A Spring Hill development was shot down by the Board of Mayor and Alderman on Monday night, but no one could find any fault with the project, its design or its plans.
The plans for the project, at 732 Beechcroft Road, were approved by the Spring Hill Municipal Planning Commission in August, but the project was unanimously denied Monday night.
The 49-acre residential project was denied due to concerns over traffic on the Maury County side of the city. The plans show 273 residential units broken into 91 duplexes and 182 apartments. The developer, Clayton Associates, had requested the resolution be tabled. But the alderman decided to deal with it right away.
The vote against the project was an issue two alderman, Chad Whittenburg and Susan Zemek, said they were “passionate’ about.
“I am passionate about making sure it doesn’t pass,” Whittenburg said. “I have spoken out saying that I am against any more development on that side of Beechcroft until the bridge over the railroad tracks starts construction.”
The two-lane Beechcroft Road is getting busier as housing goes up in Spring Hill. According to Tennessee Department of Transportation data, 5,585 cars traveled down Beechcroft Road per day in 2016 at its eastern end. That was almost double what it got in 2015 or any previous year. The train tracks are located about a mile west of the road’s intersection with Main Street, with 732 west of the tracks. The eastern end of Beechcroft got half as much traffic, 2,471 trips per day, in 2016.
Plans for a bridge to bypass the train tracks are in the works in the city. The project is currently out to bid, but may not be complete until 2020 or later.
“It is nowhere in sight of being done,” Whittenburg said.
Whittenburg built his objection to any more development in that area by referencing a crash on the Maury County side of Spring Hill that happened recently. A young driver was in a crash that resulted in his car rolling.
“Emergency personnel took 47 minutes to respond,” he said.
