Ashcroft Valley Meets Another Hurdle in Approval Process

After 14 months of going back and forth, the Board of Mayor and Alderman never had the opportunity to vote for the Ashcroft Valley development plan on Tuesday night.

The development has been controversial for Franklin residents near the site because it is proposed to sit behind three existing subdivisions. It will not have direct access to either Arno Road or Highway 96, and concerns about traffic swirl around the plans for the subdivision.

With the zoning, the current plan with more than its 300 homes couldn’t fit into the context for approval. Site architect Greg Gamble asked that the board defer the item, expressing he wasn’t sure what the land owner would want to do.

“We would like to see the annexation and zoning move ahead,” Gamble said. “So, we will know what the zone is and then we could design a plan that fits that criteria.”

The deferred item will come back before the board Dec. 13. But Ward Two Alderman Dana McLendon said the likelihood of the board approving it in its current form couldn’t happen.

“The project is dead,” McLendon said. “We cannot be doing anything remotely related to connectivity. This item will die probably 7 to 1. You won.”

Standing against the walls and filling the seats, potential Ashcroft Valley neighbors who live in Cross Creek and other nearby subdivisions came to speak against the development Tuesday. They’ve come continually to speak out during the nine iterations of the plan.

“We were chastised for not speaking out against this,” resident Clay Young said. “One of the ladies on the Franklin Planning Municipal Commission said we were under the impression it was a sure thing it would be annexed. I am here to say it’s a hard decision. I wish it was a unanimous, but no don’t annex it. Don’t annex this.”

Broken down into four parts – plan of services, annexation, zoning and development. The board voted to approve the first three. The more than 200-acre annexation didn’t have an official zoning recommendation. Because it’s in the municipal growth district, the Ashcroft Valley property was essentially on hold until the city annexed the property.

Most in attendance Tuesday night feared the development’s approval because of the connectivity into county neighborhoods. According to Williamson County District 12 Commissioner Dana Ausbrooks, the county planning commission had approved to cul-de-sac those neighborhoods.

McLendon – who showed his disapproval of the plan throughout the vote – said he moved to create the zoning to R1, meaning one unit per acre. Alderman could have chose to zone it ER1 – one unit per one to five acre lots – or agriculturally. The property also straddled two different character areas.

“If we are going to pick zoning divorced from the development plan, then we should zone it to the character area,” McLendon said. 

Share on Facebook

Tweet