Forest Hill & Bliley Road Townhouse Meeting
Hope Equity LLC is holding a meeting about the proposed townhouse development near the intersection of Forest Hill Ave. and Bliley Road. The meeting will be held at 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 28th, at Bethany Christian Church, 5400 Forest Hill Avenue. The zoning change for the development was turned down last year by the City. Hope Equity LLC is the owner of the vacant land proposed to be developed. Previous meetings had been led by Balzer & Associates. Traffic and what direction development will take in the area are the main concerns of local neighbors. Anyone interested is invited to attend.
About 20 residents came to the meeting last night. Andy Pope talked about the proposed development and the demographics of the expected purchasers (young professionals or empty nesters). Residents mostly expressed concerns about traffic and the condition of Bliley Road. The developers plan to re-submit their plans to Community Development next month. The plan calls for 60 townhomes, most with garages, to sell in the $250,000 price range. I liked seeing the additional green buffer space being left between the townhomes and existing homes in the new plan.
I attended the meeting on Wednesday. Many questions were asked of Mr. Pope of which he was unable to answer. The plan as stated by Mr. Pope would consist of 65 townhomes. Mr. Pope stated, when questioned why he was turned down the first time, that he did not know why. Mr. Pope received a letter dated November 29, 2008 stating the reason(s) why he was turned down. Part of the letter is as follows:
“The finding of the Planning Commission was that the proposal would not adequately safeguard the health, safety and welfare of the cooupants of the adjoining and surrounding properties; would unreasonably increase congestion in streets; would increase public danger from fire or otherwise unreasonable affect public safety; and would diminish or impair the established values of property in surrounding areas. Specifically, the Commission found that the proposed project would unreasonably burden the already inadequate public street creatinf unreasonable congestion and safety hazards; that the townhouse style development would not be consistent with the lower denisty single-family detached development pattern of the area and that the enviroment would be negatibely impacted by the increased density thereby negatively impacting the welfare of occupants of the adjoining and surrounding properties.”
As a concerned citizen I focus on facts not ambigious statements.
The file number for this project is 9522 and is available for review at the Department of Community Development.
The letter to Mr. Pope from the Planning Commission was dated November 20th not 29th. Sorry for the typo.