Visionary City Leadership
The city of Lancaster is a visionary, forward-thinking community that raises the bar for development excellence for the benefit of its citizens. With the approval of the Mills Branch District in November, 2004, the city of Lancaster joined an elite list of progressive cities nationwide to embrace the concepts of New Urbanism.

Mills Branch is the first and only neighborhood district in the Best Southwest area of Southern Dallas County to be designed and zoned for Smart Growth, to encourage sustainable new neighborhoods and to provider a higher level of quality and diverse housing and neighborhood design.

Mills Branch is the result of a successful public-private partnership with a vision to create sustainable neighborhoods for future generations to enjoy. Guided by urban planning experts, the Mills Branch District was created through the use of established town-making principles and a market-based focus to achieve an attractive mixed-use development, from housing mix, street types, building types, frontage standards, architectural design guidelines and building materials to requirements for open space, streetscapes, tree types and tree preservation.