De la Fuente: Weslaco's residential development growth has been 'overwhelming'

WESLACO, Texas - New houses and apartments are popping up so fast in Weslaco that planners in other communities in the Rio Grande Valley are calling to ask what is happening, says the city’s planning director.Rebekah de la Fuente, director of planning and zoning for the City of Weslaco, spoke about the “overwhelming” growth during a visit by the Rio Grande Valley Partnership. The RGV Partnership hosts monthly bus tours of Valley cities, inviting realtors and investors to see what land is available for development. The most recent visit was to Weslaco.“So, over the last year we developed about 1,100 acres (for residential development),” de la Fuente told the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service, at the end of the bus tour.“Right now, (this year) we are up to 1,400 and that does not include the ones that came in this morning.”Asked what came in, this morning, de la Fuente said: “I have two residential developments and then I have an apartment development, the one I was talking about (earlier) that was developed back in 1974. They are going to go ahead and tear that down and we are going to remodel (it) into brand new apartments. That is really great because it took two years to get it funded.”Asked how many new residential units that equates to, de la Fuente said: “So, for residential, we did 1,171 new units, which are single family lots, which came out to about 500 acres. And then for apartments, right now our number of units is at that 964. That does not include the ones that came in this morning, which should add about another 132.”De la Fuente has worked in the City of Weslaco’s planning department for the past 14 years. She said it has only been in the past two years that the growth in residential development has really taken off.“I thinks something is really happening now because I have been getting calls from other cities asking what we are doing to get these developments in,” de la Fuente said.“What we are seeing in residential I have not seen up until 2019. I thought during 2020, with Covid, that we would see a dramatic decrease. But we didn’t. We actually saw more and more and more houses coming in, so it is just overwhelming, the amount.”Asked what she tells other cities, when they call to ask what is happening in Weslaco, de la Fuente said: “I like to tell them that I think Weslaco is just the center everything. We have a good community. We are the biggest little city. So we still have that wonderful small-town mentality where everybody kind of knows everybody and everybody is willing to work with everybody.”Editor's Note: To read the full story go to the Rio Grande Guardian International News Service's website. Go to www.riograndeguardian.com to read the latest border news stories and watch the latest news videos.