DALLAS — The rush to buy a home and settle down in North Texas hasn’t slowed down, leaving rural towns and cities bracing for the impending growing pains from the population booms that are currently underway.
On a school day, you can find Lavon, Texas, Mayor Pro Tem and Council Member for Place 1, John Kell teaching a Junior ROTC class at Mesquite ISD.
"This is basically what it’s looking at,” Kell said, while instructing high school students on certain drills in the parking lot of John Horn High School.
The JROTC class, according to Kell, a more than 20-year Army veteran, is about instilling leadership qualities and discipline in the students’ everyday lives.
“The mission of JROTC is to motivate young people to be better citizens,” Kell said.
These are principals Kell applies to his own life, as a city leader in the small town of Lavon.
According to the Lavon Economic Development Corporation, there are more than 5,100 people living in the city. From January 2021, to July 2021, there was a population jump of nearly 1,000 citizens. It’s a rapid growth Kell and other city leaders say is evident in the housing development.
“The small town feel, up and coming, we have about 4,000 homes coming to Lavon,” Kell said.
It's growth realtor Maritza Furlan is seeing first-hand, working with a revolving door of clients who are looking for homes just outside some of the major cities in DFW.
“Here in Josephine, the range price is $240,000,” Furlan said, adding that the price range applies for the new homes being built in the neighboring city of Lavon.
Furlan tells Spectrum News 1 that the attraction to rural cities and towns comes from lower tax rates and fairer priced homes.
“Most people, believe it or not, are from Californian. They are moving a lot, but I have a lot of people coming from Dallas or Denton, coming to move to these rural areas,” Furlan said.
This is why Kell and other city leaders in Lavon are expanding its Parks and Recreation, installing fiber-optic cables to provide high-speed internet access to everyone, and have created and are currently funding a Capital Improvements Plan for infrastructure.
“The infrastructure, the roads, the drainage issues, also, the expansion of our fire department, our police department,” Kell added.
Kell and his family moved to Lavon in 2017. They’ve seen the growth first-hand and are eager to see the close-knit community transform in the coming years.