Builders have big plans for a 4,000-home community in Wise County. There’s only one snag.
A small Wise County community off U.S. 287 just north of Rhome is poised for major growth with over 4,000 homes in the pipeline, but there is a stumbling block for the new development — providing water.
The planned community, called Ranchland, would include apartments or town homes in addition to the thousands of single-family homes, plus a “vibrant town square,” new schools, parks, commercial space and “a host of amenities that bring people together,” according to developers.
Frisco-based real estate developer Rockhill Capital & Investments announced in January it had sold the 1,807-acre tract to Lennar, a major homebuilder with projects in 26 states. The location is near New Fairview, which has a population today of about 1,400 people. The land is near South County Line Road and Farm to Market Road 407, about 20 miles northwest of Alliance.
Plans call for Lennar to break ground this summer with homes coming in 2028, according to the company. But New Fairview’s city administrator, John Cabrales, said he doesn’t expect work to start anytime soon because of the water situation.
Lennar Homes did not return a message seeking comment.
Cabrales said he is working on agreements with the city of Justin to connect with its water system and with the Upper Trinity Regional Water District to become a customer to provide water to Ranchland, but details haven’t been finalized, he said.
Cabrales said the Upper Trinity Regional Water District is conducting a facilities study that won’t be completed until the spring. The water district also wants New Fairview to do a study to show where the city would connect to Justin’s water system, he said.
“There is a big obstacle that we have to overcome, which is water,” he said.
The Ranchland development is in New Fairview’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, which is outside the city limits but close enough to fall under the city’s development rules. The site is in the Decatur and Northwest school districts.
New Fairview relies on ground water, which isn’t sustainable with the growth that is coming.
Officials from New Fairview, Rhome, Aurora, Boyd, Decatur and other Wise County communities are meeting with legislators this week to discuss creating the Wise Regional Water District because of concerns that Wise County won’t have enough water to meet future needs as the population boom shows no sign of letting up.
A 2023 Freese and Nichols study showed that if Wise County didn’t start shifting away from groundwater that would affect the aquifer by 2030. The study also estimated that the county’s population, today about 80,000, would increase to 485,300 by 2080.