Neighbors state complaints about Hill Place project
Posted on Sunday, April 27, 2008
Flooding and losing a sense of neighborhood are two reasons neighbors hope the Fayetteville City Council will not approve a proposed development for college student housing.
Hill Place, a proposed planned zoning district that would provide housing for college students at the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Hill Avenue will be considered by the City Council at its May 6 meeting. The student community would be managed by Place Properties, which owns and manages similar communities in college towns around the country.
"They're screwing with my place," Don Hoodenpyle of Fayetteville said.
The Hill Place proposal is for the same property that was once approved as Aspen Ridge, a project that was started but never reached a building permit or construction stage.
According to city planning documents, Hill Place will use much of the street and utility infrastructure put in for Aspen Ridge. Neighbors aid part of their problems with the development is the flooding caused by that infrastructure.
In a letter read to the Fayetteville Planning Commission on April 14, Vicki M. Norvell, whose home backs up to Hill Place, wrote," When massive amounts of red dirt are brought in to fill in an area of the 100-year flood plain in order to raise it above flood plain level, as was the case here, the water that once flowed through that area is then forced to go somewhere else."
That somewhere is the backyards and basements of people living downstream, Norvell indicated in her letter.
Robert Williams, another neighbor to the project, said there used to be a "threeway creek"on the property that joined, then flowed into Town Branch Creek.
"Now it's buried. It will resurface; I can guarantee it," Williams said, his arms pointing to the roadways and fill dirt that cover the area.
Williams said he probably wouldn't object to the project if what had been done already hadn't started backing water up on his property.
Standing water in ponds that were intended to be dry except when it rained also convinced him that there are more problems ahead.
Williams said three of the four ponds are on springs.
"Only one of them has even been close to being dry," he said, adding that the one behind his house has so much standing water in it already that it can only take about eight inches before it floods.
"Now they're telling us, ' Don't worry about those in-out ponds. It's our new methods that will save the people downstream, '"Williams said.
He's not convinced. Adding parking, roofs and sidewalks to the impervious surface will mean more runoff, he said.
"I think they're making a sincere effort. I think they honestly believe what they say, but they're incorrect in the final analysis. We don't get do-overs. Once this is built, it's built," he said.
Ron Petrie, city engineer, said developers will have to show that peak flows before and after construction will remain the same.
"They're going to have to redo many of the original retention ponds," he said.
Petrie said the comparison will be to the drainage that was in the area before Aspen Ridge.
"You go back to what was there before we had any development," the city engineer said.
The other big concern is the neighborhood atmosphere as a whole.
"It's going to bring a lot of kids. It's going to change the whole area down in here," Hoodenpyle said.
At least with the Aspen Ridge townhouses, plan there would have been neighbors one could get acquainted with, Williams said. "With this always being a single family, now we're told, ' No. Sorry. That (Aspen Ridge ) didn't work. Wish it would have. ' But this has come along, and we should embrace it with open arms and welcome thousands of college students that will change every year," Williams said. As proposed, the property would have 17 three-story buildings - one of them a community building - and a pool. The 16 apartment buildings would have 288 units with 840 bedrooms for what is described as a student community.
Place Proper ties, the owner, would lease by the bedroom not by the apartment unit, Jeremy Pate, director of current planning for Fayetteville, said. Attempts to reach representatives of Place Properties were unsuccessful.
"Does anyone believe that the noise level and traffic level will not increase ? "Williams asked.
He is concerned that allowing the student housing will "open the floodgates"to apartments throughout the area so that in a few years it will look like the north side of the University of Arkansas where block after block of what used to be single family homes are now apartment buildings.
"I know this is going to revitalize south Fayetteville, but in all honesty, I don't know what was wrong with south Fayetteville to begin with," Williams, a South Fayetteville resident himself, said.
"They're going to do what they want to do over there, whether we like it or not," Hoodenpyle said. "We'll just have to wait and see if they're honorable or if they're not honorable."
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