Planning for Conservation

Cedar Hill is located on the edge of the Balcones Fault Zone and is the highest elevation at 880 feet above sea level between the Red River border with Oklahoma and the Gulf of Mexico. It is 16 miles from downtown Dallas and 31 miles from downtown Fort Worth. It spans approximately 36 square miles and two counties – Dallas and Ellis. Joe Pool Lake and Cedar Hill State Park comprise its eastern border.

Originally a settler’s community, Cedar Hill is the oldest organized community in Dallas County. It grew from a rural town of 6,850 in 1980 to a diverse, suburban community with a population just under 50,000 today. The community experienced most of its residential growth in the 1990s. Cedar Hill is a retail hub for adjoining communities with commercial uses along major corridors. The community also boasts parks and recreation offerings and a mixture of residential neighborhoods. With these attributes and its location within the region, growth is inevitable.

Cedar Hill adopted its Comprehensive Plan, "Cedar Hill Next" on March 22, 2022. The community envisioned itself as "A City in a Park" during the development of the 2012 Parks, Recreation, Trails & Open Space Master Plan. In the early stages of public outreach for the Comprehensive Plan in 2019, the recurring sentiment was that the community wanted to double down on that vision.

The city enlisted technical assistance from the consulting firm, City Explained to develop a Likely Impacts Model. The model contemplated 3 growth scenarios and evaluated the infrastructure and government finance trade-offs that would be associated with each, one of which was open space conservation of more than 20% of the city. While the social and environmental returns were not quantified in this exercise, we intrinsically believed that the benefits of doing so would outweigh the costs. To our benefit, the model found that not only could the city afford to set aside this much land in one of the scenarios, but it also had the highest return on investment. Embracing pocket neighborhoods, clustered housing, future redevelopment of big-box retail centers, and density in key locations such as Midtown and along parts of Future Loop 9 reduced long-term maintenance costs to the city. In addition, utilizing areas with proximity to these settings as opportunities for community gathering spaces, eco-tourism, and economic development would help the city capture even more value.

With that information in tow, the city proceeded to develop what is commonly referred to as the “future land use plan”. Because conservation of open space was the anchor for our plan, we coined it “Conservation and Growth Map” and the designations on it as character areas and place types driven by experiences. The land conservation/preservation component is captured by 2 of the 4 character areas.

First, the “Open Space” character area prioritizes preserving and conserving open space for passive and active recreation, water and air quality protection, and rural living. It includes properties that have scenic views, large stands of mature trees, and/or attributes that warrant consideration for environmental protection.

Second, the “Conservation Opportunity” character area represents an opportunity to help the community reach the 25 percent open space goal by utilizing privately held properties that contain creeks, the Escarpment, and endangered flora and fauna. Accounting for developable land lost to make property available to the public for environmental protection, parks, trails and lookout areas, additional height and building clusters could be allowed where feasible. Where additional building height is allowed, it must be considerate of adjoining residential property and preserve open scenic views. Development and supportive infrastructure would be designed in a context sensitive manner.

The development of Cedar Hill’s Comprehensive Plan can stand alone or be combined with other sessions. If this session were to stand alone, I would include the consultant. My city email address is: lashondra.stringfellow@cedarhilltx.com.