Rapid development transforms this North Texas city. Neighbors wrestle with the costs

Springtown bills itself as the place “where country meets living.” Cynthia Courtney and her parents have long embodied the motto.

The family lives in a spacious and lush two-building lot at the end of a cul-de-sac two turns off Texas 199. They bought the property in the early 1980s, when much of the surrounding land was pasture ably serviced by the city’s still patchy, cramped country roads.

Larry Jackson, Courtney’s father, grew up near Haltom City. He couldn’t wait to leave.

“You could raise your window and spit on the house next door. I couldn’t stand it,” he said of his childhood home.

The 78-year-old sat in a homemade gazebo in the middle of his yard decorated with old license plates and playful signage, including a green placard mandating: “No Farting.” Light rain pattered the metal paneling on the roof.

“You moved out here to get away from the crowds,” he said.

In recent years, thousands have followed Jackson’s path, settling in Springtown and surrounding communities to enjoy cheaper homes , fewer people , and what remains of its unspoiled natural landscape — all while keeping Fort Worth within reach.

Sensitive to the swell, Arlington-based construction giant D.R. Horton built a subdivision of roughly 100 starter homes right behind Jackson’s fence line, further cementing the firm’s status as the nation’s most prolific homebuilder. Early anxieties about noise and new traffic gave way to genuine grievance over the past year.

Construction, Jackson and some neighbors say, upended the natural drainage pattern of the land. Big downpours, typically manageable, have since caused substantial flooding on their properties. Runoff from D.R. Horton homes has eroded their soil, and rain now pools in their yards.

Springtown leaders maintain the city has done its due diligence, vetting the developer’s plans, pointing out flaws as they arose, and advocating for existing residents as much as local ordinances and state laws allow.

Courtney said D.R. Horton has yet to effectively resolve the problem, despite making some fixes and offering to pay for the damages. (D.R. Horton did not respond to multiple requests for comment.) She blames city officials for doing too little to pressure them.

“‘We’re big, you’re little; we can push you around and you don’t have any say so,’” Courtney said of D.R. Horton’s attitude. “The city is there to protect their citizens, to stand up for their citizens,” she continued, “not to let their citizens be run over by businesses that aren’t even local.”

7 new subdivisions in Springtown

Springtown hugs the northeastern edge of Parker County. City proper, a roughly 45 minute drive northwest from downtown Fort Worth, spans only three square miles.

Its population surged in the early 2000s before tumbling in 2009. The city has since rebounded , absorbing roughly 1,200 new residents between 2010 and 2022, a 140% increase. The 76082 ZIP code, which encompasses Springtown and surrounding smaller localities, added around 5,500 residents in that time frame.

“I think any community that has been small for generations and then all of a sudden is faced with a wave of growth like what we’ve encountered — I think that’s going to be difficult for any community to accept,” said Christina Derr, Springtown’s assistant city manager.

Derr estimates that seven new subdivisions have cropped up in and around city limits in the past five years.

Plans for Sculptor’s Park — the D.R. Horton project — began taking their final shape in 2021. The company bought the 22-acre lot from Lisa Perry, a local artist who rose to regional acclaim for her bronze horse statues before offloading her property to investors to reap the full fruits of retirement, now a ritual among aging North Texas landowners.

South Birch Street residents greeted the proposal with a familiar list of concerns : Could the neighborhood’s infrastructure handle the new influx of people and cars? Would residents spend minutes, maybe hours more idling in traffic during rush hour?

And then there were the more intangible losses — the pain of seeing suburban sprawl swallow acres of untouched countryside; the disorientation of a once tight, familiar community rapidly becoming large and anonymous and distant.

“You don’t have that home feeling anymore,” said Jackson, who for decades served as the city’s go-to electrician. “You can’t hold back progress, but that feeling is no longer there.”

Drainage problems surface

Loaders and bulldozers began moving dirt for Sculptor’s Park in the fall of 2022. Drainage problems surfaced the following year, according to some South Birch Street residents.

Rocky Long’s property, a few homes south of the Jacksons, also shares a fence line with the subdivision. Heavy rainfall now transforms his backyard into a small, mosquito-infested marsh, an unwelcome landscaping change he pins on D.R. Horton raising the elevation of its homes “much higher than our existing grade level.” Courtney says Horton-generated runoff flooded her parents’ bedroom last spring.

Matters came to a head in April. Courtney woke one morning to find muddy water had seeped into her home, damaging floors and furniture in her living room, kitchen and bedroom. The yard had become a loose network of streams and ponds, some ankle deep.

Courtney says Springtown’s director of public works, Joseph McCanless, visited her home later that day to inspect the damage. According to Courtney, McCanless offered his sympathies but little more, saying it was D.R. Horton’s responsibility to deal with the problem. (D.R. Horton offered to pay for the damages caused to Courtney’s home, but she is still weighing potential legal action against the company and the city. McCanless said he’s “visited the property numerous times throughout the course of construction” and after residents raised concerns, but declined to specify when, citing the possibility of a lawsuit.)

Springtown annexed Sculptor’s Park in January 2022 as a part of its development agreement with the builder. The arrangement, Derr, the assistant city manager, explained, required D.R. Horton to comply with local drainage ordinances.

D.R. Horton, among other precautions, had to forecast how the subdivision would impact drainage and water discharge on surrounding properties. If it expected to worsen preexisting conditions, it had to draw up plans to mitigate potential runoff and flooding.

City planning officials and their consultants must approve the developer’s drainage plans before construction can proceed; the city undertakes follow-up inspections to ensure developers fulfill their promises, Derr added — and can issue warnings or citations if they fall short.

“During the review process anything that causes concern to myself, Christina [Derr], or our engineer must be addressed in the plans prior to the plans being released for construction,” McCanless wrote in an email to the Star-Telegram.

When asked if city staff encountered any particular red flags with Sculptor’s Park’s plans, McCanless said he couldn’t answer the question “in detail” because drainage plans are reviewed by the city’s engineering consultant. He also declined to say if D.R. Horton or its contractors had violated any ordinances over the course of the subdivision’s development, citing possible litigation. (D.R. Horton did not respond to requests for comment.)

City leaders chalked up the April 9 flood to a flaw in the detention pond just behind Courtney’s yard. Derr and McCanless said D.R. Horton have since fixed it up, and a city-hired engineer found it to be up to par.

“I will state that in the event that our engineer found it to be insufficient or in violation of any city ordinance or state law, we would have taken any enforcement action available to us,” McCanless wrote.

Courtney, for her part, doubts enough has been done to address the issue. Barring some wholesale reworking of the boundary separating her street from her new neighbors, she expects floods to return and in greater force. Long and another neighbor on the block have yet to have their properties inspected, despite multiple requests.

Her father has considered leaving Springtown because of the ordeal.

“You can’t hold back progress; everything’s going to change — but not so quickly!” he laughed before turning somber. “The pressures, the ill feelings — it makes you change your mind.”

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