Fort Worth leaders’ plans pose a real threat to Stockyards

The future of the Fort Worth Stockyards National Historic District is in jeopardy.

The City Council received the Stockyards “conceptual” development plan on June 3, 2014, and approved an economic development agreement granting $67 million to the Stockyards development partnership seven days later.

The City Council’s action authorized 1 million square feet of new restaurants, retail shops, offices, multifamily housing, hotels and parking garages, which will convert our historic Stockyards into a California-style urban village shopping center.

In my many years in local government, I have never seen such a huge development project in a crucial area of a community be given so little fiscal and planning analysis prior to approval.

The council did not even ask about the impact of vehicular traffic from the project.

How will local roads handle this massive growth?

Visit the Stockyards on its many busy weekends and see the vehicular gridlock there now.

The Cowtown Coliseum is a historic treasure owned by the city, but the council did not ask about how it will be impacted by these high-density plans.

The City Council granted millions of public dollars to the developers without even asking for basic impact analysis.

The City Council’s approach seems to be to approve everything requested by the developers and to ignore residents’ concerns.

The council members disregarded the hundreds of residents asking them to delay approval in order to allow a thorough review of the plans.

The council immediately acted to rezone the Stockyards for high-density development without even considering whether less dense development might be more appropriate.

They ignored the Zoning Commission’s concern that there should be more information available about the plans before rezoning the Stockyards, and they rejected proposed changes to design guidelines from the Urban Design Commission and the Zoning Commission.

The City Council has eliminated the role of the Board of Adjustment in hearing appeals about the Stockyards, making itself the sole “decider” on the Stockyards development.

The mayor and council members promised to protect the Stockyards’ heritage.

Yet the California developer, with no experience with heritage projects, initially described the project as being Disney-like, and their first action was to obtain 23 demolition permits to destroy historic Stockyards structures.

After thousands of residents signed petitions demanding creation of a Stockyards local historic district, the City Council initiated formation of one this past November.

At first, residents were relieved, but they soon learned that the boundaries of the council’s so-called local historic district excluded nearly all of the developer’s new construction.

The council’s historic district seemed to be a “bait and switch” ploy to give the false impression of historic protection.

The City Landmarks Commission recently rejected the City Council’s “historic district” and recommended a much larger district.

However, the City Council will eventually have the last word on this issue.

The council members point to the adopted design guidelines as proof of their interest in heritage. But the Design Task Force was not allowed to consider the developer’s plans.

In 2014, the developers stated that they had prepared a “massing study” which would show the densities of their plans.

The developers have never shown their “massing study” to the public, probably in fear that it would unleash another wave of protests.

Over many years, I was able to promote Fort Worth as an authentic Texas destination because of our historic Stockyards.

The City Council is rapidly losing public trust, because its lack of understanding of the importance of preservation and heritage threatens to do serious damage to the Stockyards.

In order to regain public trust, the City Council first needs to authorize a proper local historic district for the entire Stockyards.

Next, the council needs to work with the concerned public and the developers to ensure that the project plans are significantly revised to be of a scale and of a nature so as not to overwhelm and destroy our historic Stockyards.

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 6:27 PM with the headline "Fort Worth leaders’ plans pose a real threat to Stockyards."