It's a fairly unknown fact that Forney was originally called Brooklyn, which is no doubt is the origin for the name for a new proposed development just outside of Forney's city limits at the intersection of FM-548 and Reeder Lane, just north of Wal-Mart. This development will be within Brooklyn Crossing Municipal Utility District (MUD) No. 1, the creation of which was authorized by the City Council on January 9, 2008. The problem most local city, county and school officials have with this MUD is simple - it was authorized by the
Dallas City Council.
Sure enough,
records show that on January 9th, as part of the consent agenda - meaning there was no debate or even discussion on the topic - the Dallas City Council authorized the creation of this MUD. The developer, Jay Woomer, and his company B C Partners, utilized another little-known fact - the City of Dallas owns Lake Ray Hubbard, giving them extraterrestrial jurisdiction in limited cases within about 5 miles of the lake. The parcel of land Mr. Woomer wants to develop happens to lie in just the right spot - mere feet north of Forney's city limits - that he was able to completely bypass the City of Forney and all of Kaufman County and go to an unusual place for the approval of this development - the Dallas City Council. While some ire has been directed at Dallas, as the agenda and minutes for their meeting when they approved this item state, this development has "No cost consideration to the City".
The cost to Forney and to Kaufman County, however, could be great, because this proposed development includes about 430 apartments, 200 townhomes, 16 acres of "commercial services", and about 30 acres to be used for a gas station and other retail. Even though this land is located in the Dallas ETJ and would be located within this developer-created MUD, it would depend on the Forney Fire Department, the Forney Independent School District and the Kaufman County Sheriff's Office for its services. The site plan for the development appears below - clicking the image displays a larger, more legible version.
Surely if you were going to place this large of a burden on a city and a county, you'd work with them to plan this development for your mutual benefit, right? Not in this case, apparently.
According to a
PDF of a presentation found on the City of Dallas website, the "Billy Joe Montgomery Trust" petitioned the City of Dallas in August 2007 for the creation of the Brooklyn Crossing MUD #1. However, the developer did not petition or even notify city or school officials in Forney at that time about the development - indeed, it appears that most local officials learned of the plan when a
regional news website, Kaufman County Online, began researching the development for a story.
Local officials were, of course, outraged, as this development will rely on local services, but they were never presented with this development plan, and were not notified by the developer or the City of Dallas when the creation of this MUD was being considered.
While many are debating this development due to the number of apartments it will bring to an area outside of city limits where city codes don't apply and police services would be provided by the already over-worked Kaufman County Sheriff's Office, another vital concern is the fact that this development could very easily open the door to a number of MUD's and other special purpose districts being created in the vast area north of Forney that falls within the Dallas ETJ - districts that could be home to any number of developments that would strain the services of Forney ISD, Kaufman County and the City of Forney, but that could be created, approved and built without the approval of and even little to no notification to any official outside of Dallas City Hall.
There are a number of issues that the developer of Brooklyn Crossing will need the assistance of local officials on - he expects the City of Forney to provide sewer services and the county will have to invest quite a bit of money into the infrastructure in the area. The development would lie on the north side of Reeder Lane (a county road) along FM-548 - the apartment complexes and townhomes would have their entrance on Reeder Lane, a county road that was only recently converted from a gravel road to a paved road, and is barely wide enough to support two lanes of traffic. Currently, Reeder Lane, a 35MPH road, dead-ends at a stop sign on FM-548, a 55-60MPH road. Clearly, the county and the Texas Department of Transportation would have to invest in a traffic light for this intersection which would suddenly see a sharp increase in traffic from the over 600 apartments and town homes that would be built as part of Brooklyn Crossing. These are just a few of the issues that this development will bring to the City and County, issues that the city was powerless to control or discuss in advance with the developer, since the developer received all his approvals from, and made all his concessions concerning construction standards and codes to, the City of Dallas.
There are two issues at the center of all this - the use of MUD's and other special purpose districts to create developments outside of city limits, bypassing city oversight, as well as the vast expanse of the Dallas Extraterritorial Jurisdiction just north of Forney's border which stretches from Lake Ray Hubbard all the way east of FM-548. Dallas has a legal claim to this land due to their ownership of Lake Ray Hubbard, however, they have in the past relinquished land and redrawn the borders of their ETJ after the protests of a smaller city - Heath and Dallas entered into an interlocal agreement in 2004 after Heath raised objections to the Lake Vista Ranch MUDs that Dallas considered approving in 2002.
Because this land is within the Dallas ETJ, the only city that may legally annex it is the City of Dallas - in order for Forney to annex any of these developments, Dallas would have to release their claim on the land and transfer it from the Dallas ETJ to Forney ETJ, after which Forney could consider the annexation of the land. Because the laws concerning annexation and the size of a city's ETJ are based on population, however, so Forney does not have the same rights and privileges as the City of Dallas.
The use of MUD's and other special purpose districts such as Fresh Water Supply Districts and Development Districts to create new mega-developments outside of city limits, be they single-family or multi-family residential, is a concept that needs serious review by the state legislature. Some of these districts have been around for over 30 years and were originally intended to provide water and other infrastructure to very isolated, very rural areas where people were already living - not to allow developers to create their own cities in unincorporated land mere miles from the City of Dallas and other major metropolitan areas while bypassing all of the legal requirements and public processes a city would normally have to engage in. The process by which these districts are created needs review, as well, since apparently there are developers out there who will exploit the Dallas ETJ in northern Kaufman County to create developments that only have to have the approval of the City of Dallas and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, especially since the TCEQ seems to give rubber-stamp approvals to these districts if the local authorities, such as the City of Dallas, have already approved it.
A map showing the various ETJ boundaries near the Forney area is displayed below - note that the Dallas ETJ north of Forney's borders is actually larger than all of the land within Forney city limits! The MUDs marked on the map are the districts the City of Dallas has approved - I believe the Kaufman County MUDs #2, #3 and #4 are the MUDs that the new Devonshire development will be located within.
