What MF-2 is, and why we defend it
We are pro-development. Look around the neighborhood — there is plenty of proof that building within the existing code works, and is working for more people every year. What we ask is that the code be the code.
MF-2, multi-family residential
45 feet
PD 193, Oak Lawn Special Purpose District
SOHIP is mapped City Residential. The plan does not specify a height for that placetype.
A theater came down in the middle of the night. The zoning code is what grew back.
Every height limit in this neighborhood traces to one building's destruction. If you want to understand why Oak Lawn is governed differently from the rest of Dallas, start in 1985.
Residents fighting to save the Esquire Theater at Oak Lawn and Lemmon form a standing group. It later becomes the Oak Lawn Committee, which still reviews every development in the district.
An eighty-six page governing document, written by a cross-section of architects, developers, urban planners and attorneys over thousands of hours of meetings. It is the compromise the whole district still runs on.
After nearly two years of preservation fights, the owner takes the building down — reportedly in the middle of the night, to avoid further protest. The theater had stood at the corner since 1931.
Ordinance No. 18580 creates Planned Development District 193. Among its principal authors is Bud Oglesby, the modernist architect whose townhomes stand on our own streets.
Ordinance 21859, adopted in 1993, is the base text still in force today. It has been amended many times since — which is exactly why reading the current filing matters more than reading the summary.
What PD 193 actually regulates
The district runs on a subdistrict system. Two lots a block apart can be governed by very different numbers, which is why we read the filing rather than the headline.
The case record
4211 Newton Ave
We do not support the project, yet no longer oppose it — a position adopted April 2026 after ten months of engagement moved the proposal from 28 stories to 16.
Questions neighbors ask
MF-2 is a multi-family residential designation with a maximum building height of 45 feet — roughly three to four stories. It is the standard across most of SOHIP, and it is why our streets read the way they do. It does not prohibit apartments. It sets how tall they can be.
No. We welcome any developer willing to build within the existing zoning, and there is plenty of proof around us that it works. Our objection is never to density — it is to projects that ask for an exception the rest of the neighborhood did not get.
Case by case, and on the record. We read the actual filing rather than the summary, look at height, density, traffic and precedent, and bring a position to the membership before it is adopted. Positions are dated and published here, so you can see what we said and when we said it.