ENVIRONMENT:

Our Mayor’s article in a recent Cross Timber Gazette listed protecting and expanding the town’s tree canopy as the first objective for Flower Mound in 2025. The Cross Timbers residents love this and protecting our trees is exactly what we want to do! However, allowing developers to cut down trees does exactly the opposite.

The programs that Flower Mound has to plant new trees is great, but a new, small, spindly tree takes multiple decades to do what larger caliper trees do – clean the air, provide habitat for wildlife… Yes, there are ordinances in place that allow developers to cut down trees under a certain caliper without approval, but it is very disheartening that our town allows it – especially when many of these trees are large post oak trees that cannot be replaced.

Flower Mound’s gorgeous trees, specifically our majestic Post Oaks, are one of the reasons Flower Mound was honored with the 2024 Scenic City of the Year. This may not be a reoccurrence if we keep allowing our trees to be cut down. We should be doing more to protect them!

Open space is often said to be valued and protected in Flower Mound, but that does not seem to be the case, as our open space is rapidly declining. The gorgeous, open space that we want to protect adds to the natural beauty and uniqueness of the Cross Timbers. This open space houses multiples different species of wildlife and makes our neighborhood the special place that it is.

Continuing to allow rapid expansion of our area will only lead to destruction, degradation, and fragmentation of natural habitats. Allowing the loss of large, complex, contiguous blocks of habitat, and the decline in the amount, diversity and quality of wildlife will be devastating to our area.