Planning Commission - public_hearing

First of all, thank you all for coming here tonight. For the folks that don't know me, my name is Bill Trevatt. I'm actually the vice mayor and city commissioner. I also live over in Hickory Hills. I've been here since 2013. Obviously, I appreciate everybody's communication throughout the last couple weeks. Also appreciate all the folks that are online tonight that are not able here to make it. This meeting tonight will be recorded for the folks that are planning on logging back into YouTube. If there's any opportunity for questions, please reach out to me for the folks that are in the room. I've handed out all of the commissioners and the mayor's email address. I did that, and we'll get into that a little bit later. But at the same time, I wanted to bring us all together and talk about this development a second time. Obviously, the first night, we had a good crowd that showed up at Charlie Daniels. And with that, there was a lot of questions that came out. We went back and was able to discuss further with the developer. I also reached out to the city manager. I've reached out to our County Commissioner that's here tonight. Also. Thank you. Mr. Brown for being here as well as our County Mayor as well as some of their staff up there discussing what the county is Developing and and what's looking at you know, like what's what's it looking like for the county in Wilson County? So with that tonight, obviously we've got Todd servant our traffic engineer and Justin Beasley, our PIO officer, is here tonight. We appreciate these folks taking their Fridays to hang out with citizens. That's what it's all about. We've got Joe Haddix from Heritage Civil, Nick Bateman from Ryan Holmes, and I apologize if I missed anybody else, but I believe that is the folks that are here discussing this project. Also, Shane, oh, Shane, hey. Yeah, Shane, he's actually, Shane, you're the director of public works engineering. Thank you, sir. So many titles here tonight. So obviously, you know, coming out of that first meeting, there was some discussion of what's going to be, you know, potentially coming to the city on August 10th. You know, is it going to, affect Hickory Hills, Willoughby Station for the traffic, what is the streets look like. Throughout the week I've done my best to keep track of all of the different questions which have been what type of impact study, traffic study, uh... you know uh... storm runoff uh... you know the infrastructure costs long-term to the city there's been a lot of great questions going back and forth uh... obviously i'm not going to answer them all tonight but you know uh... please take those questions if i missed any of them after tonight's meeting send me an email i will take all of the questions that are here tonight and i will send them all out to an email blast if you do not want to be on the email blast Please go ahead and put a little note on the side there saying that you do not want to be part of the email blast, but from here on you will be added. I actually had two residents that reached out to me because there was some conversations where they thought they wanted to be out there and they decided to turn that option off. So my apologies if I add you on and you two or three weeks later decide to go ahead and ask to be removed. So it may take a minute or two. Obviously, with this being said, our goal is to discuss what the potential impact is to our city. After this, we're going to be able to talk a little bit more about what it could look like if this developer decides to go ahead and move over to the county if it gets denied by the POC. So with that, I'm going to hand this over to Mr. Haddix and Mr. Bateman from Ryan Holmes and Heritage Civil to discuss some of the updates that you guys have done. And then obviously, I believe, I don't want to speak out of turn, but you guys did meet with the city staff today. And then from there, I'd like to bring up Todd after these folks to be able to discuss your thoughts with the new information that you received today as well. Thank you.

Good evening, everybody. I had the pleasure of meeting quite a few of you last month and greatly appreciate the feedback that you provided on this project. My name is Nick Bateman with Ryan Homes. Working with Heritage Civil, I feel like we've taken a lot of your comments and concerns and really tried to drive those into what our potential options could look like in evaluating our current site plan from what you saw at Planning Commission to what we have today. So to kick things off, this would be our first version of taking a re-look at some of the accommodations and questions that came up. A lot of concerns relating traffic interconnection to future development of cane break there were some access roads that were terminating at the property on the southwest portion which you'll see on the screen is two roads on the bottom left side are now permanent cul-de-sacs and no longer proposing connectivity to the parcel and piece of land to the left that would benefit the property by not having additional traffic coming through to access, potentially add more traffic into the railway station area. Also, what we've tried to work to accommodate here is on the northern intersection, providing a roundabout with traffic calming measures at both entry ports on Port Kimbla and Portsmouth Road. I believe that those are, you know, accommodations that would definitely slow traffic in this area, hopefully deter traffic that would be trying to cut through and get a shortcut out of the community. So this being our first option, we do have two other ones that we try to accommodate a little bit more into those options. So with that... Yes.

It's just hard to see from back there. Is that one?

It's the primary intersection of the development that has the three connections that are currently stubbed out at this parcel. So there's one on the north, east, and west side that are current terminating at the property line. With this design, it's showing that all three of those connections are staying intact or being continued throughout this development. And so an effort to slow that traffic or deter, cut through traffic, roundabouts, speed calming measures of speed humps at those intersections. no road connections, is what this plan would be proposing. With that, I can jump over to option two. Did it cut over? That's it. So another option that we took, This was showing two connection roads, one on Portsmouth, one on Port Kimbla. Also changing up the interconnection so where that previous roundabout traffic intersection in the center was, this changes that to add additional stop signs and lowers many traffic counts that are coming through there, creating another junction at which cars have to actually come to a physical stop to turn cut through traffic. and as well as keeping the two portions down at the bottom of the community as permanent cul-de-sacs. Yes, sir.

So we can't really understand that. Can you tell when I'm... Also, the mic is not working.

Yeah, so... And I apologize, folks.

The microphone... Nope.

It should have been working. There's two microphones. Apologies. Can you hear me a little better now?

Yeah, there's two microphones we're using. Yeah, you may just have to speak up. Okay. Okay.

Does that answer your question, sir?

I don't know any landmarks. Can you help me understand?

So Port Kimball is the left entrance and then Port Kimball is the right entrance. So Willoughby Station is on the right, Hickory Hills is on the left.

Yes, this is Port Kimball existing that terminates at the property line of this development that's currently not developed. Portsmouth Drive on the left side of the screen is also a stub road that is stopping at the parcel, at the community property. And Wiltshire Drive is the third connection on the north portion of the property line. So in reference to which three roads are interconnecting there, I'll try and be a little more clear so that everybody can follow that.

I guess I'm kind of confused how only having two entrances and exits will reduce cut-through traffic. These people will have no choice but to cut through because there's only two entrances and exits instead of three.

Yes, we're required to have a minimum of two ingress and egress.

I guess I'm just not understanding how it would do that.

Yeah, I'll let you out.

Yeah, and this option, like the original or the previous option, which is really what everybody had seen previously with the cul-de-sac or the roundabout in the middle, where about a long straight shot, just trying to break the traffic up, let everybody make it basically as hard as possible to get through us, in essence, so it doesn't appear to be inappropriate.

So these people in this neighborhood will have no choice but to go out those ways, but people in like Hickory Hills might not use it to get over.

That is exactly what we're trying to prevent. So what we heard in the initial meeting was one of the questions, do you have to tie it all three rows? You're going to see a third option here, and the second one reconfigures this slightly. So we were looking here. at the end of Wiltshire. That appeared to be probably the fastest potential cut through from continuing to go north would be to come down to Port Kenilow. So we wanted to look at an auction. City staff will be able to speak to that too when they come up. Just trying to evaluate different auctions. Really looking for some feedback tonight. I know lots of you have studied this previously, so I'm interested to hear what you think when we get through this third option too. So looking at options.

Honestly, when you look at it, for the Willoughby Station traffic and the Hickory Hills traffic that's existing, it really doesn't matter if they cut through this or they continue up on Edinburgh and come on the main road and come through. Yeah, it varies to a very small portion of the population. The problem is gonna be the housing, having to get out at Devonshire and having to get out at the Roundhouse. That's the bigger problem here is, we've already got a ton of traffic load going out of the existing two subdivisions with just two roads. And all we're doing is adding to that problem. And yes, there are internal problems that are caused by this, but you're making a bad problem worse, is the big point. And what really we need is a third entrance exit out of If you're going to put some more houses in there, there needs to be a third way out to get out of it, not funneling everything through different – I mean I appreciate trying to fix the localized problem, but it's the bigger problem that's the real problem. Well, wait a minute here.

So listen, if I can go ahead and chime in here just to let everybody know, which I was going to go ahead and wait until after Todd came up. Obviously, this group right here, they went ahead and submitted the permit. They paid the fee for RJ Corman to go ahead and have that hearing, which is to basically request for the railroad crossing. From that point, I think it was right around a week, they got a response back, automatic, no hearing, denominated. So from that point, once I got that information, I went ahead and then started reaching out to our state representative, reached out to our state senator, and then obviously Mayor Hutto, and then even our county commissioner to get some support there. Currently right now, obviously the developer is wanting to have that crossing. That's the number one thing here, is that they want to have the crossing as much as we want it. The only challenge is that the railroad company is obviously, everything that they're saying is it's a safety concern for them if they add another crossing because people can bypass the arms and be able to put themselves at risk. I don't know if it's a maintenance item or if it's just something that they just want to push back on. So what we're doing right now is that Senator Potey is actually working with me right now to see if we can be able to have those discussions and get through that hearing. Obviously, it's going to be right around that time of August 10th. It's going to take a little bit of time to get that meeting with them, but this developer is wanting to have that discussion. They want to go ahead and have that third entrance. Talking with the county, one more thing, if you don't mind, Peter. Talking with the county, this happened the same thing with Cambridge. Cambridge was shot down. They wanted the railroad crossing. The county... you know, staff up there, they were pushing with RJ Corman and nothing got pushed. I believe now that we've got such a better fight because of the fact that we've got between 21, I think I did the entire count, I think it's almost close to 2300 homes between Cambridge, the development that's over there behind Hickory Hills Clubhouse, it's already been approved for 130 plus homes. This community right here, plus the other 67 homes that are up in the phase four up there next to St. Stephen's, and then the two existing communities. And then on top of all that, the 300 plus homes that are all town homes. So that kind of sets RJ Corman and NARA, National Eastern Railroad Authority, to really kind of listen to us to say, okay, there is a concern. Now, I will say this. Todd, with city staff, did go back through, and just to kind of lay this in here, the traffic study does still show that with the roundabout and then widening the entrance still indicates that there is enough adequate services. My concern as your commissioner is letting you know that, first of all, if we have an entrance that's coming back over the railroad, these residents and any other residents that are on the backside of Willoughby and Willoughby, Hickory Hills will have faster responses. That's your police, fire, and EMS. So that's where we're trying to work with our state representatives to go ahead and push for this railroad crossing. And the partnership with this development, that's where they're willing to spend that million dollars to go ahead and – or whatever that cost is to get that railroad crossing. So with that, you had your hand up first, and then I'll go to you, sir, in the back.

I apologize. Two points on that is the traffic study may show that it's adequate to deal with the traffic, but when you have traffic backed up all the way past the pool in Willoughby Station… Because of traffic having to get out in the morning, I don't care what the traffic study says. The reality is different than the study. I agree. The second thing is this is not a landlocked property. This property is addressed per the public notice at 2770 West Division Street. So this property's primary entrance is on Division Street.

So I ask that question.

You first need to focus on that. Because that's the property address to this property.

And this is the emergency services. That's why that address was put out there, just so you know. Because I asked that same question after meeting you at that conversation.

And it's the address to the property, so that needs to be the primary entrance to the property.

And that's going to be one of our discussions with NARA and R.J. Corman to be able to help fight that battle. Because that's the emergency service address, as well as that's what's posted on the city website and website.

I don't want to speak for everybody. If you had the third entrance out of there, everybody here would be trying to get out that third entrance. Some of us and some of Victory Hills would be trying to use that third entrance because we want to bypass the elementary school too. And it will alleviate the problem of the elementary school traffic leaving through the roundabout. With giving another option to get out.

Well, Canebrook is going to have that third entrance.

You can't get there from there.

Yeah, it's going to be a little zigzag. You're right, sir.

So this lane was actually auctioned off where any citizen called. Between this and Division, there's the railroad and that little stick lane. Someone else owns that. It is not part of this development.

So they do not touch Division. Then how do they have an address on Division?

There was an egress there at the time of purchase.

It was just a small egress for one single home driveway.

But it was known at the time that the railroad was not going to allow another entry at the time that was auctioned off. That's been an ongoing issue for that section. I've been here for 20 plus years.

Yes, sir.

So now you buy into the problem and now it's our problem.

That's why we're here tonight, sir.

Yes, sir. So who did the traffic? We're saying everything is working here. We all live in the neighborhood. How do they count the cars on how many have gone through? I've never seen a car counter go through. This is what, 150 homes? 134. 134, so that's 260 cars minimum per car. We have the city engineer that's going to be able to help give you all that information, sir. Let me see the

It would make it a lot easier for me if everyone had seen every option.

Yeah, let's get to the third option. Thank you. Sorry, Todd. I apologize.

So a brief overlay here. Again, permanent termination on the cul-de-sacs at the south portion of the property, so not showing a connection for any future use there. But the main primary difference here is to redirect the traffic and avoid a connection point at Portsmouth. sorry, Port Kembla here and showing the connection with a four-way stop at this intersection. So it's not a straight cut through road, slows down the traffic, creates another intersection that creates all traffic to have to come to a stop. But this also limits it to just a Two points of access to the property, not having three points, trying to accommodate as much as we can for the interconnection and really not disperse traffic in all directions and finally through major roadways.

That's pushing all 300 cars down Heddenburg and up Duda? Correct.

It would force cars to go north or west, yes, up or left.

So can I step in now? So the advantage of this option is that it takes away the direct connection between Hickory Hills and Willoughby Station. So yes, the direct impact of this development alone has far more impact on Edinburgh. However, it reduces the impact dramatically of cut-through traffic coming from Canebrake and the Hickory Hills homes to the south of the subdivision. It this forces everything up to AmeriCorp and will be station Boulevard They are classified as a collector They're meant to carry higher volumes

So with this option, or any of them, what does that look like for Horseman, for Kimba, or Wiltshire, for the road? Are they already fit to handle the traffic for 260 cars, or would it be some expansion? Will you be talking to the homeowners that are sitting there on the streets? What does it look like?

So what's interesting is that as our subdivision regulations have grown, Our ideal street section has actually shrunk. So every street in both subdivisions is wider than our current regulation for a residential collector. Most streets in the subdivision are roughly 28 feet curb to curb. Now that's an extruded curb, not curb and gutter, and that's an important distinction because really you don't want to be driving in the water on the side of the road. But that said, your lowest classification street is wider than, not the highest possible, but the highest residential street we could have. So widening the streets is not necessarily the target. It's going to be handling your nodes, your intersections. That's what's going to make more of an impact for residents.

So how many cars is acceptable on residential for the traffic level?

So there's two different ways to answer that, right? We have our subdivision regulations, which sets our ADTs, our average daily traffic, allowable on a road, or technically not allowable, but are desired. So on a residential access lane, we want to limit that to 500 or less daily trips. An access street goes up to 1,000. Residential collector is either 1500 or 2500. I don't have that off the top of my head. We just changed that Well, that's the thing they were all built before that classification system came to be so there At the time they were classified as local roads That would most generously fit with the residential access Street and

still see how y'all came up saying that this development's okay to bring 300 cars down two streets uh that's what's still refused on where where did you get the number from you know our road yes our roads are wider but you can still get two cars

We don't have sidewalks. Yeah. On the streets.

We have an ordinance that we have to have the cars out by, what, midnight? 1 a.m. 1 a.m. So there's a lot of cars on the streets already. Even when I'm getting home at 6 o'clock, I have to go around in cars. Now we have to fight this traffic. And also, you know, we live back here. We're being affected by it. Not too happy, but I'm sorry, but a lot of our families walk Edinburgh and do Iowa. So what is the city gonna do to help us because you're taking away our water because i'm not going to walk around 300 cars we don't have sidewalks but i'm just saying like i feel like you're bringing this development in and The planning is just kind of getting pushed past it. They don't follow the speed limit, too, when they .

We live on .

And already, traffic pays little to no attention to the speed limit as it is. Yeah. I've seen plenty of vehicles come. One of the ski bumps is right outside us. I've seen plenty of vehicles come through there. I don't know how they maintain a suspension. But now you've got double traffic coming through there.

And just generally from your traffic counts, the two roads, if we've got right now 2,300 houses. Sorry, I'm getting.

Wait a minute. Yes.

Are you guys still got a question? I'm sorry. I just want to make sure we get everybody's question.

I was just saying, we've been there for 30 years. Sometime back, there was a kid hit by a car right at the intersection of Belmont, Harris, and Keeling. The traffic, the way it's going, it's going to happen again. Instead of the kid coming out, it's going to be a fractured finger. Somebody's going to get free from the kid.

Yes, sir. If the traffic towns... Just looking at the number of houses right now, 2,300 houses within that. There's two ways out. That's 4,600 cars. You just said the largest road has an average count of 1,500 a day. How do you say that there's, and that's only 3,000 cars, and there's 4,600 cars in here. So how is that acceptable to allow that many cars to use just two streets?

Yes.

You have to assume that every person in every house is going to leave and come back during the course of the day.

Poor Kimball would not cut through this neighborhood.

I'm not talking about the minor streets. I'm just talking about the fact that Willoughby Station Road coming out at the boulevard, coming out at the roundabout, and then Devonshire coming out at Lebanon Pike, those two roads... the largest roads that we have at 1,500 max daily count, just one person from every house leaving and coming back is 4,300 cars. How do we equate that to just having two roads out of the composite is sufficient? The math just doesn't make sense.

Happy to answer that question. So the easiest way I can break that down is just for this development, it's 134 homes. Based on the information provided by the Institute of Transportation Engineers, they have what they call a trip generation manual. which studies subdivisions all over the country to approximate how many trips a subdivision is going to generate. If you leave, that's one trip. If you come home, that's one trip. So every person's two trips during the day, hypothetically. But with 134 homes in the p.m. peak hour, which is our heavier peak hour, we're looking at 125 total trips. Of that, 77 is coming in. And if you kind of think about that, that's, well, I work third shift, right? So I'm not on your typical peak hour, or I work from home. Things like that where not everyone's leaving all at once, I guess is the easiest way to say that. So that all kind of gets included in with the ITE data. So they're just counting every single vehicle that comes into the subdivisions that they're studying. And then they have a regression model that gives an equation for essentially we have this many homes, we expect this many trips. Now, obviously, this is an approximation. This is not an exact science. I'm not saying I guarantee this subdivision is going to generate 125 trips every day. But it's the best kind of estimation we can get. I'm sorry. Can you repeat that?

Yeah, but that's vehicle ownership as opposed to trips of traffic not somehow somewhat dictating how many homes can be put there? How did it get rezoned to a high density? How's the traffic not reducing the amount of homes that are thought to be permitted to be

This hasn't been approved. This is just a request from the developer for it to be high density.

And then you get all that in a car and you've got an hour and 20 minutes to drive 8,000 miles to get downtown. All that sucks.

And I get where you're coming from that this is adding 125 trips. But I think the point that's being missed is that there's already over 4,000 trips out of the neighborhood as it exists now. Yes, sir. So the roads as they exist now are already overburdened. So how can we be saying that it's OK to add another 125 trips without adding another exit out of the neighborhood?

Because your limiting factor is not your straight shot on the road. It's your intersections. And while I understand that the roundabout gets backed up, I fully understand that. But it still flows, right? So there's delay. And I'm not here to discount the delay you folks experience.

And the delay is not around that. The delay is light and big.

Well, yes, at Green Hill. And the city, completely unrelated to this project, we're working on that. You've seen the construction vehicles out there. We put in the channelization island as part of the trail project. And I'm looking at the signal timings for that as well. But, you know, the... We measure level of service based on the delay, but it's currently at a level where it moves, you stop for a bit, and it moves, and once you're out of the neighborhood, you're generally fine. I understand that it's frustrating to be stuck in the traffic, but the addition of this subdivision doesn't really move the needle one way or another on that delay. I guess is the best way to say it.

My point is that if we're going to add another subdivision, let's take the opportunity and make sure that we've got another way out so that we alleviate the problem we already have.

For sure. And your point is well taken.

And I get it with railroads. I mean, Bill and I have talked a lot about the problem with the railroad. But there is already an existing crossing that whatever recourses we need to take, we need to pressure the railroad to allow that to be another crossing.

Absolutely. Yes, sir. He had his hand up before you, but I'll come right back to you.

So this is all hypothetical because there hasn't really been a study, but... One, we didn't buy houses on Ludman Road. We bought nice subdivision residential homes. And that's where we want to be. We don't want a bunch of traffic in our front yard. And two, it's already a catchphrase. When you go, if you go rush hour, they're going to do a division and they're going to do anything. So that would have been captured in the traffic counts that were taken. Most of the intersections were taken sometime

I don't have that number off the top of my head. I believe February, but I'd have to double check. Now, the roundabout and the Green Hill signal were outside of the scope. They were just too far away from the site. So I did rely on a little bit older traffic councils that were about a year and a half old.

What's that?

This gentleman had his hand up first. I just want to say that this land is owned by a developer. It is zoned for houses.

They have every right to build houses on this land. So us fighting over, we don't want it, it makes us mad, I don't like it, that, we need to put it aside and make it as good as we can because that's a losing battle. We can't fight that. It's going to happen, so we need to kind of sit with that and accept it and try to make it like to take the benefits that we can get from it, like maybe adding sidewalks, adding speed bumps where possible, improving, I would love a crossing onto the railroad, or you know, all across the railroad, but that kind of thing, I don't want us to focus our effort somewhere that won't accomplish what we want, so if we keep fighting over whether or not it exists, we're wasting our effort. It will happen.

We need to make it happen.

We have property values that we're trying to make sure are impacted.

Well, this is going to happen.

So we just need to accept it. So if I can, just real quick, just because – and I don't want to cut in front of just anybody. As I stated earlier, sir, I understand what you're saying, but just like this lady had said earlier, this lot is already zoned for R1 single-family homes. It's already zoned for that. Okay? After, you know, these folks, because I didn't want to keep everybody here, you know, all night, but here in about 15 minutes, these folks were going to be wrapping up. And then the last 30 minutes, I wanted to go over the pros and cons, if it's in the city or outside of the city, if it decides, you know, if the commission votes this down. It will go to the county no matter what, just like this lady had said earlier. So the last 30 minutes, if we could, let me get through that 30 minutes. But this last 15 minutes, I want to be respectful of these gentlemen's time just to be able to get them that, and then we can go down that next level of discussion. Is that okay, sir? I apologize. No, no, no, no. Hey, listen, great questions, and don't apologize. There's no need. I'm just here to make sure that we get everything through and everything's transparent for you too, sir, because it's very important, it is. Go ahead, Brian.

Is there a traffic volume at which this many houses in all of the combined neighborhoods with only two entrances and exits becomes an impediment to further development?

Not really, to be honest. Again, it's all based on your intersections and, quite honestly, on tolerance, right?

So there's a tolerance threshold at some point.

Well, and that's going to be up to your elected body to decide, OK, we can't allow this anymore. But as far as level of service goes, The traffic models are projecting an LOSD. Now, they are underreporting, and I do want to make that very clear to y'all. Those models are not accounting for the railroad and the havoc that causes. So realistically, we are looking at more of an LOSE. However, industry practice has shifted the allowable LOS back and is really focusing on safety improvements rather than capacity improvements. Again, I'm not giving you all a lot of good news, and I recognize that, but it's where the industry's at.

Oh, sorry. Back to the next. All right, so I'm going to switch away from the traffic piece, but for no matter what, I'm screwed.

So, what are you all going to do for property management barriers?

Are there going to be any buffers or anything like that? We know we're going to have to deal with the traffic, but what does that look like for everybody that lives on this edge all the way around? What does that look like?

Yes, there's going to be a buffer. How big is that buffer?

20-foot perimeter landscape buffer.

Are you going to leave the existing trees?

Leave the existing trees within the buffer. How big is that buffer? 20 feet wide. 20 feet? Okay. Yes, sir. And that is included in open space maintained by the HOA. We do not put it on a lot, so developer sells a lot, private entity owns it, doesn't know there's a buffer there, they go cut it. It would be completely off the property. Everything is in dedicated open space maintained by the HOA.

And did you guys – I apologize real quick. Sir, did you guys figure out the whole conversation with the sidewalks? Have you guys hashed that out yet, or is that still something you're working on? The sidewalks. The sidewalks. There was some discussion, the transition from the new to the existing. Yes, so with –

The request that was approved with Planning Commission was to install sidewalks along Port Camelot that would interconnect this development with the existing sidewalk network. Now, with this layout in particular, If there's not a road connection to Port Kembla, the discussion with staff earlier was we wouldn't need to install the sidewalks on Port Kembla. So I think it's going to really determine on which layout ultimately we go with. As you heard from city staff, their preference would be something similar or this.

And honestly, if you got the railroad crossing, I wouldn't care that all three were connected. I probably would prefer the one with the ramp.

Yeah.

They do not stop at stops.

Right. You would, yeah. I was not going to admit it. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, sir.

So exiting this map for a second, most people in the mornings are gonna be headed towards Nashville. They're gonna be going north and west to get out of New York. There's been a lot of flooding on Maricord recently. We've been putting a lot of cars in an area that's already been affected by other development. Does the city or the developers plan to do anything on Maricord to fix the drainage problem?

So two things real quick. There's actually an email that has went out. We found that the detention pond has actually failed in that new development. I got pictures of it and it is needing to be corrected. So Stormwater is addressing that. and they're also looking at basically how to hold the developer accountable to make sure that that doesn't wash out again. Obviously, they were looking at some challenges up there, but it's my understanding there was a couple sinkholes, and I believe... It was actually, well, just the concern on Marion Court about washing out with all the emails that have gone back with... Yeah, well, Devin Shard coming down to Marion Court and how it's washing out.

I can answer that question specific to the last two major rain events we had in July. And I know the reaction probably not going to be well liked, but the rain events exceeded the state design standards for erosion controls. So the developer did what they were supposed to do. Was there maintenance issues that they should be always doing? Yes. But the type of rain we've had, And in order to keep state compliance, they don't mesh. So we want to keep our sediment out, or minimize sediment. But minimizing sediment causes water to back up.

So with that, real quick, that was one of the pictures that was sent out. So currently right now your storm drains, through most of the development, because there's an elevation, they haven't put that last final asphalt down. That's one issue. Second issue is that they actually have sediment protectors that are over the drains that are basically keeping the large particles from coming down the drains to back them up. So those are the two issues that are causing it, a lot of that runoff. So when that last layer of asphalt that's installed and they remove those curtains that are over the storm drains, correct me if I'm right?

That'll mitigate a lot of the rain that'll be going into the functioning storm system.

There's already standing water on Division, just south of where this dome is going to be going in, so what's the plan for dealing with deforestation and the lack of water retention after that?

On Division?

Yeah, there's always water, just south of it. You're talking about by the school?

Just west of the school.

Where Mount Juliet put up the signs and said, there's water.

I can answer that question. So we've been publicizing this. We just actually approved our first stormwater project the board did this week. I'll be bringing forward to the board a design project to address the portion of West Division that's in the floodplain. It's in the floodplain, it is. That has been identified as a project that we wanna do. We finally have the funding mechanism to do it. That's what the $5 a month, each one of y'all pay. Just for the record, I also live in the city, so I pay it too. So, that will be coming this month, and we'll start designing it.

Does that take into account the deforesting this plot?

No, no, no. That, I'd say that's slightly, but I wouldn't say it's the major factor. The major factor is the roads built in the floodway.

They have to take care of the deforestation on their property. Yes, they cannot.

So it won't have any impact. He's correct. They cannot generate any more water coming off their site than they do today. There's ways to do it, and that's my job, and I've worked with Joe on a lot of projects to make sure that we ensure that At this point in the entitlement process, the drainage is not required because they're looking to get their zoning. Once they get the zoning, then I know exactly how many houses they're coming in with and we can fine tune the drainage requirements with the code to meet the development and make sure that it's integrated in with the neighborhood. One more thing I want to say about that bill. I don't know how old Inquiry Hill is. I know that Willoughby is about 20, 25 years old at least. So when these neighborhoods were built, the stormwater rules, there were no rules. Joe probably talked about that more as well, but there were no rules. There was no master planning. not a sophisticated approach to address drainage like neighborhoods today have. It's very difficult to put a new development in with modern storm rules into a place that doesn't have it. That's the fact. It's the truth. I'm not gonna sugar cut it. So we're doing the best we can to make sure that this piece of land doesn't add any more to what is already built.

Now, just as people would go back out here, the city's plans, so I'm gonna ask this question, this is some of the questions I've been thinking as a resident. The city guidelines are a lot more stringent than the county, is that correct? So, again, that's where we're going to have that discussion here shortly about the pros and cons between the city and the county. So I just want to make sure that we bring that back up here in a few minutes. But I do want to be respectful of these gentlemen's times. Wayne, go ahead, Mr. Jackson.

We already have a cut-through problem from Button Road to South Greenfield, Alabama, Chowder, and Boone Station.

You'll see... The speed bumps, the stop sign, that is not so well tracked. It's an issue. So is it been thought about, if we have another exit going out on Division, that that's just gonna be an additional cut for it, especially on Fort Kendall where we might come through

These are not residents, just people that are realizing they can cut through our neighborhood and these other parts of the city.

That's the whole purpose. So great question. And that was one of the discussions when I had with the county commissioners when it came for Cambridge. That's why we were pushing so hard to see if they would be within the city guidelines because of that same discussion. about being a pass-through now it being in the county they went ahead and accepted that third entrance out there that will take you into davidson county now for the residents typically you'll be able to zigzag through there so it's mainly for the residents that currently live here I don't see a UPS truck that is basically coming through to be able to bypass to get to Lebanon Road from that area. It just doesn't make sense. There's too many speed humps. The city has started partnering with the county when it comes into the type of traffic calming measures. The current speed humps that we have right now, Canebrick is now going to be using a different type of speed traffic calming system. product because it's a little bit harder it's more like a tabletop so this way for the vehicles that have realized that they go 30 plus miles an hour over it's a lot smoother it doesn't hurt your car as bad right so um but these new tabletop uh calming measures are a little more stringent you know and they hurt your car are these coming in at the end of devonshire going into cuba because we were supposed to have those a couple years ago That's after the construction is going to be wrapped up because right now all the construction, all the big semi trucks and all that, it's just leveling them out. So that is part of the punch list as early. And that's where Edinburgh, you're going to see new calming measures up there as well as even on the back end where Cambridge is coming in. So as those are being finished and they're doing that last phase, they're going to install those. Go ahead, sir. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry.

Just a side thing about the bumps and the slowing down, the 30 plus and all that kind of stuff. There's a segment of people that cut through that when they do have to slow down and go over, it's... So they're playing again. And that's probably not even fixable. There's nothing you can do about it. You're right. Unless you're putting sound requirements... That's a real problem. There's a nice gentleman back there that can help advocate for that.

Sorry, go ahead. Don't need to advocate. Need the city to enforce it. Well, there's already, you know, like the code requirements for those types of vehicles. There is. Show me one ticket.

Well, it's been written for Lallan Luffler. You said Lallan Luffler, sir? Yeah. Okay. All right. Real quick. So I'm going to go to this nice lady, and then I'll go back to you, sir.

I apologize.

Okay. Can you backtrack a little bit? So we're going to have sidewalks.

Part of the Planning Commission, I guess, recommendation was to accommodate Port Kembla going out to the existing connective

So you're saying put like

The sidewalks to the entire community?

Not the entire community, but maybe where, like on the main roads. Right now, it's dangerous to walk because it is.

No, I agree.

It's very dangerous.

At least on the roads that are being directly affected by the traffic.

So that was the conversation. That's what we were asking for last meeting was the understanding where if you could go back to, I guess, I'm just trying to see here. So for example, if this is connecting in here, so... The conversation was, if it goes into the connecting roads into the existing communities, how would that affect, if there's a sidewalk here or a sidewalk on this side, how is that going to transition into that last corner, right? That was the question last time. Same thing over here. For the first example, if this is coming through here, how is this going to affect if there is sidewalks existing to that next spot? Have you guys discussed that yet, or is that still an action item? Todd and I spoke about this earlier.

Yeah, so generally what we're looking for with incoming developments is to fill the sidewalk gap, right, which is why Port Kamla was recommended to get the sidewalk because it fills a hole in the network. On the Hickory Hill side, there are no sidewalks, so we can't fill that. So if the Board of Commissioners recommended sidewalks, we would need to just figure out a configuration and a loop that made sense and not just leave a sidewalk to nowhere.

I think what the point is, though, is if you connect into Hickory Hills, there are no sidewalks now, and people walk in the streets. And there are definable paths that will come out of this to get out of Hickory Hills along Devonshire. Those are the roads that are affected by the increased traffic. So those roads that are affected by the increased traffic, can sidewalks be put on those, not paying any attention to what the city is trying to do to connect gaps in sidewalks. But this happens all the time in other cities. that new developments are shackled with the problems of previous development. For example, with stormwater, Metro, in a lot of cases, requires that it's not meeting less than 100% of the rainfall, but they only allow it to get to 80% of the rainfall runoff. Same thing would be true with sidewalks. If you are causing increased traffic, then you accommodate the pedestrians by providing sidewalks for them where there are no sidewalks now.

Yeah, and I understand where you're coming from. Our hands are tied a little bit as far as what we can require.

Only because the ordinance hasn't passed.

Well, there's a few different things. The cities have lost a lot of court cases about requiring sidewalks outside of a reasonable scope. to because we're talking about Edinburgh in this configuration at least we're talking about Edinburgh up to Maricourt and probably Maricourt to Devonshire that's between one and two miles of off-site sidewalk that we would realistically from a liability standpoint of the city just be asking them to do out of the kindness of their hearts and we we will lose that battle if we try to require that.

The other side of it is is that you know let's just say a resident let's just say me and you live across the street from each other Pete so and all of a sudden I don't want the sidewalk but you do right but then my neighbor says hey I want the sidewalk you can't zigzag back and forth right it doesn't make sense the other side of that is is that you know there's a purchase side in there you know there's an easement that's a requirement in there for utilities But at the same time, it doesn't, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't want to say this incorrectly, but to force that sidewalk in there and say that's part of the utilities, that's not utilities. That's a sidewalk as a service, correct?

So we could put it in within the right-of-way. However, all publicly installed sidewalks need to meet the ADA, which would require reconfiguring every single driveway, which...

what i can add to that is an unintended consequence we're dealing with this in another part of town is i call them muffler drivers you put sidewalk in it can only be at a certain pitch but you've got existing driveways that have already got a pretty good slope on it there's no way to catch that slope back on some of these homes and now you're left with a driveway that you cannot you worry about your muffler getting ripped off or your bumper or car damage so it's like I said retrofitting older subdivisions is a task from stormwater sidewalks right it's very difficult to do the maximum allowable slope for a crosswalk cross slope that is is two percent um it's not called takery hills because it's flat

So we'll see if we can get the sidewalks, victory hills, we'll get nothing. There's nothing that we could do. There's no medium that we can meet. If we came to you guys with ideas or came to the board with ideas and threw those out there for Washington, you're potentially putting a lot of children and a lot of homeowners there in danger. It's bad enough as it is.

I do think there are key areas, key, not gaps, because there is nothing in Hickory Hills, right?

Okay.

So there would be key areas, key improvements that we can make realistically, but talking about doing the entirety of the collectors, which is where this development is going to be impacting the hardest, it's just not realistic. I hate to say it, but it's unfortunately not.

So the...

If we were going to do that, that configuration is not really that different than having all three open. The reason why it's advantageous to cut off Port Kembla is because the two roads, right, Edinburgh and I cannot remember that other road off the top of my head. Can you help me out here? Well, the road that runs parallel to Edinburgh on the Willoughby Station side that runs up to Maricourt. Yes, Melbourne Terrace. Thank you. I apologize. But those two roads don't intersect, right? So you can't cut through from the west through the lesser classified residential streets to get to the roundabout or from the roundabout. Once you have the Wiltshire connection to Port Kembla, it's about 500 extra feet as opposed to just coming down Portsmouth. And when you're evaluating cut-through traffic, people are going to take the quickest possible route. And that 500 extra feet doesn't necessarily make the route much longer at all. So now we could do that, but that would require the same amount of traffic coming that We've heard mixed reviews about tonight.

Well, it'd be going north either way. Exactly.

And so the Maricourt Willoughby Station Boulevard connection becomes the bottleneck for all the traffic.

The only option that doesn't force the traffic out onto Edinburgh, northern Edinburgh, I should say, southern Edinburgh would still have traffic on it from this development, would be option two, which had that sort of offset. And they called this back up here as opposed to over here. But that created the east-west cut-through concern. Now, there are advantages to that. I'm more than happy to get into the pros and cons of each option.

Again, we all need to gang up on the airport, or on the railroad, because that solves everything. Because then the cut-through doesn't matter because everybody's... cutting back out that way, you know.

Mr. Yates had his hand up first, I apologize, and then I'll go to you, sir. The gentleman behind you, by the way, he had his hand up first, I'm second. So Mr. Yates, go ahead, and I'm going to go to the gentleman in the far back. Two quick questions.

There was mention of a single driveway that does cross Mount Division into the neighborhood, right to this proposed neighborhood. Could construction traffic use that?

You mean construction traffic for the development?

Yes, for the ducts. That way you can use it off both neighborhood roads. That was discussed last week too.

I believe there's an easement and we'd have to check the language of that, but it's possible.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

If you're discharging it into an unimpaired stream.

Do we get it discharged unimpaired? No, I'm going to say it's unimpaired. So two-year. We've had multiple two-year, greater than two-year events over the past year. Can we increase or ask them to increase the rate of all rates? That will actually help some of the small water during construction. Or would they volunteer to do that?

Yeah, we'll design all our temporary erosion and sediment controls to the 25-year score. That's what we typically look at. Especially as we're in field development, we'll want to make good favors for the drainage concerns. What about the permanent? Permanent, we go to the 100. I think y'all are there or about to be there. But we are there.

Yeah, you're there on the 100. and the storm pipes can handle 25-meter events. That's a good question.

Right now they're in the low 2000s up to 3000 square feet roughly. We have right around

8% of what we call improved open space, so that's walking trails, playgrounds, pickleball courts, a second playground, fire pits.

The reason I ask that, I've been in Mt. Juliet for about 39 years. I've lived in the village in there since 1993, but the reason I moved Mt.

Juliet into this area is because of the green space.

Mt. Juliet has grown tremendously. I've been to one station and Hickory Hill is also in the same green space with trees that were left. It seems that some of the engines today are not taking in and attacking any green space. I'm not sure why. It's just basically the design of the home isn't going to work. But we basically slide down every tree and put houses. I know that's the way it is, but everything's changed in this area. And every subdivision we've put in over the last few years is the same way we basically rigged up and then built homes and then, I guess, planted trees and subdivisions. That's a concern I have.

I would agree.

and go ahead sir you have the next question um how far the house is going to be apart i have two questions how far the house is going to be apart like especially like you've got your back row here and then your front row i mean how how condensed are these houses going to be because i can imagine 55 acres and 135 houses so it's like they're going to be small lots

That's a great question. In the previous version that we had, not too dissimilar from this one, all the home sites that... are going through this main thoroughfare here were 80 feet wide to accommodate side entry home sites to give a little bit more separation, different curb appeal, and streetscape appearance so you drive through the community. And the secondary street lots, these are 60 feet wide. I believe we're at a seven and a half foot setback. It's 15 feet minimum between each of the home sites. And the home sites vary from 40 feet wide down to 35 feet wide to give a little bit of extra space between the homes.

Also, when they started blasting, the top neighborhood, I'm sorry, I don't know the names of them, and came breaking. A third of my house is underground. Every time I've reached out to these people, they always said that, you know, my house is too far away, there's no way. The blasting shook the, you know, what out of my house. And I had nail pops everywhere and I'm not fixing them until, you know, all this blasting stops. How much blasting do y'all have to do out here?

That will be determined as we get further into this design and understand where the road networks are going to be. A lot of the discussion points we have here change where some of these roads are going, which ultimately we're working with the topography that's on the site, which really dictates how much blasting is necessary to build a home site.

Shouldn't that be part of... I feel like that should have been the first decision for our county or our city before we started going through this. We're going to wreck all of our houses. My house is 100 yards from us. Also, there's a drainage ditch right by my house. that goes into a hole. I haven't been back there, but when the last big rain, it came all the way up and halfway to my house. When y'all start blasting, I guarantee you, wherever that water's going, because it's not a, it's a man-made hole. Wherever that water's going, it's going to get blocked. It's going to fire. It's going to tear it up, and what's going to How are we all going to guarantee, even in the city, that that doesn't back up in my house? Even though, granted, it's going to take like what we had back in 2010, because I'm on the slope. But still.

I'll hit the blasting. The city of Manitoba has no control over the blasting at all. It's the state fire marshal. The board actually tried implementing stricter blasting standards.

cease and desist from or cease from doing that because the city would have been sued and and we understand that's the first issue so so so just to kind of go there i mean because many residents and we sent out all the notifications because the state fire marshal uh what he does is that he takes the complaint it's a it's a document that he has to go investigate all the blasting first of all it has to be done by like monitoring by a third party entity it's not even these folks Let's just say the developers, the ones that are going to construction, it's a third-party entity. So just to help you out with that one. So again, after this, sir, I'd love to get your address so we can be able to talk about those other runoff issues. To go back to the first question that you had, I think it's important to actually bring in here. And I was actually going to be talking about this because we're actually 15 minutes over for these guys to head on out. I'm going to roll into it real quick. The current density that Willoughby and Hickory Hills is today, this would not even be considered a medium density. Your communities would not even be medium density. It would be high density currently. When you look at this development right here – with the city changing all of our guidelines, making it more stringent, right? Because we want to slow down that growth. We want to try and enforce better products, right? So in order for that, myself and the other commissioners and the mayor, we start enforcing additional things to make it, I don't want to say difficult, but be able to provide a better product back to the end user, whether that's your neighbor that is the existing homeowner or the brand new homeowner that just had their house built, right? So to put it in perspective, right now low density, which is an RS-40, that is 1.1 units per acre, okay? If we go down to the RS-20, that's medium density and that's 2.2. Now this development right here, most of their homes that they're talking about, and I'm not speaking for you gentlemen, but please correct me if I'm wrong, Most of your lot sizes do or meet the majority of those as that 2.2 per acre, except for, I think it was just speaking with you, sir, I think it was like 13 to 15 have moved over to that RS-10, which is high density, which is why we have to post that newsletter, because it is high density, because of that smaller lot sizes, which is 3.8 units per acre. Now, to go back to that high density, your lots in Willoughby Station barely meet those, I mean, are in those guidelines for high density today. And same thing for ours, too, in Willoughby Station, I mean, I'm sorry, in Hickory Hills. So, but most of it, if they were to eliminate those few lots that are high density, they would be in medium density right now, which are larger lots for those homes, which then spread out the actual homes, so you're not right next to your neighbor. Did I say that correctly, gentlemen? Yeah. Okay. Just wanted to make sure that everybody understood that because – and also to throw this in here just to kind of hopefully start showing off some positives here because all of the questions that I want the residents tonight to talk about here. Obviously stormwater. We've seen it with other communities with Cambridge, also with Phase 4. Phase 4, every time there's an issue for the residents of Hickory Hills and Willoughby Station, I send out notifications immediately. I'm out there driving the roads, taking pictures, sending them back to staff. Staff is then reaching out to developers, getting out there, the street sweepers, cleaning up the mess that night and even that next morning, they were being forced to come out there. There's been many times that we've actually shut down the projects So many times that the attorneys were actually holding us and saying, hey, you're kind of nitpicking now. No, we're holding them accountable because we had so many failures of the curtains and so forth. Now, Cambridge, nothing against the county, but again, it's in the county. There's such a lot larger land out there, and there's not as stringent when it comes to some of these issues. So these projects, yes, they're going to be – Double the size, you know, I think right now there's two options. If this was to be moated down with the city, it will go to the county, this developer and landowner could potentially sell it off to Cambridge and be, you know, phase five. That's an option that I heard. Not saying it's going to, but that was as an option. The second option, which was that they would just go to the county, plug into Metro Sewer, and they're gonna build, and they're gonna see if the next 27 commissioners will somehow agree to similar lot sizes and move on with it. The third option is if the citizens of my district We'll either support this or shoot it down. Listen, I'm here to represent you. So I'm going to ask every homeowner that has provided me emails tonight and the last couple weeks, I'm going to send out a survey. Just like tonight, like what we asked for Friday night or Monday night. I want to hear your voice because just like this nice lady right here says, it's going to come with or without us. But if it's in the city, we can control the stormwater, the runoff. the safety, the properties, the end user, the interconnection, and most importantly, making sure that it is a good product. Because when you're building in the city, correct me if I'm wrong, gentlemen, does the city hold higher standards when it comes to the product versus the county? So we require more brick, more stone, and of course, just the storm water and the curbs, everything. It's a more stringent, is that correct? That's correct. Okay. Cost you guys more money? Yes. Now, I'm not for this project. I'm just going to tell you right now. I actually plan on voting it down. But I also want to make sure that I don't vote it down just because of Bill Tremblay. I want to vote it down or vote for it because of you, every one of you. And I'm going to go with the majority of everybody that's taking their time to get involved in this. I want to make sure that I go that route. So after this is all over, if it passes because you want it to pass, it will pass. If you want it to fail, go on to the county and leave it up to the next set of commissioners in the county to develop this and run with it, then that's something I'll vote for too. The reason why, real quick, sir, if you don't mind, the reason why that I gave out the papers for the folks that were here at the beginning, for anybody that came in a little late, there's actually, there's email, like little strips back there, of every one of our commissioners, okay, and our mayor. Sunshine Law says that I cannot call my mayor up and I cannot call my other commissioners up in my district and say, hey guys, I'm not supporting this. I need you to shoot it down. Sunshine Law does not allow that. But every one of you, and I'll be sending out to all the other emails that have shared their contact information with me, those are the folks that I want every one of you to express on how this is. Whether if you support it or else you don't. That's how we... Come together as a community to help push the other commissioners to say, you know what? This is not supportive in this district. I don't live there as a commissioner. Let's just say Art Giles, Scott Heffner, or Jennifer Mullaly. Every one of you will reach out to them, I hope. I gave you all their contact information. Express to them before August 10th your frustration or your concerns. Whether you support it because the city's going to have more control over it or else you don't support it and you want to let the county take over. So I hope everybody understands the pros and cons, but at the end of the day, I'm here to represent you. I'm your eyes and ears. I think I've held a lot of these contractors, not just phase four, but we're talking about all the other projects throughout the city. I really do represent you, sir. So I'm here to make sure that whatever it is that the end count here wants, that's what I want to make sure that we hit the majority rules. Is that fair, sir? All right.

Go ahead, sir. In the last public forum that we had had, it was revealed there was a second cemetery site. Do these three updates account for the cemetery site? Is that wrong?

Yeah, so the second, I guess, where it was proposed there may be a cemetery site, you know, we will do an archeological study up on the upper left-hand corner, which all that area is currently preserved open space. Okay. Very limited disturbance other than a frisbee golf course that would be mowing in, you know, providing little holes throughout there. But that would be a part of our second layer of studies, and we know that design is set and examining and making sure we don't have anything of importance there that we need to work around.

Okay, so all three versions account for that? Yes. Correct. This area really stays preserved in all three.

Okay. What's the total green space for this entire project? Is it right at close to 20% or? Right over 20. Okay. Just for the nice lady that was saying in the back there. So 20% of green space, whether that's going to be 10% or 8% you said of? Improved. Of improved green space and the other 12% will be left natural vegetation? Yeah. Okay. Go ahead, sir. I apologize, Tom.

So I think pretty much without exception, all of us want a railroad crossing. What can we as residents do to try to make that happen? And if we're living in the real world, what are the chances of that actually happening?

Great question. So our Senator Potey, he has some really good contacts. I've been working with him. I will say this. Once I get everybody's contacts tonight, I will send out a blast of the continued conversations with our senator, our county mayor. as well as our county commissioner and also our state representative. So that way, once you have those emails, the same situation, I would love to have that same type of support when it comes over to pushing those concerns. Please do one favor for me, okay? When we send emails, don't make them personal. Seriously, okay? Because when we're talking about representatives, okay, when we're talking about safety, Make sure it's a communication about the EU safety, first responders. Listen, I've got kids too, rides, bikes out there on the streets since I've lived here the last 13 years. I'm the biggest one about safety. I talk about it all the time, okay? But at the end of the day, when we're sending the emails to the railroad, we're sending them to our state representative, To let them know that we got Johnny out here on the sidewalk, it's not going to push the needle. Push the needle with facts. Push the needle about, hey, right now we've got over 2,180 homes in this area. Okay, that's fact. Second thing is, is that we only have two entrances and we've already had two tornadoes in our community over the last 13 years. That have shut down, by the way, the entrance over there in Willoughby Station. Shut it down. Okay, so that's fact number two. Fact three is the fact that right now it's the fact that even though we got all this improvement that's happening, it's still delayed. It's 100%. That's real data. Okay, so please don't make this personal. Make it facts. Make sure that you send the email. Put your name and address in it. You don't have to put your phone number, but I will say this. If you get your phone number in there, you're likely going to get a phone call. So make sure that you put that information in there, whether that phone call is from me or your state representative or your state senator. Because Mark Potey will reach out to you if you leave that type of information. He wants to hear from you. Okay? Any other questions? Because I see a couple of hands that went up and down. I apologize. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. So at the beginning of the meeting, I actually passed out a couple sheets. So for the folks that have them still in front of them, please go ahead. Put them on the desk back there. I will take all those. If you do not want to be part of the email distribution list... Put a little star that says, do not want to be part of the email distribution list. If not, I will default to go ahead and add you on there, okay? Ma'am, you had your hand raised back there in the back? Oh, I'm sorry. Okay, just want to make sure. Peter, can I go with her first? I mean, him first. I'm sorry. Go ahead, sir. No, no. I thought she had her hand up too.

Yes, sir.

We're going to be sending – once this group and the city works together on the best application, I will send out the final so that way we can all agree and disagree on it. Is that fair? Okay. Sorry. And then go ahead and go through the slides, gentlemen. And thank you guys for sitting around a little longer to make sure we get through all this.

So again, option one – Major changes from what was presented at Land Commission was pulling back the future stub roads that could connect if the adjacent land gets developed. All three options show those pulled back and permanent cul-de-sacs that would not have interconnection. Includes a roundabout in the center, slow traffic, and traffic calming measures at both entrances east and west, Portsmouth and Port Kimball. Option two, similar note, down low, terminating these stub roads, and then showing two connections at Portsmouth and Port Kimbla, and removing the connection north. It's also creating some, not a straight cut-through that people can run a stop sign, anything of that matter. And option three, this is trading the interconnecting roads, terminating the connection at Fort Pembla, keeping Portsmouth Drive and Wiltshire Road north as our primary connections. And again, that would be a four-way stop sign there.

So just real quick, because these slides were just shared with the city staff today, is that correct, some of the changes? So staff hasn't fully gone through them to give the green light, even if they meet up to all the full recommendations, but they will at least make some possible changes, some tweaks, is that correct? Is that, okay. Okay, so I just want to make sure that before, so I ask every resident here, if you don't mind, before you go putting this out on social media and create any confusion, Please, let's go ahead and let's give the next, until Tuesday, if that's okay, Wednesday, let's go ahead and let them work with staff Monday and Tuesday, and then we can go ahead. I will get a final screenshot so it's a clean. Everybody can be able to get it. It's on your phone, whatever you're trying to post it out there. I'll get that sent out to everybody that has provided me your email, whether tonight or two weeks ago. I'll be sure to send that out to everyone. You'll all be able to see it, and it'll be a clean shot. Is that fair? Okay. Thank you. Is there anything else? Okay, go ahead, Peter.

On the railroad crossing. Yes, sir. My understanding is that railroad crossings at their source are regulated federally, not at the state level. Have you talked to anybody on the... Representative Rose, these are our senators.

Yeah, so everything that we are going – yeah, everything right now. So TDOT is where I'm actually working with, with some of those discussions. And then Senator Potey is who I'm actually working through. So he's driving some of those conversations further up or however he's working it. And then I'm also working between him and TDOT. And then, of course, we're also still trying to get that meeting with – Now, just for the folks that may not know this, our city manager is actually on that board for the railroad. So it's not the fact that we've got a little bit of extra pull, but it's just the fact that we have that ability that he can be an advocate for us as well. So our city manager is there supporting us also.

Just one more question for the gentleman here. if there was the ability to cross and connect to division across the river, where would that be, or where would your expectation be that that might land? Grain-wise in separation?

I mean, just generally on that.

Honestly, at the potential crossing in Cambridge is the most logical crossing locations.

But that's a whole other subdivision.

That's a whole other subdivision.

We're seeing what options we've got there. Even though that cane brick's there, there'll still be some partnership is what we're trying to work to. Sure.

We've evaluated, so in our case, you have parcels between the railroad track and division that are independently owned of this development. You also have a tremendous amount of floodplain on division that comes up to the railroad tracks with the hook in the creek right here. So you either... You're not going to go further east. That's fully developed. Canebrake actually set up the crossing. So the initial concept that y'all had seen, that was part of the reason why these two roads were going to continue back to the west, was the potential interconnectivity with Canebrake in the chance that they got the crossing.

So in other words, it wouldn't cross at this subdivision. It would actually be a cooperative effort between you all and Canebrake to do this. Correct.

For context, how much elevation change is there from the backside of those houses down to the railroad? Looking at some of the drawings, it drops off there.

It does, and what this developer has agreed to and would like to do along this stretch is come in with a third-story walkout basement on those logs, just so that it doesn't appear that they're just sitting way up in the air. So give it a better view shed from an invasion street looking at it.

Go ahead.

I just want to say, I did actually talk to federal DOT about what the path would look like to get a crossing. And they said, you need to talk to the state. So I talked to the state. And they said, you need to talk to NERA. So they all funnel you back down to this localized level. They let them control it.

Which is why we are, you know, That's why I have no problem sending this back out for all the communication for you guys to be able to make sure that we send those emails. Okay? And thank you for sharing that, by the way, because that's exactly what I ran into when I first started going through this. You know, I thought I stopped with R.J. Corman. And then when I actually went through R.J. Corman, I'm like, wait a minute, I'm so ticked off that they just take people's money and they don't even let you have a hearing. So I was probably more pissed off than these guys were because it just took their money. I'm like, wait a minute here. They didn't even hear the problem. So that's when I started going to our state representative, our state senator, and then, of course, our mayor, you know, our county mayor as well. Yes. Okay. Yep. So go ahead.

And with him being on the board, is he able to provide an insight as to why they just shut it down?

They say safety. That's it. Safety. Was that the reason? They're lazy. That's it.

They don't want to deal with the problem.

Pretty much. Pretty much. So the purpose is if I try to do that, do they expand on what safety means? Yeah, sure.

It's just people bypassing the actual arms when the arms are down.

Safety on their property. Safety on their property. Thank you.

I'm sorry, ma'am.

I'm sorry.

Yes, ma'am. That is true. Well, and that's what they're, you know, I guess some of the improvements that the railroad is having to do, and that's the partnership with the city, because the city actually is paying for a lot of these improvements to make sure that our citizens do not bypass those arms when they are down. So, yes, ma'am. Yep. Go ahead, sir.

So it just so happened that for some odd reason we went to the lotto to get the railroad crossing and we got stuck in Cane Break or whatever it's called out there. Would that still mean that the connectors would be on Portsmouth, Wiltshire, whatever it is, and Horkimba? Or will it just be the entrance going into Cane Break?

And these versions, this is not shown on a future connectivity. Now it's trying to accommodate kind of the last concerns and incorporate that into planning. It's slow.

But if it does happen, would that mean you still connect in the neighborhood this way? Yes.

We would still need to connect at this time to meet the city council.

All right, so folks, it is Friday night. I want to be respectful of everybody's time. Thank you, first of all, as your commissioner. Thank you for participating in. What's going on in your community and thank you for our County Commissioner for being here tonight, sir This may run in your problem. So I want to make sure that you're here. Thank you for being here Because it's important to every one of us. We all live there, right? So folks if you don't mind, please make sure if you got the papers If you guys could take them to the back, did you guys already take yours to the back? Okay, okay So please make sure we put them in the back so I can have them because there may have been other residents assigned in