Stealth dorm nixed near TCU

The Fort Worth City Council squelched a new “stealth dorm” in the Texas Christian University area at its June 20 meeting, voting to change the zoning on a site in the 2500 blocks of Rogers and Wabash avenues from B two-family with TCU Residential Overlay to A-5 one-family with TCU Residential Overlay.

It’s a change that makes folks living in the area happy. Several spoke to the council at an earlier meeting on June 20.

“They’re very concerned, the neighbors,” District 3 Councilman Brian Byrd said before the vote. “Of course the developers trying to get it developed don’t like that. But the people living there, they’re concerned about the noise, the kids being up late and then when they try to sell their homes it could be a problem.”

What has been dubbed a ‘stealth dorm’ is a building in which the owner rents out rooms, usually to college students. Some neighbors have compared it to a small apartment complex.

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“I walk those neighborhoods,” Byrd said. “They are unified against this.”

The vote changes zoning in the neighborhood that had been in place since 1940. The area is predominantly developed with single family houses and covered by the TCU Residential Overlay, which was adopted in 2014.

The Rogers location was built in 1929, the Wabash location in 1926.

With the base A-5 district, the TCU overlay restriction of no more than three unrelated persons per unit will apply.