Prior to a community meeting Saturday morning on the proposed Cypress Creek at Forest Lane Public Facility Corp. apartment project, a developer said to a reporter, “I don’t expect to accomplish anything. People aren’t coming here to have their minds changed.”
It’s probably fair to say his expectations were met.
Amid shouting about lies and “BS” and accusations that Lake Highlands residents don’t want to live next to poor people, neighbors on all sides of the issue got their chance to speak.
Uniformed officers stood at the back of the room and while some residents packed up their “No Apartments” signs and left early, no one was asked to leave.
District 10 Councilman Adam McGough, who represents the area where the 189-unit multifamily complex is proposed at 11520 North Central Expressway, did not attend the meeting due to his father’s recent death.
McGough said in a recorded statement played at the meeting that he voted against the project two years ago because there was little community engagement and the surrounding neighborhoods didn’t support it.
“If this community is supportive, I will support it,” McGough said. “Any comment being made that puts a blanket attack on this neighborhood as being [Not In My Backyard] is false, ill-advised, and outright offensive.”
McGough, in his recorded statement, added that Sycamore Strategies developer Zachary Krochtengel, “had zero respect for the community.”
“The only reason we’re here now is the thoughtful members on the PFC [board] finally tapped the brakes,” McGough said. “The breakdown is in trust. I do not trust the process this developer has undertaken, and quite honestly I don’t have any reason to. I am willing to try again. Let’s start over. Give this community respect. Let them engage and give feedback.”
Cypress Creek at Forest Lane
Dallas Director of Housing and Neighborhood Revitalization David Noguera explained that Cypress Creek at Forest Lane is a low-income, tax-credit project. The Class A apartment complex would house about 109 affordable units (55 percent) and 86 market-rate units (45 percent).
Due to deed restrictions prohibiting housing construction on the site, developers requested in January that the project go through the PFC structure, which would allow them to pay an upfront development fee and lease the land from the PFC tax-free.
After a deferral in late February, the project is now slated to go before the PFC Board for the second time March 28. District 10 PFC Board member Mark Holmes attended Saturday’s meeting.
Krochtengel could barely get a word out before a Northwood Estates resident stood up and said the neighbors did not want the Cypress Creek project.
“You need to leave,” the resident said. “You’re the problem.”
Krochtengel, visibly frustrated at times throughout the meeting, said what Sycamore Strategies is proposing is “extremely necessary in North Dallas.” A new affordable housing development has not been built in District 10 in the past 30 years, he said.
“These apartments are for people who work in our community,” he said. “If you want to eat in a restaurant and you want to go grocery shopping, [the neighborhood] needs to have people who probably can’t afford to live in a single-family home in Preston Hollow or Northwood Estates. Without this type of housing, they can’t live near their jobs.”
The project is proposed along the US 75 corridor. Numerous apartments are being built along the US 75 and Dallas North Tollway corridors, Krochtengel said.
“If you look at the locations of affordable housing in Dallas, they’re in East Dallas, West Dallas, and South Dallas,” he said. “That’s because of decades of purposeful public policy that has stopped [affordable housing in North Dallas].”
Dallas-Fort Worth is the fourth largest metro area in the U.S., with 7.6 million people, poised to overtake Chicago and become the third-largest, Noguera added.
“With that growth comes the need for housing production,” he said. “The City of Dallas has to figure out how we continue to produce housing. What you see us doing is looking for opportunities to bring on new housing in both established communities, like what you have here, and in areas that have green land.”
Neighborhood Feedback
Woot Lervisit, a resident of the Floyd Lake Drive area, reviewed a presentation outlining some of the concerns in his neighborhood.
William Roth, who owns a 75,000-square-foot office building adjacent to the proposed Cypress Creek site, addressed the deed restrictions.
“The deed restriction does not allow apartments on that property,” he said. “If the city is considering action to disregard that deed restriction, we feel like that’s not proper. That’s what’s called a taking of our private property rights. This is not a referendum from our standpoint on affordable housing or Class A apartments or workforce housing. Our issue is we have the right to control what development is going on in this area. For the city to be able to take that right away from us for the enrichment of a private developer does not seem to be the right thing to do.”
Three residents, including the outreach director of the Inclusive Communities Project, spoke in favor of the development, but most meeting attendees expressed concern about developer tax credits, crime, and deed restrictions.
In reference to tax exemptions, the cost to build an apartment complex is the same regardless of who lives there, Noguera explained.
“Windows cost the same, concrete costs the same, labor costs the same,” he said. “When you’re looking at costs, you have to look at where you can create a subsidy so you can offer rents at a lower price. Grants are one way to lower the price; eliminating property tax is another way.”
Mike Nelson of Northwood Estates said he didn’t even understand the purpose of Saturday’s meeting.
“Why are we here?” he asked. “When there’s a red light on the street, you stop. You don’t yield and then enter. This has been stopped before. Why is this political chicanery happening?”
