‘Garden Style’ Apartments Banned in Prosper Under New Zoning Regulations

Staff Reports

Builders wanting to develop new “garden-style” apartment complexes will have to go somewhere besides Prosper. The rural suburb in Collin and Denton counties approved changes to its zoning laws last month, according to a report in the Dallas Morning News.

Garden-style apartment dwellings are groups of two- and three-story apartment buildings surrounded by community walkways and green spaces — similar to the 1970s- and 1980s-built apartment complexes you’ll see throughout Dallas-Fort Worth and the suburbs. The Prosper Town Council’s new zoning laws limit new multifamily developments to certain parts of town and raise the maximum height allowance of multifamily buildings from three to eight stories, DMN staff writer Hojun Choi reported Thursday.

“Additionally, the new developments will have to be able to accommodate retail tenants on the first floor and be part of a planned development district — a type of zoning that allows for a mix of commercial and residential land use,” the article states.

David Hoover, Prosper’s director of development services, told local media that the town’s multifamily standards were more than a decade old. The amendments passed unanimously at an Aug. 27 town council meeting, will facilitate newer styles of multifamily housing developments, Hoover said.

As Prosper appears to be encouraging building height and density, this battle rages on in Dallas as the city nears the finish line with its comprehensive land use plan. Amid ongoing calls from Dallas single-family home advocates looking to limit density in their neighborhoods, Prosper stands out by embracing density to accommodate its growing population of 37,746, as reported by the 2022 U.S. Census. Numerous changes to the ForwardDallas 2.0 plan were implemented at a Tuesday meeting of the Dallas City Council’s Economic Development Committee, and the proposal is set to go before the full council on Sept. 25.