A walk through Elmwood shows why west Oak Cliff blueprint deserves Dallas City Council OK

Walk the century-old business district of Oak Cliff’s Elmwood community and — assuming a little imagination — you’ll find the intersection of Dallas’ often-incomprehensible policymaking and the constructive street-level change it can bring.

This stretch of South Edgefield Avenue — its sweet potential a welcome contrast to the mad tourist stop that nearby Bishop Arts has become — radiates a diverse and locally owned community vibe.

Car mechanics work to the beat of loud dance music as stylists next door create hair magic inside small shops. Parents race with their kids and pets at Elmwoof dog park then grab pizza at Roselli’s.

Intoxicating bakery flavors waft from Panaderia Celaya; I put on a couple of pounds merely by inhaling. Interior renovations hint at the coming of the craft Peaberry Coffee shop. A few doors down, a freshly painted storefront prepares to welcome a market and deli.

From one end to the other, a stubbornly optimistic spirit perseveres — despite glaring deficiencies that limit the corridor from fully functioning as a vibrant neighborhood center.

For starters, downtown Elmwood is a nightmare for its pedestrians.

Sidewalks are nonexistent and streets intersect at odd angles. Superwide, two-lane South Edgefield runs for a mile without even a stop sign. Speeding cars pay no heed to the flashing school zone lights alongside Margaret B. Henderson Elementary.

But wait, there’s more: Antiquated zoning provisions, which likely explain why so many business owners have resorted to using their space for nothing more than storage.

With this street view in mind — a scene similar to other neighborhoods included in the West Oak Cliff Area Plan — let’s head back to 1500 Marilla St. where Wednesday the City Council will consider the proposal.

A yes vote would be a first step to try — albeit late in the game — to protect and improve this 5-square-mile area, home to more than 11,500 households and 44,000 people, 86% of them Hispanic.

“This is the start of communities having control over how things change,” says Amanda Popken, City Council member Chad West’s plan commissioner. “Residents need to know a huge amount of work must still be done to get this right.”

Passage also would mean parks, sidewalks, streets and other infrastructure needs identified in the plan get priority at City Hall.

And it would break the logjam of stalled authorized zoning hearings, starting with the long-delayed one for Elmwood, to give individual neighborhoods their say in specific land use recommendations.

Approval of the West Oak Cliff Area Plan won’t mean any of the five hearings will begin immediately, but getting the master plan in place pushes them toward the front of the line.

I often questioned whether we’d ever get to a City Council vote on this plan, the process for which was designed to be community-driven but which launched in the midst of the pandemic and sometimes failed to provide adequate outreach and resources for Spanish speakers.

But even in the most frustrating moments of the proposal-pushback-compromise dance I’ve watched for two and a half years, my sense has been that all the players wanted the same thing — to preserve this part of Oak Cliff for the full diversity of people who currently live here.

That includes the city’s Planning and Urban Design Department, the community-led task force responsible for the first draft, Popken and West, who initiated the process at the request of those communities whose authorized hearings were going nowhere.

But in the face of galloping growth and housing shortages, I also understand the fears of the many residents who have seen their longtime neighbors in north Oak Cliff and West Dallas kicked to the curb by encroaching development and gentrification.

No doubt this plan is a better document because of the participation of those most vulnerable to market forces. So kudos to community advocates who knocked on doors and brought more folks to the table.

For example, West pointed to recommendations in the plan’s original draft that threatened to endanger the future of auto-repair shops, the mom-and-pop lifeblood of many Dallas neighborhoods.

“Thanks to the diligent work of Somos Tejas and others, this blind spot was brought to the city’s attention and removed,” he said.

The west Oak Cliff process has made clear the city can’t go it alone on these kind of outreach efforts. “We need to supplement it with groups in the community with this focus,” West told me.

Tony Shidid, chair of the City Plan Commission, which spent more days than I care to remember listening to resident feedback and refining the plan with staff, said the final result is evidence the city can get guiding principles in place to manage large, complex areas.

“Although the process was not perfect, the fact that the disagreements in the end were about less than 5% of the plan should not go unnoticed,” he said.

Approval of the master plan can’t come soon enough for local business owners like Elmwood Neighborhood Association president Whitney Marsh, who with her husband owns three units within the business corridor.

She will continue to advocate for zoning and infrastructure changes that enhance Elmwood’s long-held commitment to inclusive community in this overwhelmingly Hispanic neighborhood.

“We want more spaces that create those connections for all of us,” she told me. “We want to see small businesses owned by Oak Cliff residents.”

The business corridor’s preliminary requests include more lighting, sidewalks, public art, green spaces and traffic-calming measures.

Additionally, proposed zoning changes could allow for residential uses within the corridor, alternative parking strategies and special use permits to allow alcohol sales for restaurants.

Marsh is among those who dream of South Edgefield as a spot within walking distance to get an ice cream with the kids on a Friday night or to gather at a place like Peaberry Coffee.

Peaberry founder and owner Elijah Salazar, born and raised in Oak Cliff, told me Elmwood’s strong community spirit is a big part of what led him to expand his hyper-local coffee enterprise here. His hope is to open the South Edgefield cafe in January.

Salazar’s original Peaberry Coffee is two miles south in Kiestwood Village (if you haven’t tried this place, you are missing out!) and his canning operation for Kiestwood Iced Coffee already is located in another building on South Edgefield.

“This is about high-quality coffee in a casual welcoming space that’s comfortable for everyone, regardless of politics and backgrounds,” he told me.

Places like Elmwood know what’s next for them — an authorized zoning hearing. But for other neighborhoods that have yet to organize and make their specific wishes known to City Hall, the West Oak Cliff Area Plan is no more than a broad set of guiding principles.

As I’ve written previously, the ugly truth exposed in this process is the lack of tools City Hall has found to protect against displacement in the face of growth and market forces that in the last decade have remade once affordable communities.

Take the South Edgefield neighbors north of Elmwood who live around the Tyler-Vernon DART Station and remain fearful of gentrification and displacement headed their way.

Preserving the character of this single-family neighborhood and keeping the number of teardowns-expensive rebuilds from skyrocketing — if it’s even possible — will require a big commitment from the people who live there.

“The potential for these neighborhoods to change drastically remains,” Popken said. “This plan cracked open the door to help us see the real work that has to happen outside of authorized hearings and zoning.”