Approach

The ForwardDallas Comprehensive Land Use Plan update sets out to ensure our land use policies actively promote equity, economic vitality, and environmental sustainability throughout Dallas. This will be a data-driven planning process through which we will explore and evaluate alternative future scenarios to inform our vision for future development. We will take an action-oriented approach from day one, with focus on outcomes and metrics, and establish an implementation program to monitor progress annually, ensuring accountability and responsiveness to changing needs.
This plan will not sit on the shelf!

goal

The goal of this plan is to refresh and strengthen our future land use vision and policies through strategic implementation to improve the quality of life for all. This will be accomplished through inclusive community engagement and effective integration of recent and ongoing citywide planning initiatives. Achieving our goal will involve finding the right balance between sometimes competing objectives.

Core Values

Through this process, it will be important to stay focused on the core values that will help us achieve a balanced land use policy: Social Equity; Economic Vitality; and Environmental Sustainability.

Scenario Planning

As we look ahead to what Dallas might become in the future, we will see that there are many different ways in which the city can grow and change depending on how public policies and investments are applied and how the market responds. We will explore and evaluate different land development scenarios through this process to understand the potential impacts of future development patterns. Scenario modeling will allow residents and stakeholders to understand and provide feedback on which development future they would like to see. This will also help our policy makers make informed decisions about City policies and investments that will shape future development patterns.

Planning Scale

Dallas spans over 380 square miles with over 1.3 million residents, 1.2 million jobs and a great deal of diversity among neighborhoods. For a large city like Dallas it is very important that citywide planning create a framework to facilitate effective planning at smaller scales as well. The ForwardDallas Land Use Update process will work towards enabling planning at four primary scales as illustrated below. Visit the interactive maps below to view outlines of the various planning scales.

Interactive Maps

We welcome you to explore the various planning scales relative to existing neighborhood organizations that have signed up with the City.