Enhancing North Texas' built environment : improvements to design review in Dallas and Fort Worth

Abstract

Design review is a government-supported process through which individuals representing the public interest critique, commend and advise proposed development projects' potential impacts on the built environment. These independent public interest representatives come together in a number of forms, including design review boards, planning commissions, and citizen' advisory committees, and they receive various levels of guidance from government in terms of the design criteria upon which they base their judgments and recommendations. This thesis asks what has caused the differences in design review between two cities in Texas, Dallas and Fort Worth, and it suggests adjustments that could improve the process in both of them. The analysis that follows focuses on five key features of the design review - the authority of the design review board, the credibility of the board, the role of the design review board staff, the triggers necessary for project review to take place, and the nature of the design guidelines/standards utilized by board members as they make their decisions.

(cont.) Through the exploration of these five features as they exist in each city, I examine the strengths and weaknesses of design review in Dallas and Fort Worth. Once I have clarified the differences, I consider a number of rival explanations in attempt to describe why the disparity in design review occurs, and I work to narrow down the number of reasonable ones. Then, I offer short term and long term proposals for potential improvement to design review in both cities. These forecasts remain grounded in the political realities of Dallas and Fort Worth but also attempt to assume an optimistic outlook for the future of design review in North Texas.