Vacant lots in southern Dallas could help ease region’s housing crisis

As home prices climb beyond the reach of working-class families, vacant lots in southern Dallas could hold answers to the affordability crisis in North Texas.

Languishing for decades in disrepair, these properties possess the potential to revive neglected neighborhoods and ease the housing supply crunch. Researchers and developers also say it can curb the loss of Dallas residents each year and pave a path toward sustainable growth for the entire region.
 
In a 2024 land-use analysis of southern Dallas, Verdunity, a consulting firm that studies the fiscal health of cities, found the cash-strapped city of Dallas could increase revenues and close resource gaps if it reinvested in vacant lots. And it could do so, Verdunity concluded, “without raising taxes.”

This would address “some of the city’s worst infrastructure issues,” construct hundreds of additional homes and enhance the lives of southern Dallas residents, according to the Verdunity report.

One empty patch in the vicinity of Fair Park offers a glimpse into what that future could look like.

Christened “The Woodworth,” the proposed development on this vacant land is a partnership between Cornerstone Community Development Corporation and Sol General Contracting, a local midsized private company.

They plan to build eight townhomes for what they call the “missing middle,” a type of multi-family, affordable clustered housing, compatible with the character of single-family neighborhoods.

“What we’ve discovered is, if housing is affordable, it’s not decent, and if it’s decent, it’s not affordable,” said Chris Simmons, pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church since 1988.

Realizing one cannot simply “do church” in these communities, Simmons said he started the Cornerstone Community Development Corporation to “holistically reach out to all the needs” of the community by way of economic development and homeownership.

The Woodworth, located near the church, will promote homeownership among low-income and working-class families, who earn 60% to 120% of the area’s median income (about $70,000 to $120,0000 annually for a family of four), said Forrest Branam, managing partner of Sol General Contracting.

Cornerstone’s partnership with the city and other institutions, he said, will help them qualify for loans and receive additional assistance to buy the homes.

This South Dallas neighborhood has a rich history as a working-class community, Simmons said. In the late 1980s, he said, the crack cocaine epidemic turned it into a “war zone” and, “That’s where we’ve been stuck since.”

Cornerstone’s mission now is to build more homes and enable more folks to move in. “We know we’re not going to get economic development in this neighborhood until we get rooftops,” he said.

This is a potential playbook the city of Dallas could repeat, said Branam: Increase the density without overburdening infrastructure and the neighborhood.

“And make something that’s walkable,” he said. “That puts eyes on the street, pedestrians on sidewalks, and cleans up what would otherwise be just vacant, blighted areas.”

Third places then evolve – places between home and work, where a community thrives, he said, and grows a sense of identity.

“And these become the building blocks for how we see ourselves,” he said. “How we see our city.”

As of 2024, less than half of Dallas County residents were homeowners, the lowest among North Texas counties in the region, according to a News analysis of most recent census data. 

Less than a third of homes in the Dallas-Fort Worth region were owned by Hispanic and Black residents, who constitute the majority of working-class residents in the region, the News recently reported.

In fact, homeownership rates in the Black community, already the lowest, have declined from about 40% to 36% since 2010. White homeownership rates, the highest among all groups, is about 70%.

Among Hispanic residents, the fastest-growing demographic in the region, homeownership rates ranked second lowest.

Dallas has lost much of its affordability edge over the last 15 years, said J.H. Cullum Clark, director of the Bush Institute-Southern Methodist University Economic Growth Initiative.

He said Dallas is “a clear underperformer” on building government-subsidized affordable housing compared to other U.S. cities.

In six years, from 2017 to 2023, the construction of income-restricted apartments dropped more than 80% compared to the six-year period from 2010 to 2016, according to a report he published this January with Ashley Flores of Child Poverty Action Lab.

“There was a partial recovery in 2024 and it’s too early to say about 2025,” Clark told The News,  “but in general, the performance has not been very good.”

Simmons said as more residents and businesses move north, the city has an opportunity to acquire and sell more vacant lots at affordable rates to bring “decent, affordable housing to the working class.”

It could be a “revitalization of Dallas,” the pastor said. “It’s incumbent on the city to come back and look at these investments.”

It’s a chance for the city “to really step in” and work with community-based groups, said Branam, adding, “This land could be activated.”

The housing affordability crisis is a product of a housing supply crunch across the U.S. that has caught up to North Texas today, as more families and businesses move into the region, according to Clark.

By constructing eight multi-family units instead of single-family homes on a single plot of land, Branam said, The Woodworth project aims to “make the land go further.”

That brings in the “missing middle fabric,” he said. It refers to a mix of affordable housing distinct from detached single-family homes or high-rise apartment buildings that provide for a variety of lifestyles.

This kind of housing resides on the spectrum between the two options. They include duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes or bungalows, which are often “missing” or uncommon in many U.S. cities.

Verdunity’s analysis, aimed at cultivating wealth and prosperity in southern Dallas, identified “outdated zoning codes” as a stumbling block to raising the housing stock. Prioritizing larger lot sizes and parking minimums had discouraged “more buildable lots” and smaller and more affordable “missing middle” housing options.

In southern Dallas, though many vacant lots are marked for single-family homes, the economics for such housing “just don’t work,” said developer Nathaniel Barrett, who has worked on projects in Oak Cliff and Old East Dallas.

To become financially viable, developers could either hold off building on the land until the value increases or the zoning changes.

But in Dallas, rezoning is a notoriously long process, Barrett said, requiring City Council approval that could take months, if not years.

“I’m not going to fight an uphill battle with an uncertain result to get the zoning fixed in an area,” said Barrett, “I’ll look elsewhere.”

If Dallas is to stay “vibrant and affordable into the future,” Verdunity recommended the city create a development pattern that generates enough revenue to cover infrastructure and services costs “while also providing a mix of housing options at different price points.”

To that end, Dallas City Council passed ForwardDallas 2.0, in 2024, a long-term plan outlining the city’s vision for land use and urban design for the coming decades.

The comprehensive document involved months of debate between single-family homeowners and housing advocates. The final version promotes housing accessibility based on neighborhood compatibility and aligns with other city-wide policies with multiple departments.

“The city’s significant vacant land holdings offer opportunities for strategic commercial and residential development to boost economic vitality,” it says.

City spokespeople did not respond to follow-up questions on how they are specifically working to support the development of vacant lots.

Still, implementation of ForwardDallas’ guidelines is underway. Through its vision, the city could rezone entire neighborhoods of several parcels at once, as opposed to one individual property at a time.

In June, the city rezoned more than 3,300 acres in South Dallas based on a newly approved, localized land-use plan. Advocates believe this will bring in much-needed growth, protect neighborhood character and offer opportunities for missing middle housing.

Still, not every area is dealing with the same challenges. In Dallas’ southernmost areas, council member Lorie Blair said infrastructure needs are immense and communities are not getting enough dollars to address them.

Representing a large district that includes rural communities, she said the area has “always been the city’s dumping ground” with landfills and a “cornucopia of trash uses.” It’s where a tall pile of illegally dumped roofing debris came to be known as Shingle Mountain.

As a former city plan commissioner, Blair said rezoning efforts are on to correct inappropriate uses that don’t reflect the community. But even with advocacy, those efforts face years-long delays with the city.

“It has taken a real long time because they’ve never prioritized the southern end portion of the city,” she said.

In 2001, the city adopted a land transfer program to incentivize the redevelopment of vacant lots for affordable housing, which has since gone through several iterations. Through the land bank, the city acquires tax delinquent vacant lots to sell at a low price for affordable housing. However, developers say bureaucratic delays frequently wear out interest.

Working with City Council and other city departments to secure the land title could take a “a year and a half or more to just own a lot with nothing on it,” said James McGee, president of Southern Dallas Progress. 

For The Woodworth (already zoned for multifamily residences), the city of Dallas has taken about two years since the city approved the transfer of property from its land bank, yet developers are still waiting for the final reversion of the property. 

“We’re just waiting on final approval and Legal to release the property,” Simmons said, “Then we will be ready to move forward on our aspect of getting the property out of the ground.”

The News reached out to the city for comment on the transfer but has yet to receive a response. 

Thor Erickson, who leads the city’s Office of Housing and Community Empowerment, said developing vacant land can involve several city departments, and not all vacant land can be developed the same way.

“Is vacant land utilized in a strategy? Yes. It’s always case-specific,” he said. “There’s not a single project that doesn’t involve many different departments.”

His department aims to support developers, looking to build affordable housing, navigate the system, with staff to advise on projects and explain the process. 

On a case-by-case basis, funding may be available to affordable developments, Erickson said. Market-rate projects like “missing-middle” housing are separate. Individual market-rate projects, depending on location and other factors, could seek assistance from the economic development office.

Market-rate builders can absorb administrative delays in their sales prices, said Chris Lewis, president and CEO of nonprofit Builders of Hope, but affordable developers cannot.

“We’re capped on the sales price by design. That’s the whole point,” Lewis said. The bills to cover operations and employee payroll keep coming.

“The delay doesn’t make the house more expensive for the buyer. It makes it harder for us to build the next one.”

All the while, the vacant lots themselves continue to atrophy. 

Instead of pouring resources into keeping crime out of vacant lots, Simmons said developing the land would be an all-around benefit to the city.

It would raise tax revenues (benefiting the city, the county, the hospital district and school district), create affordable housing, build economic opportunities for local businesses and create a safe environment in the neighborhood.

“We’re hearing over and over again about the city of Dallas’s budget shortfalls,” he said. “So, what better way to increase the income than turning these properties into viable housing or business opportunities?”

There is a balance, said Blair, who sees a concentration of income-restricted housing in her southernmost district as big developers eye tax abatements. Housing types should support a mix of incomes and younger families to attract other needs, she said, like a long-desired grocery store.

In South Dallas, Simmons also advocated for a mixture of housing options and residents across the economic spectrum.

“That’s what community is all about,” he said, “People of various backgrounds and various economic stratas coming together to really be in a neighborhood and working together.”

In a 2018 study of Philadelphia’s vacant lots, researchers found that where vacant lots were cared for in disinvested neighborhoods, residents were less fearful of crime and made more use of outdoor spaces. This corresponded with an actual significant decline in crime, including gun violence, burglary, and nuisances near those lots compared to the ones left abandoned.

If merely maintaining vacant lots can bring that kind of change, imagine if we put a house there, Branam said. “That’s another family living there then, young professionals living there, seniors living there. What that does for a community is incalculable.”

The communities can be thriving neighborhoods again, Simmons said, with reduced police presence. “Because you now have concerned citizens stepping up, taking responsibility.”

Did you know that what you just read was a solutions journalism story ? It didn’t just examine a problem; it scrutinized a response. By presenting evidence of who is making progress, we remove any excuse that a problem is intractable.

This reporting is part of the Future of North Texas, a community-funded journalism initiative supported by the Commit Partnership, Communities Foundation of Texas, The Dallas Foundation, the Dallas Mavericks, the Dallas Regional Chamber, Deedie Rose, Lisa and Charles Siegel, the McCune-Losinger Family Fund, The Meadows Foundation, the Perot Foundation, the United Way of Metropolitan Dallas and the University of Texas at Dallas. The News retains full editorial control of this coverage.