Fort Worth City Council supports hundreds of new apartments off Chisholm Trail Parkway
The Fort Worth City Council on March 11 offered its undivided support to a 350-plus unit apartment complex in far southwest Fort Worth.
ONM Living, the rental-focused subsidiary of homebuilding behemoth HistoryMaker, had sought city hall’s blessing to rezone roughly 39 acres off Chisholm Trail Parkway for medium-density apartments. City leaders unanimously supported the change.
“This project, and this particular use, is a really good use,” said District 6 council member Jared Williams, before expanding on the project’s merits.
ONM bought the plot in 2022, according to county property records. The site is gerrymandered into three incongruous chunks by a flood plain, a geographic hurdle — structural and budgetary — to what can be built where. The company had intended to build 131 townhomes before re-evaluating the project’s finances and scrapping the plan.
“The highest and best use of this site, specifically because of its location, its access, and its specific challenges, is a thoughtfully designed multifamily community,” Ty Robinson, ONM’s president, told council members as he flipped through a slideshow detailing his proposal.
The property in question, listed at 9705 Old Granbury Road despite not bordering the street, is boxed in by the toll road to the west, West Risinger Road to the north, and Summer Creek Drive to the east. ONM is leasing units in a separate rental cottage community directly south.
Robinson’s company plans to bundle 361 units around the center of the site, filling the empty space to the east with a trail system and a publicly-accessible dog park.
Fort Worth zoning and planning staff had deemed the plan appropriate for the area. The city’s zoning commissioners, not convinced by staff’s analysis, unanimously recommended in mid February that city council deny ONM’s proposal, citing a saturation of apartment complexes in the area.
The sole nearby homeowner to publicly speak against the development, Natalya Cherry, focused her criticisms Tuesday night on the project’s potentially adverse impacts on the area’s drainage.
“I appreciate [that] ONM has been trying to find a feasible development option for a site currently considered undevelopable,” Cherry said, bracketing the words “feasible development option” in air quotes. She urged the city to preserve the property as green space.
Council member Williams reassured Cherry that the city would take her concerns seriously. The outgoing city representative also stressed that the development could provide the financial boost needed to improve traffic signals at the intersection of Risinger and Summer Creek and incentivize more retailers to set up shop in the neighborhood.
“These developments help us continue to develop the types of neighborhood commercial we need to support our neighborhoods and to ensure that we’re not having to drive out of the district, and sometimes out of the city, for work and nice restaurants,” said Williams.
This story was originally published March 11, 2025 at 9:32 PM.
