by Zachary Harmuth
Brentwood, in the middle of updating its overall plan for the future, held a public meeting Thursday night that will hopefully end up being looked at as a brush-stroke in a beautiful painting.
The meeting at Brentwood Public Library from 6-9 p.m. had several purposes. Such as informing the public of problems with traffic, needs and future expectations, and what the city sees as solutions. But, according to Brentwood’s 2020 Plan Web site, hearing residents’ “preferences for transportation improvements” was the most important point of the meeting .
Planning firms MIG and RPM Traffic Consultant are helping the city plan its Main Thoroughfare Plan, and they helped run the meeting on Thursday, which specifically dealt with the city’s evolving plan to deal with traffic and roads in the future.
Brentwood and its 2020 Plan consultants hold these meetings (the last one was in January, the next likely sometime in August) to engage with residents, show them our ideas, and hear their ideas, concerns and comments, according to Jeff Hammond, a project engineer for RPM.
And in structure the event was less meeting and more science fair in its set up, with several tables around the room erupting with maps of the city, plans and blank spots for citizens to write in their responses. Meanwhile city officials gathered in small groups with residents to have seemingly substantive conversations.
Residents learned that the city was focused on improving the areas where traffic is worst such, as Concord Road, the 65 on-off ramps, and Maryland Farms and Old Hickory. The city made clear it has limitations in funds and authority to fix all transportation problems, and that lack of land and I-65 being smack dab in the middle of the city does not help traffic—and there is not much to do about it those obstacles.
What the city can do is manage how it builds and improves roads in the future, and mitigate as much as possible the traffic increases as future projects—such as the upcoming Harley-Davidson dealership off Mallory and whatever happens with H.G. Hill’s large plot on Maryland Way and Franklin Road.
As for the larger problems, citizens suggested building additional on/off ramps to I-65. This is a quick, simple solution in theory but in practice, bureaucratically and politically, would be anything but.
But the city’s openness and unwillingness to make impossible promises and willingness to temper expectations seems a relief. Government treating its citizens like adults and equal partners, these days, seems borderline radical.
After all this is a part of a huge project.
“How we build will have an enormous impact on movement throughout the city”, said Hammond. “Williamson County is set to grow more than any other part of Tennessee in the next 40 years.”
So giving the public a chance to engage in the process seems only fair, and this is not the last or first public meeting, though the next is as yet unscheduled (go to Brentwood 2020 for updates and information).
Like the surveys recently returned to the city in March, it is a step in the process of updating Brentwood’s 2020 plan.
The surveys were returned at a rate of 31 percent, and part of their point was to find out how Brentwood residents felt about development projects going into the future, and a variety of issues surrounding development, such as traffic. Public meetings, also, help the city planners hear from vocal minorities, pluralities and , hopefully, part of the 69 percent of residents who did not respond to surveys.
On the other hand, the public meetings allow the consulting group that is handling the updating of Brentwood 2020 Plan, or the city to interact with residents and inform them of the city’s plans, informed by the surveys and comments at the meetings.
The idea here, of course, is to find a balanced way of going forward. Most of Brentwood is developed already, and more than 90 percent of it is residential or park space. It makes sense for the city to want to allow businesses to make up a good chunk of the remaining area, or fill in vacant areas.
This is seen with the aforementioned Harley-Davidson dealership, and developers like H.G. Hill buying big chunks of land in the middle of Brentwood.
New businesses bring in more tax revenue, which allows the city to spend more money on ensuring Brentwood stays the quiet, safe place to live that it is. However, a definite voice has sounded in the community, led by groups like Preserve Brentwood, warning that the same development could threaten the very qualities the city hopes it will preserve.
The idea behind all of this is to give residents a voice, or at least the feeling of having a voice. Development is coming to Brentwood, despite vocal cries against it- or at least against how it is happening- which were quite audible at the City Commission meeting on Monday.
However the city cannot know if that is a majority opinion or a loud minority, and the lower-than-expected return rate on surveys did not help- though they will provide a more comprehensive picture- but those results remain unknown as the city did not release them in full.
With development comes traffic. The city has an interest in managing it as best as possible, but also managing the angst that the idea of increased traffic in an area it already takes up to an hour to get on or off the interstate during busy times. So how much the planners take from the public in these meetings is unknown and will stay that way most likely. Hopefully these meetings turn out to be more than just a government safety valve to quell concerns amongst its constituents while it does something they do not necessarily feel they want or need.
