A vocal group of homeowners in a far-flung Fort Worth subdivision are challenging plans for one of the city’s largest commercial and residential developments.
Representatives of real estate behemoth Walton Global approached Fort Worth zoning commissioners in May, hoping to rezone parcels of their 1,756-acre property along Chisholm Trail Parkway for a data center and higher-density housing than what existing designations allowed.
Residents of Panther Heights, Walton’s northern neighbors, protested the proposals vehemently. They feared the projects would strain the area’s infrastructure and spoil the community’s landscape. The commission, ultimately split between the neighborhood’s worries and the developer’s promises, recommended Tuesday that Fort Worth’s City Council approve Walton’s residential plans but scrap the data center.
Stuck Up Rock Creek
Walton, based in Arizona, added Rock Creek Ranch to its extensive land portfolio in 2014. The property, 14 miles southwest of downtown and just northeast of Tarleton State University, straddles both sides of Chisholm Trail Parkway. The firm owns two other residential communities along the freeway, each spanning hundreds of acres.
Walton touts Rock Creek Ranch as a future growth hub on Fort Worth’s bustling outskirts. What exactly the company envisions for its “master plan” development has yet to be conceptualized, but it expects to build thousands of homes and apartments and cultivate commercial spaces to support them. In 2016, Fort Worth created a specialized property tax zone (called a public improvement district) to help bankroll the project’s infrastructure costs. (By comparison, Harvest, a flagship Hillwood residential project in Argyle, stretches 1,200 acres.)
Much of Rock Creek’s farmland is zoned to be redeveloped as single-family homes with minimum lot sizes of 5,000 square feet (properties labeled in zoning shorthand as ‘A-5’). Most of the land lining the highway is set aside for apartment and commercial construction.
Walton initially proposed rezoning 302.2 acres of single-family space for zero lot line homes and an additional bundle of apartments. Only one of the four revised parcels would be somewhat close to Panther Heights’ fence line. City planning staff found the suggestion sensible.
“Of the four tracts included in this change of zoning request, none are directly adjacent to any established residential areas or uses,” staff wrote in their original assessment. “In the instance that these tracts directly abutted any existing residential developments, they would need to be compatible to and complement the existing lot densities. However there is no substantive development in this area, and there is no established pattern to fit into.”
The owners of one-acre lots in Panther Heights found Walton’s proposal absurd.
“You are placing extremely high-density zoning almost adjacent to an established, extremely low-density neighborhood,” Panther Heights resident Paul King told zoning commissioners in May.
The commission decided to give both parties a month to hash out their differences. Walton returned in June with a game plan it figured might be more amenable. It expanded the area of residential land it hoped to rezone by roughly 50 acres, but it put about half a mile of space between Panther Heights and the closest tract of rezoned homes.
Opposition remained rigid.
“I’m not opposed to people making money with their property. I’m not opposed to affordable housing,” said Panther Heights homeowner Ron King (no relation to Paul). “What I’m opposed to is the development that increases the burden on the infrastructure and decreases the health, safety, and welfare of the public.”
King and his neighbors sounded off oft-repeated (and disputed) concerns about new home construction. Denser housing would, they said, flood the area’s country roads with a streams of new vehicles and overwhelm its public utilities. Less expensive plots risked cheapening their own. Apartments especially were, at worst, havens for criminality and, at best, eyesores. More abstractly, more construction disturbed the peace and quiet of the semi-country lifestyle they’d sought out.
The zoning commission gave them one more month to work through things.
Walton’s final pitch appeared a significant overhaul of its original. It ditched the parcels of zero lot line houses and apartments entirely. It instead requested hundreds of acres of slightly smaller A-5 properties and one tract of 10,000 square feet lots — all constructed by D.R. Horton, and all sold directly to homeowners.
Yet Panther Heights residents were still unconvinced.
“Panther Heights is a respectable and friendly neighborhood, but the uncontrolled growth surrounding us has introduced an element of unkempt properties and traffic issues with little to no code enforcement or police enforcement, except when highlighted or called upon,” resident Kevin Schwan said Wednesday.
Schwan and his neighbors pledged support for more affordable housing but continued to inveigh against cheaper homes being built nearby. They also questioned why Walton couldn’t build up a nice mall or supermarket, until a commissioner noted that retailers likely wouldn’t open shop in the area until more people moved nearby.
The commissioners didn’t debate the proposal much among themselves before, in a split vote, deciding to recommend approving the case.
The Data Center
Walton’s data center plans elicited less sympathy from commissioners and more anxiety from residents.
The hundreds of acres of commercial zoning they had at its disposal allowed any number of uses, including large box stores, hotels, and bars. But Walton saw profits elsewhere: data storage.
Peer firms have built up massive data center campuses in other once-rural corners of Fort Worth, hoping to capitalize on the city’s ample open space and the country’s ever-growing appetite for digital information. Meta, Facebook’s parent company, runs a $1 billion data storage facility in the Alliance Corridor, on Texas 170. Dallas-based Prime Data Centers plans to start construction on a three-building data complex near Benbrook in September.
Data centers require industrial zoning. Walton, enticed by the possibly lucrative property use but unwilling to remain stuck with an industrial land designation if the project fell through, proposed amending its existing commercial category to allow data center construction (and, necessarily, up the maximum building height to 105 feet).
Fort Worth planners didn’t find the proposal appealing or appropriate.
“Data centers are not allowed by right in any commercial zones. Additionally, the proposed zoning does not match the spirit and intent of the approved Rock Creek Ranch Concept Plan, which calls for this site to be developed as mixed use,” they wrote. “Data Centers are typically not active, contributing buildings, and are more of a boxy warehouse type of building, with little employment generated and minimal attractive qualities.”
Walton stuck by its guns. After receiving two continuances from the zoning commission to discuss the case with residents, company consultants Wednesday presented sleek renditions of their five-building complex — and plenty of assurances.
The facilities, around 1,000 feet from the closest Panther Heights homes, would emit only 40 decibels of noise to the outside world, less than the 60 generated by the buzz of the highway and strong winds (residents argue they can be louder). Data centers, being more computer than human, would generate next to no traffic. They also promised to beautify the boxy buildings with elaborate landscaping and feed it power through its own substation, avoiding intense strain on local power lines.
“We’re trying to work the best we can to be a good neighbor and address some of the concerns,” said Travis Clegg, a consultant with Westwood Professional Services.
His target audience didn’t buy it.
“My wife and I like going out in the backyard, looking up, seeing stars; that was part of the benefit of moving out there,” Schwan said, explaining his worries about light pollution. “Would you be able to teach your kids astronomy? Probably not, because the light is just invasive, becoming invasive.”
“If the wind blows in the correct direction, we hear the freight trains from Crowley; what makes them think 1,000 feet is going to separate their data center from our homes?” a neighbor chimed in next, holding a white sign with “We Object To: ZC-24-027 and ZC-24-031” written in black marker. “We do not have enough input from them economically to justify the destruction of our neighborhood and our quality of life.”
The zoning commission, again divided on the matter, ultimately agreed, voting to recommend denying the case. City Council will take up both Walton proposals next month.
Source Agencies
