Donate Today to SAVE LAKE RIDGE

My name is Kay Whitt. I am a resident of the beautiful Lake Ridge community in Cedar Hill, Texas. I am writing today to urge you to donate to SAVE LAKE RIDGE as we know it.

As many of you know, the city of Cedar Hill has been working for the last four years with a developer to create a high density housing development on 299 acres immediately south of the Lake Ridge community. Their plan is to build 856 homes on just under 200 acres. We were only notified in May about this development. To say that it was short notice is an understatement. When it did not pass their Planning and Zoning committee in June (3-3 vote), it was forwarded to the city council and required a supermajority vote (5-2) to pass.

In the time leading up to this public hearing, our opposition team was hard at work spreading word throughout the community, writing to city council members, distributing flyers, and I personally began a petition via change.org to show our opposition to this development, which currently has over 900 signatures. If you have not signed the petition, please click on the link to do so: Save Lake Ridge Petition

The public hearing with the city council was on July 9. Many members of our community came and spoke in opposition to this development, myself included. Numerous valid points on our behalf about the potential negative impact that building so irresponsibly next to our community were made. Despite our best effort, the council voted unanimously in favor to go ahead with rezoning the land from single family estate to a planned development, where they could dictate to the developer exactly what they want to see on the land without any consultation or input from our community. Just before the vote, several of the council members took it upon themselves to denigrate us as a community. The disdain they hold toward us was not withheld. If you did not attend the hearing but you would like to hear what was said, please feel free to follow this link and watch. In my opinion, it is unacceptable for elected officials to speak in this manner to their constituents. If you would like to watch the public hearing, please follow this link: City Council Public Hearing

While many communities might concede defeat at this point, we are JUST BEGINNING TO FIGHT, but WE NEED YOUR HELP! We are asking for donations to help cover the cost of an attorney that specializes in real estate law, specifically in zoning matters. This legal counsel will lead the fight toward overturning the comprehensive plan that was put in place by the city of Cedar Hill in 2022 that relabeled the undeveloped land from SF-E (single family estate) to PD (planned development). There is established case law to support our effort recently in the city of Plano, so we have every reason to believe that we have a valid claim to bring a case against the city.

Our plan is the following:

You may be asking yourself, "Why should I care about this?". Here's why. If the city council is so emboldened to work with a developer without the input of citizens near said development, what will be next? There is a considerable amount of undeveloped land that remains within the city limits. They have shown with their brazen actions that they are willing to do whatever, wherever. If we as a group do not stand up to them for the sake of our city, what will they attempt to do next? By taking decisive action NOW, we have the power to change the people who are making decisions for this community and overturn this bad decision. We feel this is a worthy endeavor.

As you can see, this will take effort, time, and money. We ask that you donate what you can to our cause. Every dollar gets us closer to our goal. We will also need volunteers to help with the effort to spread the word. If you have not already, please follow this link to sign up for emails. Email Signup

I sincerely appreciate your time and consideration. Together, we can make a difference.