The Fayette Citizen-News Page
Wednesday, December 23, 1998
Planners seek compromise for100-home, 20-acre project

By DAVE HAMRICK
Staff Writer

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Representatives of Bob Adams Homes Inc. are meeting this month with residents of Beauregard Boulevard in hopes of finding compromise on the future of 20 acres at Beauregard and Grady Avenue.

The company's plan to put 100 "empty nester" homes on the site, a density of five homes per acre, brought strong opposition during a city Planning Commission meeting last week.

"I know farmers who don't plant their cabbage as close as this," said Dan Wilkey, one of several neighbors who said the Bob Adams plan is simply too dense.

"When I saw this, I thought I was looking at an aerial view of Manhattan," quipped Ferrol Sams, who owns 30 acres nearby.

Colin Roetman, representing Bob Adams Homes, said the company's senior communities are dense by definition, because the 50-something buyers of Adams homes don't want big yards to maintain.

A conceptual plan for the site shows a lake at the southern end of the property, and several acres of green space with the 100 homes arranged in the remaining acreage.

Currently zoned R-30, for single family homes on 30,000-sq. ft. lots (almost an acre), the property is on the west side of Beauregard, across from the new Kroger shopping center, under construction. Adams is asking for RTHC zoning, which allows townhouses and condominiums, and hopes to buy the land from its current owners, Charles and Mary Alice Odom. There is no single family zoning that would allow the sought-for density.

Roetman argued that, although dense, the proposed subdivision would have less impact on roads and other infrastructure than if the property were developed under the city's land use plan, which calls for medium-density residential use for that area. Using R-22 (single family, 22,000-sq. ft. lots) as a comparison, the company did a traffic study showing that the senior community actually would put fewer cars on the roads during rush hour than the hypothetical R-22 neighborhood would.

About 34 homes would be allowed under R-22 zoning.

Seniors, Roetman said, traditionally don't go out at rush hour. "They know better," he said. And they don't have children to add to overcrowding in local schools, he added.

Also, no open space is required for a subdivision zoned R-22, said Roetman. Under RTHC, the company must provide 700 square feet per home, plus planted buffers, also not required under R-22, he said.

"All of these things show, in my opinion, an advantage of this type subdivision rather than a problem," he said.

But residents said it's not just the number of cars that create a traffic problem, but the layout of the proposed subdivision. Cars would exit the subdivision too close to the intersection of Beauregard and Ramah Road, said Randolph Wiley, who lives across Beauregard from the property. "At the very least, you're going to have to look at significant traffic improvements," he said.

Planning Commission members wanted to know how Bob Adams Homes could guarantee that young families with children wouldn't move into the subdivision, but Roetman said the sizes of the homes and the lots makes them unattractive to families. In a dozen years of building similar communities, he said, only two families with school-age children have moved in.

Commissioners tabled the rezoning request until their January meeting, to give Roetman and neighbors time to reach a compromise. The group will discuss the rezoning request Jan. 12 with plans to act on it Jan. 26.

Regardless of those discussions, commission members said the proposal will have to be scaled down in order to meet city requirements. For instance, the company included the lake in its calculation of green space, which wouldn't be allowed, they said.


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