On the morning of August 4, more than 150 people filled a meeting hall at Northaven United Methodist Church. Standing room only, according to accounts from that day. They were there for the public launch of D13 Together, a new coalition stitching together neighborhood groups from Bluffview, Wimberley Court, Preston Hollow, and Melshire Estates that had, until that morning, mostly fought their own separate battles with the city. Two days later, the fight they'd assembled around went to a vote. The coalition lost that first round. Understanding why matters more than the headline numbers everyone's been repeating.
The Corner, and What It Used to Be
The southwest corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane has sat mostly vacant since a 2019 tornado tore through the shopping center that once occupied it. Developer Leland Burk, working with Greenway Investment Company, wants to replace it with a mixed-use project on roughly seven acres: a hotel and residential tower, a second residential tower, an office building, and a restaurant village, plus a half-acre of public green space and more than 200 new trees. Almost nobody objects to that part. Doug Hazelbaker, a Preserve Preston Hollow spokesperson and former Plano planning commissioner, put it plainly at the August 6 hearing: the corner developing isn't the argument. The argument is height.
Here's the spread that's actually driving this fight, laid out against each other instead of scattered across separate news cycles:
| What | Height |
|---|---|
| Current zoning limit on the corner | 54 feet |
| Amendment neighbors pushed for at the CPC hearing | 75 feet (failed) |
| What Commissioner Hampton said she could support | 160 to 180 feet |
| Burk's current request | 240 feet (about 19 stories) |
| Burk's original spring 2026 concept | 325 feet |
That middle row is the one nobody's been talking about. Commissioner Hampton rejected the 54-foot cap some residents wanted, calling it unrealistic for the corridor, but she also told the room the current 240-foot ask was too far. Her own number: 160 to 180 feet. That's not a resident's talking point or a developer's opening bid. It's an appointed commissioner, on the record, naming the range where she'd personally sign off. If the project ends up landing somewhere in that band when it reaches the full City Council, residents will have seen it coming from this one comment weeks earlier.
What Actually Happened on August 6
The Dallas City Plan Commission spent more than three hours on the case before voting 10-4 to recommend approval, sending it on to the full City Council. Roughly 30 residents spoke against the project, many in black T-shirts reading "no skyscrapers, no rezoning at Preston and Royal." Fifteen spoke in favor. Commissioner Jack Kocks tried to amend the motion to cap every structure on the site at 75 feet. It failed. Commissioner Larry Hall, who represents District 13 on the commission, made the motion that ultimately passed, and afterward suggested there had been real room to negotiate that got lost in petitions and yard signs.
One exchange from the hearing captures the gap between how commissioners and residents were hearing the same facts. Commissioner Loren Gilbert-Smith, from District 4, told the room she wouldn't want a tall building looking into her own backyard, but argued that wasn't what was happening here given the setbacks involved. Megan Ratcliff, a Preston Hollow parent whose sons attend St. Mark's, saw it differently, telling commissioners it was hard to picture her kids walking along Preston-Royal for a burger after a game once three towers' worth of residents, employees, and cars were added to an intersection that's already busy.
Both were describing the same 240-foot proposal. Neither was wrong about their own experience of it.
The Recall Threat Was Never Just About This Corner
What made the August 4 press conference different from a typical neighborhood zoning fight is what D13 Together tied to it. Alongside Preston-Royal, the coalition demanded a 120-day delay on two other pending cases, a rezoning at Walnut Hill and Marsh for 41 patio homes and an amendment in Melshire Estates, and asked Council Member Gay Donnell Willis to oppose changes that would ease the path toward relocating Dallas City Hall from its current downtown building. If she didn't agree to all three, coalition member Katherine Seale told the crowd, they'd start the recall process.
That's a wider ask than "stop this one tower," and it changes what the fight is actually about. Willis pushed back on a blanket delay in an August 11 statement, saying she'd already had more than 22 meetings and calls with residents on the Preston-Royal and Walnut Hill cases and wasn't willing to pause three separate items just because they'd become politically charged. Under the Dallas City Charter, an actual recall requires a petition signed by a number of voters equal to 15 percent of those eligible to vote in District 13 during the last municipal election. By the coalition's own count, its roughly 4,000 to 4,400 petition signers put it at only about half of that threshold, not on the edge of it.
A Mixed Scorecard, Not a Clean Win or Loss
If you've only seen one headline out of this, it's worth knowing the coalition's record across its three targeted cases so far isn't uniform:
- Preston-Royal: cleared the Plan Commission 10-4 on August 6. Full City Council vote still hasn't been scheduled.
- Melshire Estates: the zoning amendment went before the City Council on August 12 and was approved.
- Walnut Hill and Marsh Lane: deferred by the Council on August 25, with the public hearing now set for September 23. Willis made the motion to defer it herself, which drew its own complaints, since roughly 20 residents who'd stayed to speak on the item never got called.
That last point matters for anyone planning to show up to a future hearing. District 13 resident John Wimberley called the decision to defer without hearing speakers rude and inconsiderate, a reminder that procedure, not just outcome, is part of what residents are frustrated about right now.
What to Actually Watch From Here
The Preston-Royal case still needs a full City Council vote, and no date has been set as of this writing. That's the hearing where the 160-to-180-foot range Commissioner Hampton floated becomes relevant again, since the Council isn't bound by what the Plan Commission recommended. Staff has recommended approval throughout, arguing the project aligns with the city's ForwardDallas 2.0 plan for concentrating density at high-traffic corners rather than inside existing neighborhoods, which is the same argument commissioners Melissa Kingston and Tipton Housewright made in supporting the project outright.
For residents near Preston and Royal, the practical version of all this is simple. The fight isn't over, the number that matters isn't the one in the developer's press release, and the neighborhood group with the loudest petition doesn't automatically get the outcome it's asking for, as the August 6 vote already showed. Whatever the Council eventually approves for that corner will shape traffic, sightlines, and property character on streets many residents have lived on for decades, which is exactly why it's worth following past the first headline.
If you're weighing what any of this means for a home near Preston-Royal, whether you're watching from a front porch on Royal Lane or thinking ahead to a future sale, Duncan Real Estate Co knows this corridor block by block. Schedule a consultation when you're ready to talk through what's actually changing on your street, not just what's in the headlines.
