging use and zone them out of single-family neighborhoods.
Ridley and other council members grilled Planning and Urban Design Director Julia Ryan during last week’s council briefing on STRs, questioning her opinion that zoning might not be an effective solution to the problem properties. A more plausible solution, Ryan suggested, would be to simplify the development and zoning process by incorporating regulations into the registration ordinance.
Ridley, and a few of his fellow council members, said a staff recommendation wasn’t necessary.
“We’ve heard Ms. Ryan talk about her informal recommendation today, which is to define STRs as lodging use but inexplicably allow them in residential zoning districts where our current lodging uses are not permitted,” Ridley said. “On top of that, she has stated that her recommendation is based primarily on administrative convenience.
“What it’s really missing is a consideration of a penultimate issue that we have been skirting all day in this discussion,” Ridley continued. “What is that? It’s housing. That’s 5,000 units of housing that are not available for long-term residents of Dallas. It’s being devoted to visitors, to tourists. That by itself justifies this [KISS] ordinance, which will have the effect of reducing rental rates with the influx of new supply of housing, reducing costs of single-family home purchases, and will allow us to address our significant shortfall of affordable housing in this city.”
Ridley further criticized the data presented at the June 7 council briefing, saying it was an attempt to minimize the crime statistics from STRs versus non-STRs.
A June 2023 white paper compiled by Dallas Chief Data Officer Brita Andercheck is worth a review for those interested in crunching the numbers.
Will Banning Neighborhood STRs Reduce Crime?
Differing opinions abound on whether high crime rates are directly linked to residential STRs and whether the problem houses can be regulated or removed without affecting those who haven’t caused any trouble.
“The Dallas Police Department doesn’t respond to the location because of the type of location,” a DPD spokesman said during the June 7 council meeting. “We get a 911 call, we go. Our main mission is the preservation of life, then property … I don’t know if STRs more than any other place are creating more crime. There’s just no way for us to answer that question.”
Whether the solution is found in regulations, zoning, or an alternative, it appears everyone engaged in the debate wants an end to party houses and shootings in residential neighborhoods.
City Manager T.C. Broadnax issued a memo outlining city staff’s “collective recommendation” on STRs to council members Friday.
A vote on the matter is set for June 14.
