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LEWISVILLE — As of Sept. 27, Lisa and Chip Glunt don’t live in Lewisville anymore.

And there’s a specific reason. The inevitable growth of a place many find appealing to call home is getting a bit too crowded in some areas, Lisa Glunt told the Lewisville Town Council in public comments in September’s meeting, and ultimately she felt like there was nothing they could do to stop it after exhausting all avenues.

Actually, Glunt, a resident at 310 Fox Ridge Circle, appeared before the governing board the first time in August prior to returning a second time to describe her unsuccessful efforts to get some relief from a 56-house housing development project on Shady Brook Lane “that would make a significant impact on my neighborhood.”

She described a process of a month “of literally drinking from the fire hose to understand more about ordinances, zoning, the comprehensive plan, making calls, meeting with people and trying to triangulate who owns what responsibility in this process and to find any hope of mitigating this proposed plan. 

“Last month at that time, I had a belief that this project was not aligned with what I’d read about Lewisville’s Comprehensive Plan and strategy for retaining and preserving Lewisville’s small-town character and charm. I had a belief that there was a democratic process where voting and taxpaying homeowners would have a say in what happens to their community.

“And I had a belief that a reasonable mitigation could be achieved, one in which developers could still make a profit, people could still buy new homes, and I could still have the character and the nature of the neighborhood that I live in and love. In the end, the key thing that I learned was that what I believed a month ago is not reality.”

Glunt said that there are obviously three players involved in this equation — the developer, the town and the homeowners impacted by the new development. However, she added that the developers and town make the decision and the homeowners have to live with the decision that is made.

She said she made efforts to bring the three parties together for information sharing but that the town politely declined “because they did not want to give an appearance of bias on the topic. I think the town should be biased because you represent the citizens of Lewisville and therefore you should represent our reasonable concerns. I agree that you should be impartial in your decision-making, but shouldn’t you be on the citizens’ side?”

Glunt said her comments the previous month that all sorts of documents are “touting the character of Lewisville and the desire to keep its charm, but according to Page 39 of the 2022 Lewisville Comprehensive Plan, nearly all of Lewisville can expect the same kind of development that is happening in my backyard. That includes clear cutting forests and cramming as many houses as possible into as little space as possible, and all of it comes along with an unsightly catchment pond to handle the refuse of the construction and the water that the land can no longer absorb.”

She said her ask for the sake of the future of Lewisville is “can you do anything to change the UDO, to change the Comprehensive Plan, the zoning or the zoning process that might allow the rest of Lewisville to not look like my backyard. In other words, can the town of Lewisville make changes that allows it to execute against how it has marketed itself? Of the three players in this equation — the developer, the town and the homeowners — there is a clear winner and a clear loser. 

“So I’ll end my statement with a congratulations to the developer. They win. They get all 56 houses. They made no mitigation to lessen what they planned to do back there. And I say, I guess, congratulations to the town of Lewisville. I’m not sure if you win or lose. I’m sure you’re expanding your tax base, but let’s face it, Lewisville is about one McDonalds away from becoming Clemmons. And I think you’ve stretched your brand equity a little too far. 

“The clear losers are Lisa and Chip Glunt, and I say just us because I don’t represent everybody in my neighborhood. As homeowners, the only decision we could make was to live with it or leave it. And for this reason and this reason alone we’ve chosen to leave it, and on Sept. 27 we are moving, and I will no longer be a resident of Lewisville. 

“And I’ll end my last address to the town council with this: If the residents say no, how can the town say yes? I now know that Lewisville can’t say no. It’s all a part of the United Development Ordinance, which I hope makes us all pillow at night because it’s nothing but a punch in the gut to me.”

Not long after Glunt’s comments, Mayor Mike Horn stopped after starting the new business portion of the meeting with a response, which is not the usual protocol after a public forum.

“I’m just going to pause here for a second,” Horn said. “Ordinarily, we try not to make comment about folks who make comments at our public hearings. I’ve known Lisa and Chip for a long, long, long time. And my heart is hurting to know that they’re not going to be a part of our community any more. 

“The outcome of what is occurring there unfortunately we’re bound to by law. We attempted at one recent time in our history to try to stop development and we ended up paying a pretty price for that effort. So I think I want to say Lisa, I clearly understand what you and Chip are doing and why you’re doing it in what I feel is a great loss to our community. 

“I’m hoping that maybe by transmission again of your statement and maybe my sentiments and the sentiments of those council members that might agree with me that we can come back and maybe reexamine this a little bit as a Planning Board and see if there is anything at all that we can do that doesn’t require Legislative approval that we can maybe address some of the issues that you stated.”