Pasture land gives way to 2,000 new homes near Fort Worth’s Eagle Mountain Lake
The Fort Worth City Council is poised sign off on a large new development in far north Fort Worth despite resident concerns about its impact on already overburdened roads.
The development will add 1,914 homes southeast of the intersection of Morris Dido Newark Road and Bonds Ranch Road.
It’s adjacent to the proposed Eagle Mountain High School slated to open in August 2024.
Developer PMB Capital Investments originally planned to build roughly 2,100 homes but scaled back those plans after meeting with the city and neighbors, said Matt Mildren, a partner at PMB Capital Investments.
Residents were mainly concerned about the increase in traffic along Bonds Ranch Road, Mildren said. PMB has agreed to work with the city to build a road that would connect the development to North Saginaw Boulevard, he said.
This stretch of Bonds Ranch Road is a rural two-lane street bounded by prairie, horse ranches and the occasional housing development.
A segment of Bonds Ranch Road between U.S. 287 and Wagley Robertson Road is slated to be expanded to a four-lane thoroughfare as part of a 2022 bond package, but a similar expansion near the proposed development was not included.
“I think we all realize that growth is inevitable,” said Julie LaQuey, who lives just south of the proposed development. “But we’re concerned that the growth is too much, too quickly.”
She pointed to railroad tracks running along North Saginaw Boulevard to the east and Eagle Mountain Lake to the west, which hampers residents trying to get in and out of their neighborhoods.
LaQuey also worried that rapid development is threatening the character of this part of the city, where residents are more used to open prairie than dense development.
She argued many moved to the area because of its scenic charm and connections to both agriculture and nature.
She described driving by a pasture off nearby Boat Club Road where longhorn cattle openly graze.
“We’re called Cowtown for a reason, and if you eliminate that culture by developing all the agricultural land in an area, you eliminate the identity of the city,” she said.
However, the city locked itself into developing something on the land back in 2001.
The city signed an agreement in October 2001 with the land’s previous owner, Scott Communities Developers LP, to develop three residential units per acre on the land.
The city reaffirmed that agreement in 2008 when the land sold to Arizona-based developer Rio Claro, which is partnering with PMB Capital Investments on the project.
PMB has five other developments in the Fort Worth area. It owns the Ventana and Veale Ranch communities in southwest Fort Worth, the Bluffs at River East near Oakhurst, and the Bluestem and Reunion developments near Rhome.
Its homes range from $200,000 to $650,000, according to the company’s website.
Mildren, the partner with the company, said prices in the Bonds Ranch development would be similar to other developments in the area.
Homes start at $391,990 in the Cibolo Hills development just east of the proposed site.
If the zoning is approved, construction could begin in early 2023 with the first homes ready to sell in early 2024, Mildren said.
This story was originally published June 13, 2022 at 2:55 PM.
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