July Update

Hello, neighbors!

We hope this letter finds you well and enjoying the summer! We’ve met many of our neighbors over the last several years, either during walks through our neighborhood or when lounging or working in our yards. And we look forward to meeting more of you in the coming months.

Before too much time passes, we wanted to thank all of you who attended our community meeting on June 25th to discuss concerns about Project S22-0010 (a proposal for a multi-family housing development currently under review by the Denton Planning and Zoning Commission). The project would develop the 15 acres of land neighboring North Lakes Park and the North Lakes neighborhood (behind Amherst and Parkside Drives) with apartments, including 210-240 units with 1-3 bedrooms each to accommodate hundreds of tenants and their vehicles. Our concerns about this project are many, but we managed to present a key set of issues that made it clear to our community and our council members that this project is a bad idea for Denton, and for our neighborhood. In other words, this first meeting was a huge success! 

We had a showing of almost 100 people, including five speakers passionate about our neighborhood and five out of seven of our Denton City Council members. The event managed to garner significant attention from local media (Denton Record Chronicle reporter Christian McPhate wrote a comprehensive article that made the front page), and people all over Denton are tuning in to see what happens next!

We want to extend our heartfelt thanks to each one of you who contributed time, resources, and passion not only to this event, but to this cause. Whether it's spreading the word, attending a meeting, signing letters of opposition, contacting your city council, or otherwise being the good neighbors that you are, your dedication is truly making a difference. Our collective voice is being heard.

Moving forward, it's crucial that we keep up the momentum. The developers already submitted proposal #9 (on July 1st) in their efforts to convince the city of Denton to approve a special use permit for this land.

We have officially registered the North Lakes Preservation Group with the City of Denton. Later this summer, we will hold our first monthly NLP Group meeting at the North Lakes Rec Center. We will send out a meeting schedule soon via email and on our Facebook group page, so please watch for it and mark your calendar! 

We continue to speak with several city council members, who have assured us that they are taking our concerns seriously. We are exploring legal avenues to further strengthen our position, and we are reaching out to professional organizations focused on land conservation to help us find ways to permanently preserve this 15-acre tract of land and the character and tranquility of our beloved neighborhood.

As you know, this has been a challenging journey, but our unity and determination inspire us. Together, we can protect what makes our neighborhood special and ensure that any development aligns with our shared vision. 

We encourage you to stay informed and engaged. Follow our updates, share your ideas, join us at our monthly meetings, forward this email, and otherwise spread the word to your neighbors and friends. And we’d love to meet more of you socially. We plan to hold a fun gathering soon. Hopefully, many of you can make it!

Let's continue to stand together and make our voices heard!

Warm regards,

North Lakes Preservation Group