McKinney residents oppose FM 543 housing plan over traffic concerns

McKinney residents pushed back on a proposed 38.9-acre housing development north of FM 543, warning city leaders that another subdivision near Lantana Drive would add to backups on a road they say is already stretched thin. The City Council now has the final say after the Planning and Zoning Commission voted 6-1 on April 14 to recommend approval of the rezoning.

The request would change the land from agricultural zoning to R5 residential, a district McKinney’s code uses for medium-density single-family homes. LJA Engineering project manager Jake Thomas said Lennar Homes planned about 160 houses on lots of at least 5,000 square feet. City staff said the site is surrounded by single-family uses on all sides, and city planner Jake Bennett said development there would follow the same standards as neighborhoods to the north and south.

Traffic was the dominant concern. During public comment at the commission meeting, two speakers objected to the plan, saying FM 543 still carries one lane in each direction and has seen repeated development over the last four years. Robert D’Angelo said the growth along the corridor has already changed driving patterns, and residents warned that adding more homes could worsen gridlock, limit emergency access and deepen safety concerns near the roadway.

McKinney required left-turn and right-turn lanes on FM 543 for the subdivision entrance, but the city said no expansion of the road is scheduled now. The city’s Master Thoroughfare Plan does show FM 543 as a future six-lane major arterial, although officials say that plan is only a general guide and roadway alignments can shift as projects are engineered.

The debate lands inside a broader planning framework that is still reshaping the city’s northwestern edge. McKinney’s ONE McKinney 2040 Comprehensive Plan, adopted Oct. 2, 2018, covers about 116 square miles including the city and its ETJ, and city planning pages also point to the Northwest Sector Study and the State Highway 5 Corridor Master Plan as active long-range efforts. At the same council meeting, leaders also heard a separate rezoning request in the R.H. Locke Survey for a shift from agricultural land to light industrial and local commercial uses, underscoring the pressure building on McKinney’s northern and eastern edges.

The city is trying to balance that growth with basic service capacity. McKinney Fire Department operations include 11 fire stations and 224 certified firefighter, EMT and paramedic personnel, a detail that has become more relevant as residents press the council to decide whether FM 543 can absorb another wave of housing before the road network catches up.