Drive the southwest corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane this week and you'll still see the same tired shopping center that has sat there since a 2019 tornado tore through the block and never fully bounced back. What you won't see yet is the 19-story hotel and condo tower, the 18-story apartment building, or the 12-story office tower a developer wants to put in its place. If you live anywhere near District 13, you've probably already heard the shorthand version of this story: big fight, big towers, angry neighbors. On August 6, the Dallas City Plan Commission voted 10-4 to send the rezoning on to City Council.
The vote count is worth a second look, because it barely resembles the neighborhood's own count. Of the 283 property owners within the official notification radius, 261 said they opposed the project. Eight were in favor. A rejection rate that lopsided rarely shows up in Dallas zoning cases, and it didn't stop the commission from moving the project forward anyway. If you've assumed that near-total local opposition works like a veto at Dallas City Hall, this case is worth understanding in detail, because that assumption is no longer reliable, and the reason why has more to do with a new state law than with anything happening on the commission itself.
What's Actually Proposed for the Corner
The development team is Leland Burk of Burk Interests and Gerald Stool's Greenway Investment Co., and they're seeking to redevelop roughly seven acres on the southwest corner. The current plan calls for a 19-story hotel and condominium tower reaching 240 feet, an 18-story apartment building with mixed-income units at 210 feet, and a 12-story office building, along with ground-floor retail, a restaurant village, a half-acre public green space, and more than 200 new trees planted on a site that lost much of its canopy in the 2019 storm.
Here's the number that anchors the entire debate: the site's current Community Retail zoning caps buildings at 54 feet. That limit has held for decades. The developer's request would let the tallest structure rise to more than four times that height.
| Current zoning cap | Latest proposal (August 2026) | |
|---|---|---|
| Hotel/condo tower | 54 feet | 240 feet (19 stories) |
| Apartment tower | 54 feet | 210 feet (18 stories) |
| Office building | 54 feet | 12 stories |
The plan has already shrunk more than once. When it was first unveiled in October 2025, the condo-hotel tower was proposed at 28 stories, or 325 feet, with a companion apartment tower at 24 stories, or 275 feet. By April 2026, those numbers had come down to 25 stories and 299 feet, and 21 stories and 250 feet. By the time the plan reached the commission in August, the tallest tower had dropped 85 feet total from where it started, landing at 240 feet. Each round of concessions moved the project closer to what neighbors were asking for. None of them moved it below what current zoning allows.
A Commission Vote That Split 10-4, Not the Way You'd Guess
Four commissioners voted no: Joanna Hampton, Alicia Serrato, Jack Kocks, and Kathy Coffman. Tabitha Wheeler-Reagan was absent. What's notable is that even the dissenters weren't arguing against redevelopment of the corner. Hampton said publicly that she could likely have supported something in the range of 160 to 180 feet, a height still three times the current cap but well under what was on the table. Kocks tried a last-minute amendment capping the site at 75 feet, calling the developer's request "obscene." Only Coffman backed it, and the amendment failed.
That's the pattern worth noticing. This wasn't a fight between a commission that wanted density and a neighborhood that wanted none. It was a fight over exactly how much height a corner can absorb, and the commission majority landed much closer to the developer's number than to the neighborhood's.
Why Near-Unanimous Opposition Didn't Carry the Day
Here's the part of the story that got less attention than the vote itself but matters more if you're trying to understand what actually happened. During the hearing, city officials pointed to Texas Senate Bill 840, arguing that it fundamentally changed the baseline for evaluating zoning applications like this one. SB 840 allows significant multifamily development by right on commercially zoned property, meaning a landowner doesn't need a rezoning at all to build substantial apartment density on land that's already zoned commercial, which this site is. Planning staff told commissioners the Preston-Royal site could theoretically accommodate hundreds of apartment units under SB 840 alone, with the final number depending on parking, engineering, and traffic constraints rather than on any zoning vote.
That reframes the choice in front of the neighborhood in a way most residents haven't fully absorbed yet. The real decision was never simply tower or no tower. It was negotiated development, with height limits, public green space, tree planting commitments, and a defined use mix worked out through the zoning process, against as-of-right development that could proceed under state law regardless of what the commission or council decides, without any of those negotiated commitments attached. Blocking this specific rezoning doesn't necessarily return the corner to its current 54-foot ceiling. It may just remove the leverage residents currently have to shape what replaces it.
The Names Behind the Signs on Your Street
The opposition has organized under a group called Preserve Preston Hollow, a nonprofit formed specifically to fight this project. Its spokesperson, Doug Hazelbaker, is a former Plano planning commissioner who lives close to the site, and his position has been consistent throughout the process: "The uses are fine. The height needs to come down." The group's petition has gathered more than 4,400 signatures, and testimony at the August hearing repeatedly cited traffic and pedestrian safety concerns tied to St. Mark's School, located around the corner from the site, with opponents noting that the nearest home sits only about 200 feet from the proposed towers.
In early August, that local effort widened into something bigger. On August 4, more than 150 residents packed a meeting hall at Northaven United Methodist Church for the public launch of a new coalition called D13 Together, drawing representation from beyond Preston Hollow alone, including:
- Preston Hollow
- Bluffview
- Wimberley Court
- Melshire Estates
The coalition has pressed District 13 Council Member Gay Donnell Willis on this case specifically, and some members have raised the possibility of a recall effort if she doesn't work to delay a slate of contentious zoning votes, this one among them.
What Happens Next, and How to Actually Track It
As of late August, Dallas City Council has not announced a hearing date for the final vote. The case now sits in the queue for council consideration, and both the developer and Preserve Preston Hollow have said they expect the fight to continue once a date is set. If you want to follow this directly rather than through secondhand summaries, Preserve Preston Hollow's own site tracks hearing dates and meeting recaps as they're scheduled, and the Dallas Morning News has covered each stage of the case in detail as it has moved through the process.
Whatever you think the right height for that corner is, the more useful thing to understand right now is that the fight over Preston and Royal was never purely local, and it isn't over. State law has already changed what "no" can actually accomplish, and the next few months will show whether a negotiated deal beats the alternative or whether this becomes the test case that decides it.
If you want to talk through what any of this could mean for a specific street or a specific decision you're weighing in Preston Hollow, reach out to the team at Holly Davis & Amy Farris. We live in this market, we're watching this case as closely as you are, and we're always glad to compare notes.
