It could be argued that the common denominator in our growth problems is our town manager.  Van James has always run the town as he saw fit, keeping the town in controversy as it deals with growth. Flower Mound residents should have never been face with the term smart growth.  It would appear to have been forced on us by  Van James.  He misspeaks and so does the mayor when they state that no one could predict the phenomenal growth of Flower Mound. Here is the pragmatic view of one who lived through it...

There are only three things that makes a town or community a boom and those are: location, location, location.  Cities that are blessed with location automatically prosper. Once occupied it then is the citizens that make it better.

In the late 80’s, builders and developers were in tough times and several went bankrupt. Flower Mound like other cities had communities that were started but never finished and land that had been foreclose on by the Fed., (RTC) The town actively sought builders and developers to finish out old and to start new subdivisions.

Lets start in 1991 (that’s when we can tract what really happened.) 1991- The state of Texas and Grapevine knew what was going to happen.  There was a six lane highway coming through our front door called 2499.  Flower Mound had plenty of lots and cheap RTC dirt for future lots. This coupled with the fact that Grapevine would soon be built out for corp. (volumn builders) Lots told even the novice of managers that in order to stop what was going to happen you would have to close down the D/FW International  Airport. Read the transcript of past town council meeting and you will find that every community that came in front of council had a recommendation from staff as to what they thought. Almost every development  ad staff’s approval.  (If you know Van James management style you know that staff really means Van James.)  He never addressed concerns from, or asked for feed back from the development and building community.  He continued his arrogant and you will do what I say attitude. If he had listened it  would mean he would have to go to work with open eyes.  If he had opened his eyes himself, he would have seen that he (staff) had approved more lots that they projected for growth. After missing their projections for three years in a row by and estimated 50% we were already three years of families that had no idea that he was the problem.

If the best defense is an offense, you would start seeding everyone with the thought that there is no way to have projected our growth .  If you continue to recommend approval of new sub-divisions,  economics of the construction means that there is typicaly a one year build out cycle per community and oops. Not listening and under projecting gives you the "poor me" syndrome.

Van James wanted the impact fees from the developers to make the cities bank statement look good or to have the developers do the road improvements. What they didn’t want was for the builders to build out quickly. ~ R