Former Dallas City Councilman Philip Kingston and his wife, City Plan Commissioner Melissa Kingston, were granted two variances and denied one last week as they moved forward with plans to remodel a home on Velasco Avenue.
The action of filing variances with the Board of Adjustment drew the ire of a few neighbors who believe their Belmont Addition Conservation District was created for a reason: to retain the architectural significance of the neighborhood.
The neighbors say the Kingstons themselves championed the conservation district when it was created in 2004 and now the local power couple just wants to circumvent its regulations for a profit.
There’s another side to the story, Melissa Kingston told daltxrealestate.com.
The meeting video from Dec. 13 hadn’t been posted at press time, but we do have the supporting documents, which outline in detail the Kingstons’ plans for 6045 Velasco Ave. and why they think the variances are necessary and not disruptive to the neighborhood.
There are about 443 properties within the Belmont Addition Conservation District, bound by Llano Avenue to the north, Skillman Street to the east, Belmont Avenue to the south, and Greenville Avenue to the east.
Variances for 6045 Velasco Ave.
Two of the variances requested by the Kingstons dealt with side setbacks and one dealt with lot coverage. The variances related to side setbacks were approved; lot coverage was not. The Board of Adjustment followed Dallas city staff’s recommendation. That was the outcome the Kingstons expected, Melissa said.
“The existing house, which was built in 1924, is currently sitting in both the east and west side setbacks,” she said. “In order to preserve what’s there and do an addition that matches what’s already there, we wanted to get the setbacks. Secondarily, in order to put two two-car garages on that lot, we needed more room in the side yard to do it.”
The BACD has more restrictive side setbacks for corner lots like 6045 Velasco Ave., Kingston added.
“The thing about conservation districts like this — all the ones on Lowest Greenville are about 20 years old, whereas the properties are anywhere from 80 to 110 years old,” Kingston said. “It is not uncommon for existing historic structures to be outside the bounds of what we created far into the future in conservation districts. It’s pretty common to see cases go to the Board of Adjustment for variances in one form or another in these conservation districts.”
On Dec. 13, when the Kingstons’ variances were reviewed, four of the six cases before the Board of Adjustment were in conservation districts and all were granted, Kingston said.
Neighbors including former District 14 City Council candidate Amanda Schulz reached out to daltxrealestate.com before last week’s meeting calling it a “backroom buddy deal at City Hall.”
“I have no doubt [the Kingstons] are going to lead with being ‘champions of affordable housing,’” one neighbor wrote in a text message to a daltxrealestate.com reporter. “Well, neighbors around here aren’t interested in that, at the expense of the conservation district guidelines.”
Not Necessarily Affordable
Melissa Kingston said she and her husband aren’t necessarily rehabbing the historic Velasco property in the name of affordable housing.
“Currently it’s an existing legal nonconforming triplex,” she said. “It’s a historic duplex that was built in the ‘20s and then there’s a garage apartment that looks like it was probably built in the ‘40s. We are proposing to demolish the third unit and restore and renovate the existing duplex. I wouldn’t call it affordable. I would say that it will create an opportunity for ownership at a very different price point than new homes in our neighborhood are going for.”
Schulz told daltxrealestate.com that most builders would never have assumed they could easily obtain variances in a conservation district.
“What they would have done instead was look at a site plan that made sense for the restrictions in place and negotiate the lot price, accordingly, to make the numbers work,” she said. “I openly stated [at the Board of Adjustment hearing] that it seemed maybe the Kingstons didn’t negotiate well enough on the front end to accommodate the desired return on investment on the back end … so the solution was to build bigger. To me, the entire application was about profit margins.”
Other neighbors, who did not respond to our requests for comment, spoke to the Lakewood/East Dallas Advocate prior to the Board of Adjustment hearing. Some spoke against the variances at the hearing. Schulz’s husband Jon filed this letter with the Board of Adjustment.
Belmont Addition Conservation District
Melissa Kingston responded to the characterization that she’s trying to sidestep the rules she helped put into place.
“This has been ginned up by Amanda Schulz who ran against Paul [Ridley] and lost,” she said. “A couple of years ago, she tried to reorganize our neighborhood to create an HOA and it failed. To me, this is just political. She very clearly doesn’t like me and Philip. I think that is based on her desire to reshape the community in a way that she sees it should be. It is not popular in the community and it hasn’t worked.”
Pitching it as “circumventing the very rules they helped create” isn’t the right way to look at it, Kingston added.
“We have taken advantage of a legal process that is there for a variety of things: to preserve an existing structure, to make lots that are otherwise difficult to develop more developable … There are a lot of ways that people use the Board of Adjustment,” she said. “We were there looking for permission, not forgiveness. We bought this property. We knew when we bought it the status of the property. Our goal is to restore as much of the original structure and characterization of the neighborhood as possible.”
Seeking variances that allow more of the original structure to be preserved isn’t damaging to the neighborhood, Kingston added.
The variance dealing with lot coverage, which wasn’t granted, will change the Kingstons’ plans slightly but isn’t a dealbreaker.
“We don’t need it, but if we have it, it gives us the flexibility to do more and better things with this site,” she said. “Now that we know what our parameters are, we’re working with an architect to design the project. I expect with the holidays, it’ll probably be the end of January before we get some working plans.”
The house turns 100 next year and the Kingstons say they would like to have it complete by the end of 2024.
“What we’re trying to do is what the conservation district is designed to do: preserve existing historic structures,” Melissa Kingston said. “To me, it’s a labor of love because the easiest thing to do would be to tear it down and put up a single-family house and put it on the market.”
