Residents oppose access to South Fox Den Drive
“I’m opposed to having a connection to South Fox Den,” said John Underwood, a Fox Den Homeowners Association representative.
“We don’t want our property with that development,” Keli Wise added.
“There are other opportunities,” Sean Sanderson said.
For almost an hour, residents argued — many talking over one another — about the proposed connection to South Fox Den Drive. Some contended the connection would bring additional traffic into their subdivision while others said it would devalue their properties.
Ultimately, Community Development director Mark Shipley said, “It’s obvious you all are not going to agree.”
Nevertheless, he said the developers still have work to do and are not ready to submit a proposal to FMPC at its Thursday, Sept. 17, meeting.
The proposed townhome development would be at 12143 Kingston Pike, beside Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Developer Saddlebrook Properties is looking to build 40 townhomes on 8.68 acres zoned Attached Single-Family Residential (R-4).
“It was rezoned in the late ’90s to R-4,” Shipley said. “There’s a platted access easement here [next to Enterprise Rent-A-Car to the east of the property].”
Russ Rackley, engineer for the development, said the developers are planning to have the access easement, which is shared with Enterprise, classified as a local street.
“I think the solution here is we just improve that access 24 feet to meet the 26-foot standard,” Rackley said.
Shipley said the developers also are proposing a connection to South Fox Den Drive.
“I had a pretty long conversation with the Town attorney about the access for this project, and his reading — I agree with him over the R-4 district — it does require a direct
connection for an R-4 development to a non-local street,” Shipley said. “Or, it could connect to a local street, but that street has to not be interior to a subdivision.
“A secondary access can be used, like where they’re showing it, with the access easement, but the access easement itself is not a direct connection to Kingston Pike,” he said. “So, to meet the current R-4 language, they would have to have a direct connection to Kingston Pike. That’s the Town attorney’s opinion on that.
“That is a very important provision,” Shipley added.
“Why couldn’t they just put an access onto Kingston Pike?” a resident asked.
Rackley, owner of Rackley Engineering, said the development couldn’t connect directly to Kingston Pike because of the grade between the property and the highway.
“That property is 10 feet higher [than Kingston Pike],” he said. “You’ve seen the big bank with the trees, and with the slope of the property going up from there … you would never come out of the ground.”
The proposal also includes two detention basins, one on each side of the development, a retaining wall and a “pretty robust landscape plan,” Rackley said.
Also, “the R-4 zone requires a 25-foot-wide buffer strip along the periphery,” Shipley said.
