By Mark Wrolstad
    The Dallas Morning News (July 30, 2001)

 

Randy Eli Grothe / DMN A drive to protect the character of Dallas' M Streets neighborhood has the support of (from left) Doug Wike, Annamarie Lark (with her son Collin), Juli Roland and her husband, Jordan Schweitzer. A conservation district would set architectural standards and prohibit incompatible construction.

They were in her sights even before she moved to the M Streets neighborhood – scaled-up custom houses replacing vintage tear-downs in one of Dallas' most identifiable residential areas.

Angela Hunt was alarmed and depressed that builders were putting up what she calls "Plano houses" and "starter castles" that were out of character and proportion with one of the city's largest pockets of Tudor homes from the 1920s – and that residents weren't trying to stop them.

"I said, 'If we move over here, I wonder if there's anything we can do to preserve the history and architecture of the neighborhood,' " said Ms. Hunt, a 29-year-old lawyer who this year bought one of the popular Old East Dallas enclave's English-cottage renditions.

From almost the moment she and her husband moved to the neighborhood, where many house prices have doubled in less than a decade to around $300,000, Ms. Hunt began organizing a grass-roots drive to draw a conservation district around 916 homes in the heart of the M Streets.

The zoning designation, which must be made by the Dallas City Council, would protect the historic character of the neighborhood, known as Greenland Hills, by setting architectural standards for new homes and additions and prohibiting incompatible construction.

"It is a critical issue when you drive down the street and every few weeks another home has been razed," said Ms. Hunt, whose army of conservation volunteers under the banner "Save the M Streets" has reported "surprisingly" little opposition. "This is not something that can wait.

"Once the neighborhood is gone, there'll be nothing left to protect."

This section of the M Streets, named for the concentration of streets south of Mockingbird Lane that start with "M," is the latest testing ground for preservationists as Dallas and its neighborhoods decide what they want to be in the new century and what from the past century should endure.

Already changing
The conservation effort, involving fewer complications than a historic-district designation, has encouraged one builder to change some of his designs in a spirit of compromise.

Jay Wysong of Belmont Homes has built several large homes in the neighborhood that have been criticized by residents. He has since earned their praise for supporting the conservation standards.

"I don't want to be part of the problem, I want to be part of the solution," said Mr. Wysong, who is about to move into one of the homes he built. "I don't want to see homes that are uncharacteristic of the area go up.

"I want people to think, 'That guy cares.' We're not down there just for the quick buck."

About two dozen homes have been built in Greenland Hills since 1997 – when residents' earlier discussions of a conservation district never got off the ground.

Tear-downs have been commonplace since the early 1980s in parts of the Park Cities and North Dallas when a property's demolition/new construction formula spelled profit for a builder.

But the new homes' size and appearance were enough to spark activism in the M Streets.

"The tear-down trend shakes up everyone and affects what people value about their neighborhood," said Dwayne Jones, the executive director of Preservation Dallas, a nonprofit advocacy group. "It hits real close to home, and the M Streets are a prime candidate.

"It's one of the most serious things affecting Dallas and its architecture and neighborhoods."

A year away
If the first few months of concerted campaigning are an indication, a Greenland Hills conservation district – in some form – seems on its way toward approval, though working out the specific standards could take another year or more.

A petition campaign asking the city to study the issue has quickly netted the signatures of 72 percent of the area's property owners. Fifty percent is the minimum requirement for such a petition; supporters are close to their more ambitious goal of 75 percent, which they say will show city staff and council members how strongly residents want preservation.

Signature-gatherers said that residents seem virtually unanimous about protecting their area's historic significance but that a few don't want local government restricting how they can change their property.

"We stress over and over it's not that we oppose new homes being built or old homes being renovated," said Annamarie Lark, a volunteer in the effort. "They just need to fit with our neighborhood so we don't lose our architectural integrity and uniqueness, which was why we moved here.

"The new houses shouldn't stick out like a sore thumb."

Boundaries
The conservation district's boundaries would follow those of the original Greenland Hills development between Central Expressway and Greenville Avenue and between McCommas Boulevard and Vanderbilt Avenue.

In the three-quarters of a century since the development was built in what was then the far north reaches of Dallas, several blocks have become a hodgepodge of construction styles and quality.

Some houses appear to be beyond repair while, on other streets, classic examples of one-story Tudor and Craftsman homes with tidy, shaded landscapes shine like antique gems. Unique architectural touches – whimsical brickwork, canted chimneys and original stained glass – highlight many of the typically 1,600- to 1,800-square-foot homes.

In this uneven residential oasis, many residents said that the newest homes stand out the most – brick and stone houses that rise more than two stories at their front step. Many of the homes have Tudor influences in their steep gables or rounded doors, but their 3,000-plus square feet of living space make them too massive for the neighborhood's smallish lots, residents said.

"They're nice-looking, but they don't match anything around them," said Christian Schoen, who lives on Vanderbilt Avenue, where several of the two-story houses have been built.

"I hate the idea of them tearing down charming old houses and building these master Plano houses," said Steve McCabe, who lives in a small Tudor-style house. "I don't want to stop them from building [new houses]. But they should give a little forethought to the front facade. They shouldn't dwarf the houses around them."

Doug Wike owns one of the larger homes but has enlisted in the effort to enact building restrictions.

"The neighborhood needs continuity, and that's where a lot of the value is, not only monetarily in the house, but also the ... quality of life," said Mr. Wike, who joked that his house isn't the "starter castle" that some have dubbed it.

"I don't want builders to come into the neighborhood and put up a bunch of junk."

Supporters of the petition drive have been careful not to pit homeowner against homeowner and have tried to emphasize what they all have to gain by preserving a desirable district.

"They're already there," volunteer Juli Roland said of the large new homes. "There's nothing we can do to change it."

But she's been encouraged by her neighbors' cohesiveness.

Although there's no indication that anything other than dilapidated structures have met the wrecking ball, residents are concerned that "maybe things that could otherwise be restored are just being bulldozed," Ms. Roland said.

Deciding the limits
A primary aim is to preserve the "street appeal" of homes, old and new, by pushing large construction toward the back of the property.

Supporters have started surveying residents about what building standards they favor, including restrictions on architectural styles and materials, height and width of houses, front and side setbacks, porches, windows, paint, fences, trees and demolitions themselves.

"That's the hard part," said City Council member Mary Poss, who represents the area and plans to host a neighborhood meeting in a month or so.

The conservation district has a long way to go.

It took the Lakewood neighborhood a couple of years to arrange details for a similar district in the mid-1980s, and an ordinance preserving large lots in Forest Hills took about as long, Ms. Poss recalled.

The petition support for the Greenland Hills conservation district represents "a very good prospect that it'll happen," she said.

Resident Bill Beach, a home inspector and former real estate agent, said the neighborhood needs to stand against those who would exploit it.

"I don't believe we should try and stop progress," he said. "But there's a flavor to this neighborhood, and greed doesn't care about flavor."