Rezone proposed for 1917 Greenville Ave. Photo taken by Renee Umsted on March 17, 2023.
The City Plan Commission recommended to deny requests that would allow some Lowest Greenville businesses to stay open until 10 p.m.
Two requests regarding operating hours for tenants at 1917 Greenville Ave. were proposed. One request would amend Subdistrict 1 of PD 842, which includes 1917 Greenville Ave., to allow businesses to operate between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. Currently, the businesses must close by 7 p.m.
In another request, Feng Cha, a boba tea store in one of the suites at 1917 Greenville Ave., asked for a specific use permit to stay open until 10 p.m.
Feng Cha and two other tenants — Balanced Being Yoga & Wellness and a hair-removal studio called Sugaring NYC — are located at 1917 Greenville Ave.
But this case is not just about satisfying customers’ after-dinner cravings for boba tea. It deals with parking.
That’s why passerby will see a sign on Feng Cha’s window listing business hours as 11 a.m.-7 p.m. daily, “due to outdated, ludicrous, nonsensical parking requirements being enforced by the City of Dallas.”
Subdistricts were created in Lower Greenville to preserve historical buildings known as legacy buildings and encourage a mix of uses, particularly retail and services that operate during the day. If businesses operate at different hours, not all of the available parking is used at the same time, and this helps keep overflow parking out of neighborhoods, District 14 City Plan Commission member Melissa Kingston said at the May 18 commission meeting.
“The solution that was put into place were these subdistricts that have restrictions on hours and restrictions on uses that are designed to create complementary uses to support the community and to support the strip and to help create the type of vibrancy that we’re trying to have on Greenville Avenue,” she said.
Like many others in Lower Greenville, Feng Cha and its neighbors are inside a legacy building that lacks off-street parking spaces.
Legacy buildings are sometimes provided delta credits, which Kingston referred to as “imaginary parking spots.” The city allows buildings without designated off-street parking to have delta credits so that they can be occupied.
1917 Greenville Ave. lost its delta credits because it was unoccupied for more than a year.
There are other businesses on Greenville Avenue that, like Feng Cha’s building, have no parking spaces and no delta credits, Kingston said, but they can pay to lease parking spaces.
Some other business operators near 1917 Greenville Ave. objected to the request to extend opening hours until 10 p.m., the commissioner said.
“They say, ‘Well look, if I have to lease parking, and these people don’t, that’s not fair. That puts them at a commercial advantage to me, when I have to lease parking,'” Kingston said.
She added that some neighbors were opposed to the request because just a few years ago, they worked with the city and building owner to create Subdistrict 1, allowing office, retail and personal service uses at properties with no parking during operating hours of 6 a.m.-7 p.m. — and now, the businesses want more.
“I don’t think that people on Greenville are necessarily opposed to a tea place or a yoga place,” Kingston said. “It’s really more about the long-term consequences of amending this subdistrict, what it means for the other subdistricts — once you amend one, you’ll get the application for all of them — what it means for the parking and what it means for Greenville Avenue in general.”
Kingston also said Feng Cha and Balanced Being “habitually violate” existing zoning requirements — Feng Cha by advertising itself as a dine-in establishment and placing chairs inside and outside, and Balanced Being by offering classes past 7 p.m.
Though Feng Cha appears to have offered seating outside in the past, as this screenshot from Google Maps in June 2022 shows, no chairs were outside the shop as of publication.
Google Maps street view from June 2022.
Sallie Baxter, who owns Balanced Being, did not immediately respond to a question regarding class schedules. However, an Instagram post shared by Balanced Being advertised a class at 7 p.m. April 20.
The plan commission voted to deny both requests.
Two other Lower Greenville cases before the commission — one concerning Rye and one concerning Standard Service — are being held under advisement until the July 6 meeting.
