How the CD-2 Expansion Missed the Mark

We bought a house in Lakewood to run because we were tired of driving here and the sweaty towels in our car post-run. The camaraderie of other joggers on a trail with drinking fountains circling our lake was our small slice of heaven. Our first house was 1100 square feet and had a window unit for AC. We loved it but added central air.

We stayed in Lakewood for the schools. Tough on our taxes but great for our kids; Lakewood Elementary, Long Middle School, and Woodrow Wilson High School gave our two sons a decent education. In these neighborhood schools, our kids and their friends played sports, learned to swim, sail, sing, date, and keep parents up late worrying. This is one of the few feeder patterns in DISD that folks choose, and we are grateful.

Now that our kids are in college, we are still here to walk on that same trail we used to run. There we bump into the long-time friends made in carpools. We pass neighbors so often that we know them and their dogs, too.

That’s Lakewood: Serene lake, water fountains on the trail, shade trees. Comradery. Neighbors. Mid-century moderns, Tudors, non-descript houses, cottages – an evolution of styles built around what matters: the lake, the trees, great neighbors, and that trail that is still a path to Heaven.

I oppose the Lakewood Conservation District Expansion because it has lost sight of what matters. Lakewood is not about Tudors. A traditional or modern home has zero effect on the presence of White Rock Lake, trees, gardens, neighbors, or friendliness.

Don’t get me wrong. My husband and I support preservation. Preserve your Tudor. Your Spanish Eclectic. Your Neoclassical, Colonial Revival, and French Eclectic. Absolutely. You would, anyway.

• If you have to have rules for these homes, be reasonable, so you aren’t pricing retirees out of our neighborhood.
• Be aware that you are proposing rules that will make your lives less efficient and expensive. You are proposing two approvals for routine maintenance, like fixing a stained-glass window. Once with one City Department and again with another. Your architect and contractor will charge for this. You will now need approval for paint. For a driveway. For a chimney repair.

When you targeted the rest of us, you went too far. You were no longer preserving but dictating and discriminating. Requiring us to rebuild to your house’s style is unrealistic and assumes your house is the neighborhood’s focus. It is also expensive and discounts the evolution of architecture for the last 100 years.

When you restricted everyone else’s remodeling rights, you lost your audience. You decided everyone else can only remodel in:

• 1) the style you assign us, or
• 2) a style you live in

To prevent “horrible” choices, you will allow no choices.

Why? Because you are afraid of your neighbors’ choices. You don’t want to see a “horrible” house like (fill in the blank). To prevent what you don’t want, you control what the rest of us can do. It is this intention that will likely kill the CD-2 Expansion altogether. Texans enjoy their property rights, and neighbors in Lakewood respect each other’s rights to make property decisions.

Because this Lakewood CD-2 Expansion morphed into restrictions we cannot support, we will miss the opportunities your Petition purported to establish: reasonable setbacks, lot coverage, and building heights that preserve privacy, trees, and gardens. And friendliness. That’s okay. We prefer property rights.