The Brown County Area Plan Commission isn’t going to vote until late June on a proposal to build a new subdivision in Nashville.
The proposal by county residents Steve Miller and Scott Mills was announced in a Brown County Democrat story in March. It was supposed to go before the APC for an initial approval that month, but COVID-19 delayed the meeting.
Mills and Miller had planned to create a 15-lot neighborhood, Tuckaway Woods, on the 11.19 wooded acres they own between the Coffey Hill and Tuck A Way subdivisions. Lot sizes would range from 0.28 to 1 acre. They’d be situated around a new, 1.5-acre lake that would be built in the ravine on the property.
Residents would get to the new neighborhood using Woods Lane, a road off Tuck A Way Ridge that was cleared like a fire trail but never built, and a couple new offshoots that would be built from Woods Lane near the new lake.
The proposal went before the APC last week in a meeting that was conducted virtually over Zoom. Most people on the call were board members or plan commission staff, but three neighbors had sent in written comments beforehand.
Board members asked questions about the width of the roads in the new neighborhood. They’re proposed at 16 feet, which is what Miller said is the width of roads in that area already. He said they wanted to keep the new roads looking like the rest of the neighborhood and not take out any more trees than they had to. The three neighbors to the proposed subdivision all mentioned concerns about road width and traffic in their letters to the board, saying that the existing roads aren’t wide enough to allow two cars to pass.
Miller also brought up a possible change to the documents — adding another lot, for a total of 16 possible building sites in the new neighborhood.
Board members decided that this was a significant enough change that the approval process should start from the beginning again; a Town of Nashville technical review committee had already given an initial OK to utility-related aspects of the plan based on 15 lots in March, said Planning Director Chris Ritzmann.
The board voted unanimously to table further votes on this topic until the June meeting.
The day after the meeting, Mills emailed The Democrat to say that because the request to change to 16 lots “presented a legal issue of proper notification,” he and Miller were now planning to stick with their original plan for 15 lots. “In reality, once we start clearing, it may be that only 14 lots works the best, but we thought it prudent to show and get approval for a maximum potential number,” he explained.
In addition to road widths, the three neighbors to the proposed new neighborhood mentioned concerns about increased and possibly faster traffic because of this development, noise, lack of sidewalks on the streets now for people to use for bike riding and walking, alteration of their wooded views, and the fact that the May meeting wasn’t going to happen face to face so they could easily voice their concerns. All those neighbors live in Tuck A Way.
If the proposal meets the criteria in the town’s ordinance for a major subdivision, the APC is obligated to approve it, said commission attorney David Schilling.
The June 23 meeting, at which this proposal will now be heard, will not be the only one at which the developers will need an approval. The APC also will take a second, later look at the plans for roads, drainage, erosion control, waste disposal and protective covenants. The Nashville Town Council also will have a say.
Miller said they hope to start building part of the project yet this year if possible.
