Innovate Arlington, the city’s in-progress 20-year plan, is taking shape with five goals for the type of community residents want to see.
John Chapman, Arlington’s long range planning manager, calls them the five pillars of the city’s comprehensive plan, a big-picture overview of the city’s goals with recommendations on how to make them a reality.
Chapman said the pillars were created using the input from community members who attended planning events and helped describe the ideal Arlington of the future.
Planners also used a board game, Grow a Better Arlington, to give feedback on what they would like their community to look like – specifically what types of broad uses they’d like to see for different areas of the city.
“That helped us understand where residents and community members were intending certain place types to be,” Chapman said. “Whether that be the entertainment cultural destination or employment districts or commerce hubs, even types of living place types, urban neighborhood, neighborhood node, mixed-use center, urban corridor.”
The Five Pillars
The plan has been divided into five priorities for the city’s future: vibrant and safe, innovative and thriving, connected and walkable, sustainable and healthy, and welcoming and community culture.
Under that vibrant and safe category, the city wants to see investment into neighborhoods, clean public spaces, increased public safety and infilling development at underutilized properties.
For innovative and thriving, city leaders want to see more people choose to live in Arlington, supporting workforce development through partner organizations, attract university graduates to stay and work in Arlington and promoting the local economy.
Connected and walkable means promoting active modes of transportation, offering affordable and innovative public transit and prioritizing resident mobility with well-managed traffic flow and ensuring there is enough parking throughout Arlington.
Open spaces and parks, promoting community health and protecting and enhancing natural environments and resources are all included in creating a sustainable and healthy city.
Arlington, which regularly brags about its diversity, wants to take steps to further celebrate it. With the goal of creating a welcoming and community culture, the city hopes to use support for the arts, public events and historical preservation to celebrate culture and history.That also includes the goal of ensuring residents have regular, clear communication and opportunities for engagement between the city and the public.
Running out of space
The comprehensive plan is being created to replace 99 Square Miles, the last long-range plan developed by the city in 2015.
Chapman is working with other planners, different city departments, the city council and Arlington residents and businesses to envision the Arlington’s next two decades, with major portions of the city’s strategy expected to address Arlington nearing a built-out state.
When a city becomes built-out, it has no more land to develop. Arlington is comprised of 99 square miles of landlocked territory.
With Pantego and Dalworthington Gardens like islands surrounded by the city, Arlington is also bordered by Fort Worth, Grand Prairie, Mansfield and Kennedale.
With North Texas rapidly growing — more than half a million people have moved to the region since 2020 — Arlington is expected to run out of space for new development soon.
Mayor Jim Ross said there are some common themes in what most residents want.
“They want to have walkability, they want to have connectivity, but most importantly the most common thing was they want Arlington to be welcome to everybody.”
That desire to be welcoming has seen the Arlington make national headlines as the city council considers removing LGBTQ protections from its anti-discrimination policy over fears that it could jeopardize federal grant funding.
Ross told city staff on Oct. 14 that he wanted to delay any votes on those changes to the city’s ordinance. Around 40 people spoke in opposition to removing those protections at that meeting.
The issue is expected to return to council in November.
The long-range plan will have a heavy focus on the best way to utilize Arlington’s limited undeveloped land and upscaling city services over time to match local and regional growth, Chapman said previously.
When it came to the types of places they’d like to see in Arlington, Chapman said single family/estate, entertainment and culture, mixed use and commercial areas were popular in the results of the board game.
The city is hosting several town halls to share more about the comprehensive plan and get more input from residents and business owners:
- Nov. 5, First United Methodist Church, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- Nov. 11, Arlington East Library and Recreation Center, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
- Nov. 12, ACTIV Center, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
- Nov. 13, Southeast Branch Library, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
- Nov. 17, Northeast Branch Library, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
- Nov. 19, Southwest Branch Library, 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.
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