News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Six townhouses are one step closer to locating at the corner of Algood’s Cooper Road and Dry Valley Road under a rezoning ordinance approved by the city council last night.
The ordinance rezones the location from R-1 single family residential to R-3 high density residential.
Resident Ron Graves urged the council to vote down the ordinance.
“The traffic is an issue. You can’t get out on Dry Valley out of Brookside at certain times of the day because of school traffic,” Graves said. “This will add to that because there will be six to twelve more vehicles coming out of these units.”
“I’m not opposed to having nice units to replace an old house,” Lane said. “Do we have assurance or guarantees that this is going to be built to look like these pictures.”
Robert Lane, a resident of Algood for some 30 years, said he supported the rezoning ordinance and liked that investors and developers are seeing opportunity in the town.
“The construction, that’s for a short while and I think the developer involved here has good track record for quality units that look well…something that’s an asset and a good addition to the community,” Lane said. “I know the school generates traffic, but it’s great to have a school in the community and that’s why it’s so popular with a lot of people looking for a place to live.”
Several other residents voiced concerns about traffic and parking issues that the future development could bring, but developer Chad Gilbert tried to calm some of those concerns.
“We think the traffic is a net reduction and it can be studied and confirmed that it is,” Gilbert said. “The building will obviously be improved. The architecture there that we are offering, we tend to build what we say we are going to build. That’s our intentions.”
Gilbert said he’s happy to work with the city on the development and offered to make net improvements in the vacinity.
The council approved second reading of the ordinance unanimously Tuesday night. The site plan for the project still needs to be approved by the city planning commission and city council. That will likely occur in the coming months.
