Interim City Planner, Duncanville, TX

Project Description

Masterplan served as the interim City Planner for the City of Duncanville. In this capacity, the firm has worked with the City on numerous projects to keep the momentum of the department moving forward.

Work included:  

• Investigating opportunities for redevelopment.  
• Investigating the need for a Comprehensive Plan update due to practical market considerations.  
• Recommendations in the zoning ordinance update process rooted in market-based realities and best practice zoning regulations.  
• Assisting in the on-going development code updates regarding food trucks and other unclassified uses.  
• Processing zoning and platting applications through the Planning & Zoning Commission in accordance with state and local codes.  
• Leading pre-development meetings to give customers practical assessment of land development codes and options to achieve desired outcome. 

Challenges

• While the city had a vacancy for the City Planner position, they also faced a hiring freeze. As a suburb of Dallas seeing tremendous growth, they needed to keep city planning on track.    

Strategies Used

• Masterplan’s frequent representation of private development clients informs our work and allows practical, market-based planning. We worked closely with the director of public works to ensure the planning department workload was managed and executed.    

Results

• The City of Duncanville was able to keep their planning department on track. Masterplan assisted during the hiring process for the new City Planner. We then worked with the new City Planner to transition the department to his leadership. Our team continues to work with the City of Duncanville’s planning department as needs arise.