Oak Cliff Residents Wary of Withdrawn Rezoning Cases in Wake of ForwardDallas

You may remember a story we published over the summer about the Battle of Hampton Road, in North Oak Cliff. To one side of the road sits West Kessler, a charming single-family neighborhood where pruned front yards were decorated with "No Rezone" signs after two zoning cases were filed for a plot of land on the other side of Hampton.

Well, the battle may have been settled. For now.

The land, owned by Oak Cliff resident and City Plan Commissioner Christian Chernock, was slated to become the site of an array of dense housing. It was his second attempt to get a few key zoning changes approved, something neighboring residents rallied against over the summer and in 2015, when he first brought the plan forward. Because he's a sitting plan commissioner, West Kessler dwellers raised concerns that Chernock's filing may be a conflict of interest, something he emphatically rejected.

"Why would the city of Dallas accept my application if it were going to be unethical and hence put themselves into a compromising situation?" Chernock told the at the time.

The timing of the Hampton Road zoning drama aligned with the larger conversation surrounding the ForwardDallas land use plan, which was approved by the city council in September. The plan was passed 11-4 after months of contentious debate over whether the plan would result in the overdevelopment of Dallas' single-family neighborhoods.

Now, some residents of North Boulevard Terrace — the street where Chernock was planning to build his development — are concerned that ForwardDallas may have paved a smoother road forward for the development they rallied so hard against. Chernock, who declined our latest request for an interview, recently withdrew his zoning applications from the city system, a move that gave Yesenia Serrano a short-lived sense of "relief."

Serrano grew up on North Boulevard Terrace, and her mother still lives there. She said she is concerned about a new, flashy development spiking property values on the street made up of lower-income, Spanish-speaking families. Serrano said the neighborhood was alerted that the zoning cases were withdrawn suddenly by representatives of Chernock's development, and no reasoning or future plans were given.

"They didn't really want to share anything with us, which definitely makes us believe and think that there's a motive behind that," Serrano said. "We believe he's most likely going to resubmit these zoning applications under this whole new ForwardDallas deal."

The ForwardDallas land use plan has been in effect for less than a month, so it is too soon to say whether it creates a friendlier city planning process for developers. The document is meant to act as a guidance tool for future zoning cases, several of which Chernock still has pending.

It's possible that Chernock withdrew the North Boulevard Terrace cases to focus on the other side of Oak Cliff, where he has two active cases at 620 N. Bishop Ave. and 719/727 Zang Blvd. The cases could be reviewed by the City Plan Commission this month, Candy's Dirt reports. The heart of the issue, Chernock maintains, is land use.

(Land use, land use, land use. We sure seem to talk about land use a lot these days.)

And there is possibly a third reason Chernock withdrew his zoning cases: He could be over the drama. When we talked to him in August, he said that "he'd live," if he failed to get the zoning entitlements he was requesting, and would likely decide to sell the property if that was the case.

"I'll sell the land, and somebody else will develop it and most likely, given [the land's] size, it's going to be a large player. Most likely from out of the area and most likely we will get generic architecture, generic materials and generic designs," he said.

Chernock bowing out of her neighborhood isn't something that Serrano is counting on, though.

"He may have pulled those applications for now, but those yard signs are staying up. We're not counting this as a full victory," Serrano said.