Thursday, July 16, 2009

Town Branch neighbors far from satisfied by Hill Place project with threat of more student apartments looming three blocks away by National Cemetery

I got more time to present the Town Branch neighborhood report than I deserved tonight at the meeting of the Council of Neighborhoods, but didn't begin to have time to mention all our concerns about unfinished and uncorrected elements of the Hill Place student-apartment complex, which is supposed to be complete by August 15.
Can't blame the workers. They worked from daylight to dark during the spring and summer and often worked until well past dark in winter. They worked seven days a week, probably close to or more than 12 hours daily much of the year.
While listening to a representative of the Arkansas Forestry Commission talk about destroying all the wildlife habitat in your yard in order to be safer from wildfire, I made a list of some of the neighborhood concerns about the Hill place project that have not been addressed and appear likely to be left unfinished or unacceptably finished when a certificate of occupancy is awarded by the city of Fayetteville, Arkansas.
The Smith home at the intersection of 11th Street and South Duncan Avenue does not yet have the row of trees promised by the Aspen Ridge developers after a team of their workers mistakenly removed the Smith's northedge vegetation. And there is no privacy fence or barrier to prevent late-night auto lights from students leaving the Hill Place apartments from shining their headlights directly into the Smith's northside windows. And should a sudden urge to replenish the supply of alcohol or junk food strike a few students, there is an obvious potential for a speeding car to spin right into the Smith home, endangering all occupants! Can the city do anything to influence the developers to provide whatever protection is reasonable for the Smiths.
The Hoodenpyle family's driveway is shared with the the Hill Place development and, despite the best efforts of former city engineer, Ron Petrie in the past, it has been done over and still may not be satisfactory. Is there any way the city can help the Hoodenpyles with this problem?
The three 75-or-older residents of the Moody house on S. Hill Avenue adjacent to the Hill Place complex on their northern, western and part of their southern boundary find that the new Hill Place project is built high on fill dirt in the former overflow area of the Town Branch of the White River and that stormwater will be forced to stay no their property rather than flow west into the natural overflow area of the Town Branch and then south to the main stream. A beautiful wooded wetland was there where a parking lot for student residents of Hill Place exists now. Several magnificent trees along the Moody's property line were removed by earlier developers of the bankrupt Aspen Ridge project. The Moodys are angry about the way they were treated but lack the energy to attend meetings or try to get political support to protect them.
Robert Williams lives a bit south of the Moody's, two houses south on S. Hill Avenue, to be exact. He owns two lots and his west property line is a true manmade disaster area. The fill dirt in the wetland, overflow area of the Town Branch west and southwest of his property has been totally mismanaged. Williams asked the developers to create a grassy swale on his property to carry water south to the main Town Branch to replace its natural route west to the now-filled overflow area with its concrete parking lot. Is there any way the city can help Mr. Williams at this point. The work the developers did resulted in the cutting off of the roots of several mature hackberry trees and other wildlife-friendly trees along the property line. That wasn't the solution Williams was asking for.
This is enough for now. On Friday morning, I'll try to present some more of the unresolved problems in the Town Branch Neighborhood that have resulted in extreme frustration for neighborhood residents.

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