A public hearing for a wastewater permit Lennar Homes needs to break ground on an 850-home development on 230 aces near Fischer is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 10 in the Canyon Lake High School cafeteria, 8555 FM 32.
Lennar can’t start bulldozing the future site of Broken Cedar Ranch without first obtaining a permit from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) for a wastewater treatment facility that would discharge up to 600,000 gallons of treated effluent per day into Potters Creek then into Canyon Lake in the Guadalupe River Basin.
The newly formed Fischer Neighbors and the nonprofit Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance (GEAA) hope growing discontent with this kind of development in Comal County will drive hundreds of people to the meeting, hosted by the TCEQ.
The deadline for public comments is Tuesday. Residents can either speak out at the hearing or submit feedback directly to the TCEQ online, where over 1,000 people already have expressed their concerns. For more information visit fischerneighbors.com.
For an overview of TCEQ’s process for wastewater permits, click here.
Lennar did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Significant Public Opposition
Fischer resident Leesa Brieger, who lives on a 265-acre ranch and is a direct descendant of the original German settlers who established Fischer Store around 1853, said when Lennar filed its application for a wastewater permit it forgot to “check the box that says significant public opposition from the community.
“Well, yeah, because the community didn’t know about it at that time. We are trying to get as many people to comment as possible to show TCEQ oh yeah, there’s community opposition to this.”
That community, she said extends from Kyle and Buda down to San Marcos, Bulverde, Blanco, Boerne, Canyon Lake, New Braunfels and parts of San Antonio.
Not Just ‘Another Subdivision’
Opponents warn the discharge could further degrade water quality and threaten sensitive ecosystems that feed into Canyon Lake, a vital drinking-water source and recreational resource that’s only 60% full due to extreme drought.
On its website, Fischer Neighbors warn Broken Cedar Ranch isn’t just another subdivision.
“It’s a watershed-level change that affects water quality, recreation and the character of life around Canyon Lake.”
“It’s just disheartening that all we can contest is a wastewater treatment plant,” said Clark Deady, who grew up in Fischer and now lives in Rancho del Lago West. “But it really leads to a much larger problem, which is a high-density neighborhood of low-income housing.”
Lennar Homes home prices start in the mid-$250,000 range according to multiple online sources.
Stressed Resources
Rapid, high-density development across Comal County is placing unprecedented strain on already stressed water resources amid ongoing drought conditions, GEAA said in a statement.
“Aquifer levels are nearing historic lows, raising serious concerns about long-term water quality and availability for residents, wildlife, and downstream communities.”
The Edwards isn’t the only aquifer potentially affected by a new subdivision.
Brieger said wastewater discharge that sits into detention/sludge ponds will filter straight into the Trinity Aquifer, one of the most extensive and highly used groundwater resources in Texas that supplies the vast majority of residential water wells in Comal County.
The Edwards is a karst aquifer that replenishes itself quickly after heavy rains while the Trinity is a limestone aquifer that probably never fully recovered from the years-long drought of the 1950s,
Fischer Neighbors said Broken Cedar Ranch will put more traffic on already strained roads; increase pressure on schools, emergency services and infrastructure; create greater impervious cover from roads and rooftops, increasing stormwater run-off; and cause long-term impacts to groundwater quality, local wells and property values.
No Local Control
Despite these potential local headaches, county officials say they have little say-so over proposed development in northern Comal County.
That authority rests with the Texas legislature, which is notoriously pro-business like the TCEQ, which sided with Alabama-based Vulcan Materials and approved an air-quality permit several years ago that will turn the former Eric White ranch into a 1,500-acre open-pit limestone quarry between Bulverde and New Braunfels near State Highway 46 and FM 3009.
Activist groups that formed to fight Vulcan Quarry spent years grappling with TCEQ, successfully fighting for a contested-case hearing before an administrative law judge — the next step for Fischer Neighbors — before eventually losing in Texas courts.
The matter is now pending before the state Supreme Court.
But a similar community group last year took on Lennar and won. The homebuilder eventually withdrew its request for a wastewater permit for 1,100-home development on 590 acres in Comfort.
Comfort Neighbors attributed Lennar’s retreat to the “realization that this was not a fit for them. Our strategy has always been to bring facts — all the facts to bear early in the process, often and in many forms with the hope our due diligence would prevail. And it did.”
Activists in San Antonio also scored a major victory last week when San Antonio Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones and the San Antonio City Council unanimously voted to deny the creation of a municipal utility district for Lennar’s Guajolote Ranch Development.
“Honestly, I have never seen an instance where the Edwards Aquifer got so much love in one place,” said Annalisa Peace, executive director of the GEAA.
The aquifer provides drinking water for over 1.7 million people.
Fischer Friends is now a member group of the alliance, comprised of 57 organizations.
Water and Developers
Canyon Lake is only 60% full.
The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, which sells water from Canyon Lake and manages, conserves and protects water resources within a 10-county district of the Guadalupe River Basin, said the drought in the Canyon Lake area rivals in severity the infamous drought of the 1950s, which devastated Texas’ agricultural economy and forced a permanent shift from a rural to an urban society.
Canyon Lake residents are under Stage 3 drought restrictions. Outdoor watering is allowed every other week and filling swimming pools and pressure washing is prohibited.
In March 2025 the Texas Water Company took the unprecedented step of pausing new service commitments for Broken Cedar Ranch and eight other proposed developments.
“With Texas facing severe drought and rapid growth, we’re prioritizing reliable service today while securing water for the future,” the company said in a statement in March 2025.
But Lennar’s wastewater permit application is still live on TCEQ’s website.
In 2025, the company declined to reveal the names of the other developments temporarily halted, although one of them also is located in Precinct 4, which includes Fischer and is represented on Commissioners Court by Jen Crownover.
TWC has not lifted its temporary suspension on any of the nine developments, she said.
Crownover has advocated for giving counties limited land-use authority, and has shared her concerns with state legislators.
She works to build coalitions with other stakeholders grappling with concerns over explosive growth in central and south-central Texas.
“It’s about compatibility with what’s already established, and stewardship of the land and resources because you can never put it back,” she said.
Tuesday’s meeting was requested by State Sen. Donna Campbell, R-25.
The commissioner is refers constituents who want to oppose Broken Cedar Ranch to the Fischer Neighbors website.
Crownover is out of town but said Pct. 1 Commissioner Doug Leecock will attend Tuesday’s hearing in her place.
About Fischer
Looking for iconic Hill Country scenery?
Fischer is located around four miles north of Canyon Lake close to the Devil’s Backbone, a famous and some say haunted jagged limestone rock ridge between Wimberley and Blanco.
The local landscape features rolling hills, lots of oak trees and limestone terrain.
The small, unincorporated community is one of around 30 small settlements developed in the 1850s by German settlers.
“Rural communities in Comal County outside of the City of New Braunfels formed mostly around land for farming and ranching,” New Braunfels historian Myra Lee Adams Goff writes on Sophienburg Museum and Archives’ website. “Stores, post offices and dance halls sprang up around these farming communities.”
Fischer was one of the largest — “and luckily it still exists because it wasn’t swallowed up by Canyon Lake.”
To learn more about the early days of Otto and Hermann Fischer, who emigrated from Germany and “made their land claim” where Brieger’s ranch still sits, click here.
(Editor’s Note: This story was updated to include additional information about the Trinity Aquifer and input from Crownover.)