Although its borders are landlocked, the city of Arlington continues to grow, as evidenced by the newly released Annual Development Profile.
For example, at the end of 2023 the city had 156,016 housing units, a 2.26% increase from 2022. The housing units total includes both single-family and multifamily and, in comparison, the city had 132,203 housing units in 2000.
Produced since 2003, the Annual Development Profile provides a summary of development changes in the city over the previous year. It measures development in Arlington via statistics related to housing, construction, zoning, platting and land use.
“We like to provide this information for the city manager’s office, as well as economic development, and for our own internal uses,” said Patricia Sinel, long-range planning manager for the city. “Then, we also share with public works to see where the growth trends are and if they need to change any future transportation plans along with the transportation department.”
Sinel said the report helps pinpoint where the large growth areas are in the city.
“Our developers have talked to us about it as well as our real estate agents,” she said. “We have it public facing, so anybody who might be interested in any planning and permitting data in Arlington are our main users.”
Among other data in the report are residential new construction permits for single-family developments, with 43.37% of those in the Viridian development in North Arlington. There was a 24.3% increase in nonresidential new construction permits. According to the report, the city had 3,320 acres of vacant-developable land at the end of 2023.
While the 2,000-acre Viridian development has been an active contributor to growth, it is nearing build-out, Sinel said.
She said the largest section of undeveloped and underused land is in South Arlington, and that’s where development will occur in the future.
“Those trends in South Arlington, especially the southwest Arlington area, will probably continue. There is available land there,” Sinel said.
“I don’t think the trends that we’re seeing in Viridian will continue, but in North Arlington the redevelopment of Rolling Hills Country Club will add over 200 new single-family units to the market when that finally gets above ground,” she said.
Sinel said the big driving force for the increase in housing units between 2022 and 2023 was multifamily.
“Looking at the overall growth from single-family, we generally see less than a 1 percentage point increase year to year,” Sinel said. “But the big driver for our housing unit change between 2022 to 2023 was multifamily, which increased 5.63%.”
The city had a 24.3% increase in nonresidential new construction permits in 2023, according to the report.
Sinel again cited Viridian.
“It’s about Viridian. We see the new nonresidential, which is commercial, institutional, industrial, any of those classifications,” she said. “Viridian does have its own commercial component.”
Sinel said much of the nonresidential activity was in the northern section of Arlington along the Cooper area, the Collins area, and even along Abram. She said there are a lot of redevelopment and infill projects citywide.
The report noted that construction permits were down in 2023 by nearly 15%, which Sinel said was a sign of the economy and interest rates.
“Most of our construction permits come from housing,” she said. “The permit itself can be not only construction of the main house, but also the fence permits, carports, garages.”
The city continued a six-year trend in platting numbers with a 62.9% decrease in platted lots and a 62.1% decrease in platted acreage between 2022 and 2023.
That trend “may indicate a stable community but we’re nearing build-out,” Sinel said.
With single-family housing comprising the largest land-use sector, Sinel noted that the second largest land usage is parks and open spaces.
“Parks and open space are almost 10% now, and that even beats out multifamily, commercial and retail,” Sinel said.
She noted that single-family housing development regulations have a requirement for open space and community amenities in those new single-family subdivisions.
“They also require that as part of our multifamily as well,” she said. “It shows that requirement in the unified development code is working, that we are seeing the increased numbers percentagewise in parks and open space.”
Taylor Oldroyd, president and CEO of the Arlington Board of Realtors, said while he doesn’t think most Realtors are aware of the city’s annual profile, he found it to be very informative.
Among his takeaways, he said, “is the fact that at a time when we need more housing, the number of permits is going in the opposite direction. We need more housing … and all types of housing … yet platting and new residential building permit activity is way down.”
Oldroyd said that city regulations and its comprehensive plan are very important in how we grow and develop as a community.
That is why the Realtors group “will continue to advocate for a more transparent and predictable development application process … and to advocate for infill development standards,” he said.
Edit Note: A quote has been updated to accurately reflect the name of Rolling Hills Country Club.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
Noncommercial entities may republish our articles for free by following our guidelines. For commercial licensing, please email hello@fortworthreport.org.
