Virtues, vices told: residents, experts talk Virtue Road Phase 2 plans
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Melissa Stout (black top) and Theresa Reynolds point to areas on a map where they have questions for Lincoln Fugal, LDA Engineering project manager, during a July 9 meeting. - Photos by Alan Sloan
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William Lovell, left, who owns property along Virtue Road, asks questions while Jason Elliott, a civil engineer with LDA, and Emmy Castleberry, intern, listen. - Photos by Alan Sloan
Attempting to complete Phase 2 of construction on Virtue Road — which will encompass 4,912 feet and create two 11-foot lanes with curb and gutter plus a 10-foot asphalt bike/walking path and boardwalk — the Town of Farragut project will start just south of Evans Road and end at Willow Cove Way.
Engineers and other professionals from LDA Engineering, the company in charge of planning this project, met with homeowners, property owners and other residents to be affected by the construction in the main assembly room of Town Community Center Wednesday evening, July 9.
The asphalt path “changes sides at Turkey Creek and becomes a 10-foot raised boardwalk out over the water” spanning 1,190 feet, said Lincoln Fugal, LDA project manager. “Before it turns the corner, it switches briefly back over to the right-hand side as you’re going to the lake and then terminates.”
“A lot of people had safety concerns; there’s a lot of existing conditions along this roadway that are unsafe,” said Joe Martin, a certified Geographic Information Systems professional with LDA. “This plan will actually improve the safety of the roadway in several ways. It keeps the speed limit at 30 (mph). There’s some site distance issues that this project takes care of and things like that.”
About specific resident concerns, “I would say driveway access and making sure that they still have access to the creek on the other side of the road,” said Jason Elliott, an LDA civil engineer who along with Fugal, Martin and LDA civil engineer intern Emmy Castleberry manned discussion tables where they fielded resident questions. “That was one of (a) gentleman’s main concerns.
“I would say in general, people are just asking, ‘How is this project going to impact my property?’” he added. “I talked to the pastor of the Virtue Church. Fortunately, I was able to tell him that we won’t have any impact on the church property.”
Concerns, optimism
Homeowner Melissa Stout was concerned about “how much they’re going to take off from my property because we’re at (a) corner,” she said, adding her concerns are strong “just because we have such a steep grade in front of our house. My concern is the angle of the grade and how much it’s going to be taking or if it’s going to be supported with a retaining wall or anything like that.”
“There are some retaining walls in the plans,” Fugal said. “We got away from some of those by doing the boardwalk out over the water because then you don’t need to go quite as far into the hillside.
“But in most places, if we are affecting the grade in someone’s yard, what we’ll do — at least in the proposal here — is to cut the grade back and to lay that slope back at a more gentle, at three-to-one or better, slope, which should make it mowable,” he added.
One resident, who lives near Virtue Road, said about the Town, “They’re just going to go ahead and acquire the right-of-way, and then they’re going to ask permission. They have to go through TVA and the Army Corps of Engineers.
“The other issue is TVA will not allow any more dock permits on that little section of Little Turkey Creek because of the narrowness of it,” she added. “I can’t imagine they would allow a 10-foot-wide boardwalk to extend out into the water.”
Another resident on hand, however, had a different take.
“We own property on Boyd Station where they’re going to be widening the road; we’re excited about that because we feel like that increases the property value to have a nicer road through there,” she said.
“Also, they’re going to be softening that curve between Virtue and Boyd Station, which needs to be done because it really is a sharp curve,” the Boyd Station resident added.
“This gentleman over here (Fugal) used a scale to tell us exactly how many feet into our yard the road widening will come, for example. They’ve been very helpful, flipping their pages back and forth with all of our questions and taking time to answer.”
Resident Martin Knuppe, who lives near the intersection of Evans and Virtue roads, said, “Our concern is just visibility because people fly over these swells. It’s really tough to get visibility.”
However, “I think they’re proposing great improvements,” Knuppe added. “They’re basically going to level the whole thing, giving you a stop at the Turkey Cove intersection.”
