Weston Braces for the Boom
“For action there’s the rush of volunteer firefighters and the street-clogging July Fourth parade,” he wrote. “The way it is for now.”
“Big things are coming to this little bitty town,” said Mayor Patti Harrington, in a recent interview, standing outside City Hall with its sign of self esteem: Welcome to the Oldest Town in Collin County.
Big things, as in a proposed development that could bring more than 5,000 homes, many thousands of people and no doubt some stoplights to one of Collin County’s smallest towns, writes Appleton.
Developers, builders, and homeowners keep plowing north across the county, according to Appleton.
The Dallas North Tollway will someday stretch west of Weston, as will a freeway to the south, according to research.
Weston leaders have approved a developer’s plan to turn about 1,600 acres of rolling, creek-carved land into a mix of homes, schools, parks, and retail stores, stats show.
“It’s going to bring us out of the sticks,” said James Atkins, Weston’s fire marshal, in a recent article. “It’s going to wipe our little town out.”
Jake Jones, 14, scoots past a former post office building on Main Street in the town, home to about 700 people.
The scene has been changing here north of sprawling McKinney, less than an hour’s drive from downtown Dallas: homes rising on spacious tracts, thickening traffic, lights erasing the stars, according to the article.
“You don’t know everybody any more, and that’s not good,” Debbie Reyno, Weston postmaster and City Council member told Appleton.
Planners say they predict Weston will someday have about 140,000 people and cover 49 square miles, about seven times its current spread.
But in context with humble Weston, this first arrival’s potential impact is raising eyebrows, Appleton states.
“Even though I’ve been involved in the project for two years,” Harrington said.
It’s easy to imagine the area’s creeks, vistas, and rich soil attracting settlers, literature shows.
