Please join us for the annual Dallas North Estates Homeowners’ Association annual meeting.  The meeting information follows:

Thursday, May 17, 2018 – 7:00 p.m.
at Messiah Lutheran Church

Speaker: Tracy Hailey – Property Standards

Election of Officers

We are a voluntary association. Dues are $10 per year.

President’s Message

Happy Spring to all!

I hope all of you have had a good Spring and have been enjoying our nice weather.

We will be having a DALLAS NORTH ESTATES HOA meeting on:
Thursday, May 17, 2018
7:00PM
Messiah Lutheran Church (in the Administration Bldg.)
1801 W. Plano Pkwy.
Plano, 75075

Meeting Agenda:

Election of Officers

President, Vice President, Secretary, Treasurer and Crime watch

Tracy Hailey, our neighborhood City of Plano Property Standards Inspector will be in attendance to discuss what the City of Plano Property Standards Department does and what criteria the City uses when it issues a citation to a homeowner or business.

Ms. Hailey will answer questions you may have about your property, as well as your neighbor’s property. This should be very informative.

Because there are many new residents to our neighborhood (A BIG WELCOME TO ALL OF YOU!) and other residents who may not be aware Dallas North Estates has a very active VOLUNTARY HOA, I thought many might be interested in:

SOME FACTS AND A SHORT HISTORY OF DALLAS NORTH ESTATES HOA (DNE HOA)

First, let me say DNE HOA is a VOLUNTARY Homeowners Association for Homeowners. The DNE HOA boundary area in the early years was bounded by Glencliff to the North and later extended to 15th Street to the North, Plano Pkwy to the South, Independence Pkwy to the West and Alma to the East. Pitman Creek Estates is not part of the DNE HOA as it has its own HOA. Others outside of these boundaries are not part of DNE HOA.

In the early days, long before computers and emails (I believe that was in the Dark Ages 😊) the DNE HOA Board and their family members and many wonderful neighbors and the always helpful Boy Scouts faithfully put flyers about upcoming meetings and DNE events (such as our very successful Neighborhood National Night Out events) on EVERYONE’S door in the DNE area to let neighbors know what was going on in the neighborhood. Yes, we kept hand delivering flyers for many years in the heat and cold! Thankfully, eventually, we all began using emails.

HOA members have tried to alert as many people as possible within the DNE area about the DNE HOA through its website www.dnehoa.org   If you are not a member of DNE HOA, you can sign up on the site and you will begin to receive DNE HOA emails so you will know what is going on in our neighborhood. I should add, ALL DNE HOA BOARD members have always completely VOLUNTEERED their precious time to help keep our neighborhood informed about what is going on in our neighborhood and City.

DNE HOA does NOT enforce any deed restrictions, monitor the color you paint your house or any other cosmetic issues. The purpose of  DNE HOA is to keep the neighborhood informed about development and zoning issues in the area, inform neighbors about safety issues through its Crime Watch and safety emails, foster good neighbor relations and help make our neighborhood a great place to live.

1985 was the Beginning…

DNE HOA was originally formed in 1985 in response to a rezoning request for much of the mostly empty land along Plano Pkwy. The Hunt family who had long owned this land, asked for a zoning change in anticipation of the building of the new President George Bush Tollway. At that time this land was zoned for Light Industrial. This means many potentially undesirable things could have legally been built along Plano Pkwy.

This empty land was bounded on the North by Plano Pkwy. (The President George Bush Tollway & frontage road had not been built yet). The land was bounded to the East by Alma Rd. and to the West by Independence Pkwy.

In 1985 as far as I can remember, there were only 4 buildings on the North and South sides of Plano Pkwy between Alma and Independence! The buildings on the South side of Plano Parkway were the old Texas Instruments Bldg. (or TI Bldg. that is now a call center) and the NTT Data Bldg. (then it was the Arco Bldg.) and the Transamerica Bldg. (then the JC Penney Life Insurance Company Bldg.) On the North side of Plano Pkwy, there was 1 two story office bldg. at 1721 West Plano Pkwy. That office bldg. is still there today. That’s all there was on this part of Plano Pkwy in 1985 – just 4 buildings!

The rezoning of this large tract of empty land took 2 years of intense work with the City of Plano and the Hunt family, who owned all of the property. This was a long negotiation with the landowner who had the legal right to build all kinds of things on its property that would not have not been beneficial for our neighborhood. The Hunt family did NOT have to negotiate with DNE HOA or anyone else, but chose to work with our neighborhood to get better zoning for all parties.

The result of the long negotiations was the entire property was rezoned only for office and related retail. Free standing retail was only allowed on the Northeast corner of Plano Pkwy and Independence where RaceTrac is now located. The rest of the property was zoned for office. In fact, there was more office space allowed in the rezoning than in downtown Dallas and the landowner had the legal right to build it out.

The rezoned land sat undeveloped until the mid 1990s.

The first request to change the zoning was from a developer who wanted to build Garden Apartments on the Northwest corner of Custer and Plano Pkwy.  DNE HOA organized the neighborhood and the City denied the request.

The next request to rezone was to build an ice skating rink on the North side of Plano Pkwy between Custer and Alma. Once again DNE HOA organized the neighborhood and the City denied the request. That piece of property is still undeveloped. The ice rink eventually located West of Coit on Plano Pkwy and is now the Star Center.

Then a developer wanted to build a strip shopping center on the Southwest corner of Custer and Plano Pkwy. DNE HOA again organized and the City denied the request.

All of these rezoning requests were denied by the City because DNE HOA organized our neighborhood and spent a great deal of time and effort to research facts and present clear reasons to the City as to why these requests would have been bad for our neighborhood and would have broken the zoning and opened the door for all kinds of unwanted development that could have been built along Plano Pkwy.

HERITAGE CREEKSIDE DEVELOPMENT

In 2014, the Rosewood Company (a part of the original Hunt family) requested a zoning change for the 156 acres it owns along Plano Pkwy. The request was to change the zoning from Office to mixed use zoning. Rosewood wanted to change the zoning of its property in order to build a Billion dollar mixed use development called HERITAGE CREEKSIDE. This development would include single-family homes, apartments, restaurants, offices, hotel and retail.

The property is bounded on the North by Plano Pkwy, on the South by the President George Bush Tollway frontage road, to the East by Alma Rd. and to the West by Custer Rd.

DNE HOA again mobilized the neighborhood and informed Pitman Creek HOA about the development and was very involved in all negotiations between the developer and the City. There were many EXTENSIVE very well attended DNE HOA neighborhood meetings starting in 2014 with our neighborhood and Pitman Creek and Rosewood and the City about ALL aspects of this huge development. After much discussion by all parties, the Mixed Use Zoning was approved by the City in 2015.

HERITAGE CREEKSIDE continues to take shape with many sold single-family homes and townhouses being built with more on the way. Extensive work has been done to the Creek that runs through the property and the pedestrian bridge has already been installed. Apartments have been built and restaurants have been announced and are being built. A large office building is planned along with a hotel…we’ll all stay tuned…

The rest of the development along Plano Pkwy has complied with the current zoning except for 2 developments that required SUPs (Specific Use Permits). One was for a Self Storage Facility and the other is a yet to be built Veterinary Clinic. Both complied with the zoning and were approved by the City.

In 2017 Dell made a request for a Municipal Setting Designation (MSD) on the NTT Data property. DNE HOA was asked by the City to help facilitate a meeting for our neighborhood with the City and the property owner about the MSD. The City approved the MSD in 2018.

I hope this gives you a good idea of some of what DNE HOA has done over many years. The HOA will continue to monitor developments in our neighborhood to help insure they become amenities for our neighborhood. The DNE HOA goal is to work together to keep our neighborhood a TERRIFIC place to live for everyone!

If you have any questions please contact me at president@dnehoa.org

Also to sign up for emails or information about our DNE HOA, go to www.dnehoa.org

Please, as always, inform your neighbors who may not know we have a Voluntary HOA that is open to all Homeowners in the DNE HOA boundary!

I look forward to seeing you at our meeting!

Robert A. Miller

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