November 24th, 2020
Dripping Springs developments designed for community interaction
Original article by Sahar Chmais for Hays Free Press >
The hilly backroad drive into Dripping Springs is sprinkled with vineyards and tasting rooms, restaurants propped on acres of open land, horses, cattle and countless trees. Residents in Dripping Springs get the luxury of living within a town while still having close proximity to the city – without needing to compromise.
Yet Dripping Springs’ residential charm differs from the surrounding areas in Hays County and Austin because developers are building their houses around a community. Headwaters and Caliterra, just two of the many up-and-coming developments in Dripping Springs, have based their developments on being at-one with nature without cutting off human connection.
Headwaters provides its residents with 8 miles of trails where community members walk out in nature and have a chance to socialize and meet their neighbors. While these trails can be great for bump-ins and meeting new faces, the community tries to put on more social-focused events.
The developers have created a recreational center for its residents to have coffee, provide them with a workspace and WiFi, an outdoor lounging area to sit and chat and a playground for children to get out. This space also serves as a community events center appeasing to all ages by putting on a variety of gatherings.
For example, there is a Yappy hour, or a happy hour for dogs and their guardians to hang out. They have also put together dances for middle-school-aged children, events for younger kids, musical gatherings and more.
“We really try to embrace the beauty of the land and environment through our amenities,” said Andrea Salafia, marketing manager at Freehold Communities in Texas, the developer for Headwaters. “And we really try to focus our amenities at the heart of the community.”
Headwater’s 1,300-acre community is still being built, but there are some homes available from Phase 2. Phase 4 is expected to be available to buyers in the summer, but that is not a certain date. Buyers coming into the development get to choose from three builders and home prices range from the high $300s to $700 plus.
Being positioned on this vast amount of land has a large advantage which feeds into the development’s nature connection motto. Every property backs to nature; people have privacy in their homes because no lots back to one-another. Some lots will back to a transcending hill drop-off while others to the greenbelt.
Availabilities in these communities does run out quickly. Hays county has been witnessing a boom in buyers and Dripping Springs is a high-demand area within the county.
“What we’ve seen here in the last couple months is a surge in demand of housing in the greater Austin area,” Salafia said. “And with that, it’s created a lot of demand for each individual builder so they’re managing their demand in a little bit of different way. Each builder has a robust waitlist at the moment so what we try to do is encourage people to speak with the builder about opportunities on how they can build here.”
Headwaters is not the only community which has been putting future buyers on hold. The surge in demand has also put buyers in Caliterra on a waitlist so people can move into their dream home.
The attractions of Dripping Springs are many, Salafai explained. Besides the togetherness being being built in the communities, families are choosing the area for the highly-rated school district. There is also close proximity to Austin, with South Austin being 20 minutes away and Downtown Austin about 40 minutes away. People also get more land and house in Dripping Springs than they would in Austin.
