Summit project on Rochier Heights, aka Rochier Hill, is a classic violation of the intent of the Hillside ordinance

Please click on images of The Summit project plan as submitted to the Fayetteville Planning Department in October 2008. Some pages shown include the lines representing the steep grade. Why would anything be allowed on this steep hill, which only a couple of years ago was fully vegetated and almost totally canopied by trees?




Watching a recent subdivision committee (of the Fayetteville Planning Commission) again Monday night, I couldn't believe the committee even discussed The Summit (R-PZD 08-3116) Rose and Paris Avenue (west of Aspen Ridge/Hill Place and planned by the same people for the same owners).
The five-year limit on removal of a high percentage of the trees from the east and southeast slopes has not yet run. The hillside part of the development is immediately above the railroad and the railroad is barely hanging onto the hillside itself, what with the massive erosion created on its southeast side by the Aspen Ridge developers, whose contractors removed the trees right up to the railroad right of way and even onto the RR right of way in some areas, it appears.
The Town Branch Neighborhood Association objected to this project more than a year ago and here it is back again.
Gotta go look at it and get a feel for it to understand. Walk the slope, see the gaps in what was a solid, thick tree canopy three years ago and tell Appian Center to bring back a project that doesn't go off the level land even by a linear foot!
Who owns this property now?
The tree canopy on the slope has already been reduced radically, increasing the soil erosion significantly. One has only to look at the erosion from the almost flat Hill Place/nee Aspen Ridge site to imagine how much worse it will be if the slopes of Rochier Heights should be developed.
It is just plain wrong and against all logic.
The old-timers seldom attempted to build on such slopes or in the nearby wetland. But nowadays such sites are considered only "engineering problems" for which engineers can be expected to provide solutions.
Sadly, those engineers seldom volunteer to buy land and build a home for their families (or ride a train along a track threatened by such erosion with steep springs beneath it) downhill from such sites.
The site of The Summit development has problems an engineer can't solve and that biologists and people with common sense would not even consider something to discuss.
Rochier Heights is a magnificent place with a fair amount of remaining tree canopy. But the east and southeast slopes barely have enough vegetation to prevent erosion now. Authorizing removal of (or building under the canopy of) more existing trees would be so far from what we are calling a Green Infrastructure plan or a Green Valley concept that it is patently absurd.