An area of Fort Worth is booming with housing, and while city officials and neighbors say they welcome it, they’re also concerned about stormwater management and infrastructure.
During an October meeting of the Fort Worth City Plan Commission, officials approved a waiver and preliminary plat for a 500-home subdivision called La Frontera.
The waiver itself wasn’t controversial — it removed a requirement for a “bridge to nowhere,” officials said — but it raised the bigger question of drainage in the area.
Keller Williams Realtor James Biedenharn lives on Harbour Creek Drive in a neighboring subdivision and addressed the plan commission about the new development.
The La Frontera neighborhood has no water retention around a neighborhood creek, he said.
“If you look at the existing plat where they have a couple of cul-de-sacs that come off of the already-developed area, they just built big rock channels right down into the creek,” Biedenharn said. “It’s not slowing water down and you’ve got a lot coming into that creek, causing erosion downstream.”
The northwest area of Fort Worth has been poorly managed by the city, Biedenharn added.
“I’m a Realtor,” he said. “More houses is better for me … But with the railroads going through there, there’s very little hope for having any relief anytime soon for the amount of traffic pressure that’s being put in there.”
CPC Responds to Concerns About Northwest Fort Worth
The 189-acre La Frontera development is planned for an area north of Boat Club Road, south of the future Eagle Mountain Parkway, and west of Harbour View Lane.
Applicant Jeremy Nelson of Colleyville-based Kirkman Engineering asked that the CPC waive the requirement to extend the existing Harbour Creek Drive right-of-way to the east.
“It does not appear that there was any anticipation of the extension of this street across the floodplain and over this creek,” Nelson said. “It would obviously be very costly and it’s going to disturb that area and potentially create some hydraulic conditions that would really … tear it up for no reason at all.”
Biedenharn said he supported the waiver, which was unanimously approved by the CPC.
“There’s a deep, 25-foot cliffside there,” Biedenharn said. “That’s the reason the road stops so soon. Literally, if it was required, it would be a bridge to nowhere, a very expensive one.”
Plan Commission Chair Don Boren said he agreed with concerns raised by the local Realtor.
“You said exactly what we know,” Boren said. “You said it very succinctly, very accurately. This area is being developed and outstripping our ability to maintain it in an orderly fashion. We see it frequently. I hope at some point we can take a bigger, broader view. We are citizens on this commission who see the same issues that you see. Hopefully something will be done.”
Kirkman Engineering Says They’ll Do a Drainage Study
Boren explained that the issue at hand in the Oct. 11 meeting, however, was related to the waiver, not the drainage or the subdivision itself.
Shea Kirkman of Kirkman Engineering said the average lot size is about 10,500 square feet, a continuation of what’s already been built there. It will coincide with the zoning that’s already in place, Kirkman said.
He further pointed out that a drainage study is required before a final plat will be presented.
“I understand your concerns,” Kirkman said during the October CPC meeting. “We’re held to pretty high, strict standards, particularly here in the City of Fort Worth. We’re going to put us in the best position to have no adverse downstream conditions or impacts to the neighboring community.”
