Local real estate developer Christian Chernock has two zoning cases pending before the City Plan Commission on which he serves. The question his fellow plan commissioners will be charged with determining next month isn’t one of ethics or personal integrity, Chernock told CandysDirt.com. It’s whether hotels are an appropriate land use for the touristy Bishop Arts district.
”The heart of this case is land use,” he said. “I’m not trying to introduce anything new. I just want to continue to provide the service that I’ve been providing for the past six years.”
CandysDirt.com first reported on Chernock’s proposals for 620 North Bishop Ave. and 719/727 Zang Blvd. in May. The Kidd Springs Neighborhood Association met with Chernock’s zoning consultant Audra Buckley several months ago and didn’t like the projects. It’s possible, however, that they just don’t like Chernock.
The green builder, who has served on the City Plan Commission since late 2023, is asking the panel to look at whether boutique hotels are needed and valued in this area of North Oak Cliff.
Chernock said the inspiration for the projects came from personal experience. A 24-year resident of the neighborhood, he recounts having to put his family up in
downtown hotels when they came to visit.
“I would pick my family up at the hotel and then we would drive to Bishop Arts for meals, shopping, or events,” he said. “I remember thinking how great it would be if they could just stay in the neighborhood.”
Around this time, Bishop Arts was receiving national recognition and had been written up in The New York Times. The media attention offered a huge boost for local businesses. Chernock said it was obvious that the area needed some kind of hospitality so he decided to do something about it.
“The construction of my buildings has helped fill the needs of travelers and the community for many years but the passing of the 2023 Dallas [short-term rental] ordinance makes the future of nightly stays in the Bishop Arts district uncertain,” the developer said.
More on that STR ordinance later.
Buckley told us the initial pushback from neighbors had to do with their concern that the uses would have been by right, locking them in even if the property changes hands. She said she solved that issue by resubmitting the cases with Specific Use Permits that will allow neighbors to have oversight and determine whether they want the use to continue in perpetuity.
The SUPs stipulate that when the zoning comes up for renewal every four years, notices are issued to neighbors and they can petition to revoke the SUPs. Both cases are anticipated to appear on a CPC docket in October. Read the SUP conditions for 620 N. Bishop and 719/727 Zang Blvd.
Proposals For Bishop Arts Hotels
Buckley reviewed Chernock’s proposal at an April 22 Kidd Springs Neighborhood Association meeting.
The Bishop site has had nightly hospitality rentals since its opening in 2018 and currently maintains an 80 percent occupancy rate.
“The applicant saw a need for short-term stays and by providing it, has contributed to the local economy by having the money stay in Bishop Arts rather than downtown or areas where hotels are plentiful,” Buckley said in her presentation. “Bishop Arts is a nationally-recognized area for tourism and there are no hotels in this area, so there is a need for this land use.”
Chernock also wants to revise the definition of a boutique hotel so that guests may prepare food on-site and internal entry is not required.
For the Zang property, the use would already be allowed by the current zoning if not for a 1,000-foot distance requirement between residential hotels. Chernock said he’s seeking to change the distance requirement because it’s “arbitrary and does not take into account areas that have higher tourism demand.”
He’s asking that the hotel be permitted within a half-mile of another due to the Bishop Avenue building’s small size (eight units) and for units to be accessed from the outside. The existing Zang property currently has 28 units, and he’s adding 12 in a separate, adjacent building.
Short-Term Rentals
The short-term rental matter has been in a years-long legal battle and under the current ruling, STRs can operate in residential zones as long as they are registered with the city and paying hotel occupancy taxes. Earlier this month, some council members suggested revisiting the ordinance banning STRs, saying “it’s not working.”
Again, Chernock and his zoning consultant reiterated that they’re not asking for massive changes.
“We’re not really springing anything new on the neighborhood,” Buckley told CandysDirt.com. “He has operated these buildings for many years and the use would continue the same way. This allows him to continue to operate with some community oversight because of the SUPs.”
Chernock said he wants to make capital investments in the properties — such as buying new furniture, public art, and uniforms for housekeepers — and he doesn’t want to make the investments if the use will eventually be prohibited.
“I have no idea what’s going to happen with the short-term rental lawsuits, but I wanted to control my own destiny,” he said. “In my opinion, this is fundamentally about land use. Is this an appropriate land use?”
If Chernock’s requests are denied by CPC, he can continue operating legally just as he has for the past six years, he explained.
Plan Commissioner Brent Rubin is taking the lead on Chernock’s cases so Chernock can recuse himself from discussion and the vote.
Rubin said in a Sept. 10 interview with CandysDirt.com that he was “still looking at” Chernock’s proposals.
“I’m the vice chair; I don’t have my own district since I’m Place 15, so I often if not always cover cases when there are conflicts,” Rubin said. “They’ve refined it some. One of the concerns I’ve heard raised … was, ‘We don’t want to permanently sanction a use that is the subject of active litigation.’ I guess that’s an interesting point. They came back with the SUP … I do my best to keep an open mind until it comes down to decision time.”
Hotels and STRs in Bishop Arts
Is there a need for boutique hotels and short-term rentals in Bishop Arts? We asked around and got a resounding yes, although it should be noted that Rob Shearer, president of the Kidd Springs Neighborhood Association, doesn’t think Chernock’s properties are hotels and said there already are too many STRs in the area.
Shearer also is not impressed by the SUP proposal.
“The neighborhood association was pretty against loopholes in the STR ruling,” Shearer told CandysDirt.com on Thursday. “His apartment buildings are not hotels. They’re not set up as hotels. We see this as really a loophole that the commissioner is trying to create for his properties and his properties only, so regardless of what happens with the STR case, he can keep doing what he’s been doing. We’re not supportive of that. We’re supportive of him running his apartment buildings like apartment buildings and having long-term tenants in them. I think that’s what’s best for the neighborhood. We’re not supportive, even with an SUP, of this being short-term rentals.”
The economic impact of STRs is outlined in this report. For every $100 spent on short-term vacation rentals in the Texas metro region, guests spent $141 outside of their accommodations, the report states.
The Southwest Review, a Southern Methodist University literary publication, recently rented out Chernock’s entire building while hosting a conference at The Wild Detectives independent bookstore and bar on W. Eighth Street.
AJ Ramler’s Proxy Properties recently restored the property at 1159 Madison Ave. into a 27-room boutique hotel across from Methodist Hospital between Bishop Arts and Lake Cliff. The project didn’t require a rezoning because it previously functioned as a boarding house. Ramler declined to comment on Chernock’s project.
As for those accusations about a conflict of interest, Chernock has been upfront about his plans to invest in his Bishop Arts properties. When District 1 Councilman Chad West asked him to serve on the CPC last year, one of the first things Chernock said was, “I’ve got zoning cases coming up.”
“I was told that it is not uncommon to have conflicts of interest where plan commissioners have to recuse themselves,” he said. “The Ethics Department from the City Attorney’s Office gave me a written opinion that said there are no conflicts of interest so long as I didn’t speak with plan commissioners, city staff, or city council [about these cases].”
Furthermore, Chernock says if you have something to offer your community, you should do it. He’s served on his neighborhood board, Dallas’ green building task force, the Board of Adjustment, and the Oak Cliff Gateway rezoning committee, to name a few.
Chernock acknowledges that some people don’t like him because of his position in support of the ForwardDallas land use plan or just because he’s a real estate developer. He does, however, have a somewhat unique perspective when it comes to construction for future generations.
The former professional golfer has a master’s degree in transpersonal psychology and completed his master’s thesis on the application of spiral dynamics and Integral theory in the green building movement. He is a longtime advocate for sustainable design and building practices.
Some of his local projects include the construction of South Dallas’ first LEED-certified home and a multifamily building that won Best New Construction in a Conservation District. Although his early projects focused on the revitalization of conservation and historic districts, his more recent work focuses on new construction.
“I noticed early on in my career that the city and neighborhoods do a great job with preservation,” he said. “We have many longstanding preservation institutions, neighborhood task forces, and a Landmark Commission that are all working to preserve our history, which is great and needed. What concerned me was the same attention and support were not there for focusing on creating great architecture today. That’s where I thought I could have a more unique contribution. My work now is mostly focused on creating new construction projects that are hopefully celebrated 80 years from now in the same way we celebrate our historic structures of 80 years ago. My current critics don’t concern me as much as being on the right side of time.”
