Topography Study Required For Neal Street Development

A geotechnical study will be required to develop land on the corner of Neal Street and South Maple Avenue adjacent to the new Cookeville Police Department.

Cookeville City Planner Jon Ward said shallow caves and sink holes make the planning department concerned how environmentally safe the land is.

“We fell like to develop that we need to look at a planned residential development or planned commercial development where we can take greater steps to protect the sensitive areas environmentally.”

Ward said the study will show whether or not the terrain can support a new development. Majority of Cookeville’s drainage system is underground raising questions of flooding for any new buildings.

“Our drainage for the whole city a lot of that involves karst features,” Ward said. “A lot of that is underground, so we want to make sure we are doing what we can to protect that.”

Geotechnical studies evaluate physical properties of soil and rock to identify potential construction problems. The data is necessary before creating foundations and designs.

“There will be geotech studies and reviews by everybody. They will have to buffer and set back, and we do have sink hole retentions there,” Ward said. “We have additional regulations to protect potential flooding and things like that. It will an involved thing to develop it for sure.”

The land is zoned as general commercial meaning both residential and commercial developments can be created. Ward said most commercial developments in the city are under general commercial.

The owners of the land requested a zoning change to general commercial from regional commercial zoning in October. Ward said the developers said the topography made building commercial difficult.