Many times when a subdivision approved by the Williamson County Planning Commission raises public ire, traffic sits atop the list of complaints.
It was no different on Thursday night, when Williamson County planners passed a concept plan for a large subdivision plan off Tulloss Road named Daventry.
By a unanimous vote, the concept plan for Daventry, a 131.91 acre property divided into 80 lots, moved on to the next stage in the planning process, in which a developer will put together a preliminary plat plan based on recommendations by the planning department. Jamie Reed, of Site Engineering Consultants, Inc, attended the meeting to represent the project and is Daventry’s designer and engineering firm.
The Tulloss Road project, which averages 0.61 units per acre with 61 percent open space and will add 80 homes to an area already surrounded by planned and completed subdivision, raised concerns from nearby residents, traffic and road safety chief among them. According to Ralph Mabry, a local resident who used to own some of the land now in the Daventry property and who lives across the street from it, said the original plan included 90 homes in it but the developer agreed to lower the number before presenting the concept plan.
Two County Commissioners came to the meeting to speak on behalf of the more than 200 nearby residents who have attended multiple community meetings organized in part by Mabry and Kathy Webber, another local resident, as Planning Commission meetings remain closed to public comment.
Commissioner Greg Lawrence, of the 4th Voting District, spoke first, listing some concerns of residents.
“The fourth district will be affected by this subdivision, and we have several residents of the community who have asked me to bring up some of the things they would like to hear discussion on,” he said. “Construction traffic. Where is it going to go, will it be dumped out on Tulloss Road? The concern being that Tulloss is already getting a lot of traffic on it, and we are adding traffic to an already congested road.”
“Not related to this directly but increased traffic in the area will affect this- there is a big problem at Green Hills and Clovercroft Road,” he said. “This is where the Worthington subdivision comes off Clovercroft. There are blind turns from both directions there, and you have about a four second reaction time. Getting out of there in the mornings is extremely difficult. We would like to request that a study be done- There needs to be a light there at Green Hills and Clovercroft Road to be able to get out safely at Worthington subdivision.
Commissioner Lewis Green, Jr. also spoke.
“Unless you have lived it, you don’t know how bad it is,” he said. “I sometimes take the Tulloss Road cut through to get to Clovercroft. When you get to the end of Tulloss Road and Clovercroft, you sit there too long. It is a very dangerous and pretty much a blind turn. I have done it and chickened out and turned right and taken a u-turn. I reduced the speed limit on Clovercroft east for half-a-mile. I know this is not the scope of the developer, but this is something that needs to be addressed. The traffic on that road, with construction traffic, is going to be a serious situation.”
The Planning Commission chairman John Lackey said that it is an issue that the Highway Commission will have to address.
The conversation amongst the planners on the approval of Daventry veered into a more general discussion of traffic, and the approval of subdivisions. The planners in past years and months approved several other subdivisions, such as Worthington, Clovercroft Preserve, Belle Chase, Silver Stream Farm, Falls Grove and others, nearby that will affect traffic on Tulloss Road and others nearby.
“I think we are looking too lightly at road safety on subdivisions like this that lay on cut-through type roads,” said Planning Commission member Pete Mosley. He also expressed concern about the lack of a turn lane into the Tulloss development.
“I am getting more and more concerned by some of these traffic studies. I would think at a minimum they would need a turning lane at least in the middle of the road, into the subdivision. I would like to see them on just about every subdivision. If there is a lot of traffic, and there is getting to be a lot of traffic on Tulloss Road, that could cause a back up.” Jack Walton, Planning Commission member, said.
The current zoning ordinance requires an analysis of the traffic, and whether or not a turn lane is required. The planning department had the Highway Department, and Commission, check the study of the developer, and concurred with its conclusion.
For the planning commission to have the power to require a plan include a turn lane after a traffic study says that the developer does not need to build one, the current ordinance needs to be changed, said Mike Matteson, planning director.
“I agree with everything, I would just like to see that looked at,” said Walton. “It seems like every one of these subdivisions coming in has a traffic study that says they don’t need a turning lane.”
The Planning Department’s report on the concept plan said that developer’s traffic-shed analysis indicated that the proposed number of lots is within acceptable limits given the capacity of existing roadways. A turn warrant study also indicated that a turn-lane into the development is unnecessary.
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