Fort Worth council may be serious about pausing apartments, tells developers to wait
The Fort Worth City Council appears willing to pause some new dense housing developments at least until a study of the city’s market is complete.
In December, three council members called for a moratorium on zoning changes that would allow multi-family housing on property previously zoned for something else, such as commercial.
Councilman Dennis Shingleton led the effort, calling for a city staff report exploring Fort Worth’s housing market and assessing whether more apartments are needed. Shingleton and council members Gyna Bivens and Jungus Jordan have said they’re worried the city may have been too quick to approve apartments in the past and risks diverging from the long-term plan.
Shingleton on Tuesday moved to continue two zoning requests that would bring potentially more than 1,000 housing units to sprawling far north Fort Worth.
The first zoning change would allow more than 400 units in mostly commercial development on the southwest corner of Heritage Trace Parkway and Interstate 35. A second, just a few miles south, would would allow hundreds more apartments along with a mix of other uses at a vacant triangle formed by North Tarrant Parkway, U.S. 287 and I-35.
Though most of the tract off U.S. 287 is already zoned for a mix of residential and commercial uses, Shingleton told the Star-Telegram before the council meeting he didn’t want to make concessions to any developers until he knows more about the city’s apartment market.
The council voted unanimously to continue both zoning cases until Feb. 16.
“It’s easier and fairer to say I’m not supporting any of the zoning changes until I get that study back,” he said.
He repeated concerns that roads in the far north are not wide enough to handle increased traffic that may come with higher density housing.
Developer North Presidio, LLC has been negotiating with the city since at least 2019 over rezoning a roughly 18-acre tract from commercial to dense housing. It’s part of the larger Citadel at Heritage Trace, a suburban commercial development between Tehama Ridge Parkway and North Freeway just south of Heritage Trace Parkway.
Plans call for 376 apartments, 25 bungalows and 13 town homes for a total of 414 housing units. The apartment buildings would rise three stories with tuck-under parking. A site plan shows that a floodplain separates the multi-family units from single-family homes west of Tehama Ridge Parkway. Low-rise commercial and large parking lots make up the rest of the development.
The developer first came to the city in December 2019 with a request for high-density, multi-family but withdrew it last summer after several continuances.
To the south, the council almost a year ago approved a rezoning request that opened the vacant tract of land just north of the Interstate 35W/U.S. 287 “Decatur cutoff” to new development.
The developer, NTP35 LP, requested a zoning change for about 53 acres in the same area that would have allowed for dense housing and commercial use, including a hotel. City zoning documents didn’t specify the number of planned housing units, but the zoning change would allow for up to 65 units per acre. About 31 acres are marked for multi-family.
The area is part of a 300-acre development dubbed “North City” marketed as a “one of the largest-mixed use developments in the southwest,” according to its website.
Charles Hodges, of Dallas-based Hodges Architecture, told the council the development will be a “city within a city.”
“We are a total mixed-use, completely walkable campus,” Hodges said. “We have surrounded our commercial core with residential which is vital to the survival of a development like this.”
Shingleton said he thought the concept would “really fly” once it was approved, but he wanted to delay the zoning until the city study came through.
The city’s planning staff is currently analyzing the ratio of single-family to multi-family housing dating to the 1990s as well as the ratio of employment to housing units in job centers. Assistant City Manager Dana Burghdoff said in December she anticipates briefing the council on the analysis and a look at Fort Worth’s population projections through 2045 at a council retreat Feb. 9.
Though staff haven’t completed the study of Fort Worth’s housing stock, Burghdoff said the city’s long-term plan calls for denser housing in the form of both single-family and apartments near major job centers, like the Alliance area of Shingleton’s district. In recommending the zoning change off Heritage Trace Parkway for approval, city staff noted urban residential was an appropriate way to bring a mix of housing to that section of the city.
Between Oct. 1, 2019 and Sept 30, 2020, the city permitted 484 new apartment buildings for a total of just under 7,000 new units citywide, according to the city’s Development Services Department. It’s unclear how many of those buildings are on property previously zoned for something other than multi-family.
During that same time, 8,058 new residential units, including 6,377 new single-family homes and 112 townhouses, were also permitted.
