What is Union Park in Little Elm, TX?

Union Park is a 1,100-acre master-planned community in Little Elm, developed by Hillwood, planned for 3,400 homesites at full build-out. It sits entirely inside Denton ISD with an elementary school on site, and it is funded by a municipal management district rather than a MUD or a PID, which puts the combined property tax rate at $2.475939 per $100 of value as published by the developer. Homes here run roughly the $400s to the $700s, and the resale market has softened over the past year.

If you have been comparing Union Park against Harvest, Windsong Ranch, or one of the Flower Mound new-construction communities, the honest answer is that Union Park competes on scale and programming rather than on price per foot. That is a real advantage for some buyers and a poor trade for others. Here is what actually separates it.

What You Get for the HOA Dues

The community is built around a wooded 30-acre Central Park, with greenbelts and green spaces threaded through the rest of the 1,100 acres. Beyond the park itself, Union Park carries two recreation centers, two pools, a splash pad, a dog park, a catch and release pond, an open-air event pavilion, an ADA accessible exploration playground, sports courts, an outdoor kitchen, a food truck park, and an outdoor ninja-style fitness course.

That is a deep amenity list even by North Texas master-planned standards, and it is the reason Union Park was named DFW's Community of the Year at the Dallas Builders Association's 2024 McSAM Awards.

The part most buyers underrate is the programming. Union Park runs a full-time, on-site lifestyle manager through FirstService Residential who puts on more than 300 events a year. Amenities are capital. Programming is operating expense, and it is the thing that quietly disappears in communities where the developer has moved on.

Your dues also cover front yard maintenance, meaning mowing, weeding, pruning, and fertilizer treatments, plus home alarm monitoring. Homes are wired for automation with app-based control of the thermostat, front door camera, and lights. The developer estimates those included services alone at roughly $2,000 a year in value.

Two practical notes. Dues vary by lot size and by location inside the community, and the maintenance-free product carries higher dues because it covers more yard work, so you cannot price this from a single number someone quotes you at a model home. Ask the builder or the on-site general manager for the figure tied to the specific lot. Second, the HOA currently enforces no dog breed or pet restrictions, which is worth confirming in the governing documents rather than taking from a website, because that is exactly the kind of rule that gets amended.

The Tax Rate Is the Number to Understand

This is where Union Park differs from most of what we write about in Flower Mound and Argyle, and it is the thing generic community pages get wrong.

Union Park is not in a MUD. It is not in a PID. It sits inside a municipal management district, an MMD, which is a special district created by the State of Texas to finance facilities a municipality does not provide. The MMD funded the water, sewer, drainage, roads, and park infrastructure inside Union Park, and it also funds the ongoing maintenance and operations of the public park facilities and right-of-way landscaping.

Here is the combined rate as the developer publishes it:

• Town of Little Elm: 0.549901
• MMD: 0.533200
• Denton ISD: 1.206900
• Denton County: 0.185938
• Total: 2.475939 per $100 of assessed value

Run that against the current neighborhood median sale price of $439,850 and the arithmetic looks like this:

• Town of Little Elm: $2,418.74
• MMD: $2,345.28
• Denton ISD: $5,308.55
• Denton County: $817.85
• Total: $10,890.42 a year, about $907.53 a month, before any exemption you qualify for

The MMD line is $2,345.28 of that, roughly 21.5% of the bill. Strip it out and the same house carries about $8,545. That difference is not a fee you can shop, refinance, or negotiate away. It is how the parks and the pipes got paid for.

None of that makes Union Park expensive relative to its neighbors, and it is not a reason to walk. It is a reason to underwrite the payment correctly. I have watched more than one buyer get preapproved off a tax estimate built on a generic county rate, then lose four hundred dollars a month of buying power the week the real escrow number lands. If you are cross-shopping Union Park against a Flower Mound resale with no special district on it, compare the full monthly payment, not the sale price.

Two verification steps worth taking during your option period. First, confirm the current year's rate directly with the Denton Central Appraisal District rather than relying on a published figure, since every one of those four entities sets a new rate each fall and a developer FAQ is a snapshot. Second, read the MUD and PID disclosure notice you receive and understand what it does and does not tell you about the district. Water and wastewater here come from Mustang Special Utility District under a contract with the Upper Trinity Regional Water District, while trash, police, fire, and EMS come from the Town of Little Elm, so the service map is genuinely split.

What Homes Actually Cost, New and Resale

Union Park offers two different purchase paths, and right now they are priced very differently.

New construction. The community is deep into its build-out, and the active builder lineup has narrowed considerably from the eight builders who worked here over the years. As of the developer's own current information, Bloomfield Homes and Tri Pointe Homes are the two actively selling. Tri Pointe's 40-foot homesite collection runs roughly 1,800 to 2,800 square feet, and Bloomfield's Union Park offering starts in the $500s. Inventory homes with fall completion dates are the realistic path if you need a defined move-in.

A narrowing builder list is not a warning sign. It is what a successful community looks like near the end, and it has a concrete consequence for you: fewer floor plans, fewer available lots, and less room to negotiate incentives than you would find in a community that just opened. If you want a specific plan on a specific lot, the window is smaller here than it was three years ago.

Resale. This is where the real story is, and it is not the one the marketing materials tell.

Over the three months ending July 2026, the median sale price in Union Park was $439,850, down 6.4% from the same period a year earlier. Price per square foot came in at $175, down 5.4%. Homes took a median of 112 days to sell, up 17 days year over year. Fifty-three homes sold in July, up from 35 the year before, a 50% jump in transaction volume against falling prices, which is the signature of inventory clearing rather than demand rising.

Redfin scores the neighborhood at 23 out of 100 on competitiveness, or not very competitive. The average home there sells about 3% below list and goes pending in roughly 130 days. Only 7.8% of sales closed above list, down 3.6 points from last year.

Read plainly, that is a buyer's market inside a community that markets itself as a destination. If you are buying, you have negotiating room, time to inspect properly, and no reason to waive contingencies. If you are selling here, you are competing against builder inventory and a longer clock than you are probably budgeting for, and pricing at last year's comps is the most expensive mistake available to you.

For a wider read on what your money buys in this part of Denton County, our breakdown of what $300K versus $600K gets you in Little Elm puts Union Park pricing in context against the rest of the town, and this tour of a David Weekley model home in Little Elm shows the finish level the area's new construction is built to.

Schools, and the Change That Took Effect This Fall

Union Park is located entirely within Denton ISD. Students attend Union Park Elementary, Navo Middle School, and Ray Braswell High School.

There is a boundary change you need to know about if you are looking at older listings or older community write-ups. Paloma Creek Elementary closed at the end of the 2025-2026 school year. Starting with the 2026-2027 school year, all students living in Union Park attend Union Park Elementary. Anything published before this summer that splits the community between two elementary schools is out of date.

Union Park Elementary opened in 2019 and sits on site at 7301 Fieldwood Way, within walking distance for much of the community, and it was built with rainwater collection, geothermal heating and cooling, and solar panels. Navo Middle School opened in 2005 at 1701 Navo Road. Ray Braswell High School opened in 2016 at 26750 E. University Drive, directly across U.S. Highway 380, and Denton ISD runs bus service to it. Trails connect the community to the elementary and middle schools.

One address quirk that confuses buyers constantly: the community's own address is Little Elm 76227, but Union Park Elementary and Navo Middle both carry Aubrey 76227 mailing addresses. Same ZIP, different postal city, same school district. It is a postal artifact, not a boundary problem, and it does not change your taxing entities or your attendance zone. Verify enrollment eligibility for any specific address with Denton ISD directly before you write an offer, since attendance zones are redrawn as the district grows.

As for day-to-day logistics, a Kroger Marketplace and an ALDI are within four miles, a Little Elm fire station is within a mile of the entrance, and a Baylor Scott and White emergency hospital is within two miles. The U.S. 380 improvements running alongside the community, adding turn lanes, free U-turns, lighting, signals, and sidewalks, were targeted for completion in summer 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Union Park have a MUD or a PID tax?

Neither. Union Park sits inside a municipal management district, or MMD, which is a different kind of special district created by the State of Texas. The MMD levies 0.533200 per $100 of value as part of the 2.475939 combined rate, and it funds both the original infrastructure and the ongoing upkeep of the public parks and landscaping.

What schools does Union Park feed into?

Union Park is entirely inside Denton ISD, and students attend Union Park Elementary on site, Navo Middle School, and Ray Braswell High School across U.S. 380. Paloma Creek Elementary closed after the 2025-2026 school year, so as of the 2026-2027 school year every student living in Union Park attends Union Park Elementary. Confirm the zone for a specific address with the district before you write an offer.

Who is still building new homes in Union Park?

The community is late in its build-out, and the active builder list has narrowed to Bloomfield Homes and Tri Pointe Homes as of the developer's current information. Tri Pointe's 40-foot homesite collection runs about 1,800 to 2,800 square feet and Bloomfield's offering starts in the $500s. Expect fewer available plans and lots than you would find in a newly opened community.

Is Union Park a good time to buy right now?

The resale data says buyers have leverage. The median sale price was $439,850 over the three months ending July 2026, down 6.4% year over year, with homes taking a median 112 days to sell and selling around 3% below list. That combination means room to negotiate and time to do proper due diligence, though your own answer depends on your financing, your timeline, and whether you also have a home to sell.

How much are HOA dues at Union Park?

Dues vary by lot size and by location within the community, and maintenance-free homes carry higher dues because they include more yard care. Rather than a single published figure, ask the builder or the on-site general manager for the amount tied to the specific home you are considering. Dues cover front yard maintenance, alarm monitoring, the amenity operations, and the lifestyle program.

Where This Leaves You

Union Park is a genuinely well-built community with amenities and programming that hold up, sitting in a resale market that has softened meaningfully over the past year. That combination is unusual, and for the right buyer it is an opportunity rather than a warning. The two numbers that decide it for most people are the full monthly payment once the MMD rate is priced in correctly, and how long you realistically plan to stay, because a 6.4% annual decline is painful on a three-year hold and largely irrelevant on a fifteen-year one.

If you are weighing Union Park against Harvest, a Flower Mound resale, or a build in one of the newer communities, that comparison is worth running properly rather than on gut feel. Our guide to DFW's master-planned communities lays the options side by side, and the Harvest community guide covers Hillwood's other North Texas community for a direct developer-to-developer read.

And if you are trying to sell one home and buy the next without the two colliding, schedule a free Move-Up Strategy Call ... thirty minutes, no pitch, just a clear-headed look at where you are and what your best next move looks like.

This article is general information, not legal, tax, insurance, or lending advice. Tax rates are set annually by each taxing entity and change. Verify your specific numbers with your agent, your lender, your title company, the Denton Central Appraisal District, and where appropriate a licensed Texas attorney.

About Brian White

Brian White helps families in Northwest DFW make their move-up cleanly, selling and buying in one synchronized step. He built BlueFuse Group on a simple standard: other-first service, proactive at every turn, faith and excellence in equal measure. Brian has been married to Tisha for 27 years and is dad to three adult sons. When he's not protecting a family's equity or untangling a tight closing timeline, you'll find him chasing a round of golf or at Valley Creek Church.

Schedule a Move-Up Strategy Call ... no pitch, just a clear-headed look at your next move.