The overview
Jon Roberts, managing partner of TIP Strategies, told the town council that in the process of creating the plan, it was important to balance community needs with metropolitan pressures.
The proposed plan calls for the creation of a medical district on the west side of town, helping develop the Furst Ranch project, establishing a futures committee and preserving Flower Mound’s natural amenities, such as the Cross Timbers Conservation District. An entertainment district could also be created in the vacant land at The River Walk as part of the plan.
The plan also calls on town officials to consider allowing a wider variety of owner-occupied housing options that enable aging in place and support for essential workers such as teachers and nurses. This is something Mayor Pro Tem Ann Martin disagreed with.
“To me, that sounds like it’s a little outside the purview of what I want my local government to be in charge of,” Martin said during the Oct. 7 meeting.
The details
Victoria Wilson, told the council that the creation of the plan included stakeholder engagement, such as 15 personal interviews, five roundtable discussions and a community survey that garnered more than 1,000 responses.
The survey responses showed that community, businesses and amenities are important to residents. Town officials need to act on these things, Wilson said.
“Flower Mound has opportunities, but if you’re not proactive instead of reactive, you’re going to miss out on some of these,” she said.
Participants were asked to envision the town of Flower Mound’s economy providing better support for the people who live there. They were also asked to rank Flower Mound’s economy in several categories on a scale from one to ten. The responses were separated by generation to understand their different outlooks on the town.
This showed that baby boomers ranked the town’s economy as more successful than Gen Zers. Gen Z residents generally felt like the town wasn’t using its natural amenities to its full advantage. For the cost of living category, Gen Z residents ranked the town’s success as low.
“A baby boomer generation that’s more established can afford to live in Flower Mound, but the younger generation is struggling to see themselves living here,” Wilson said.
The data TIP Strategies compiled also showed that the concentration of commercial property is in east Flower Mound while the west side of town is highly underserved. The top five industries in town include healthcare, education, retail trade, accommodation and food services, and wholesale trade.
As the population has grown in town, the amount of people who commute out of Flower Mound has grown proportionately. There are more people that commute out of town than commute into town for work, Wilson said.
“What’s really interesting is breaking down this data further and noticing that the majority of people who commute in ... are young workers who are modest earners,” Wilson said. “The majority of people who commute out are mid-career workers and middle to high earners.”
That could mean young workers who earn modest wages can’t afford to live in town, Wilson said.
Quote of note
“This tells us that the people who live here can’t find the kinds of jobs that they would hold in Flower Mound,” Wilson said. “This is an opportunity.”
Part of the solution could be creating a medical district in the west part of town that would support a new hospital and medical education campus. To get this done, Wilson proposed creating a task force to oversee the creation of this district to include input from all stakeholders.
What’s next
Town Manager James Childers told council members the plan would be brought back to them "in chunks" in the coming months for their further consideration.
