URGENT - Proposed New Development Raises Concerns

Channel 5 News (Newschannel5.com)
Posted: Apr 28, 2012 9:47 PM CDT
Updated: Apr 28, 2012 10:05 PM CDT

NASHVILLE, Tenn.- More crime and lower property values are what a group of concerned homeowners believe will be the result is a housing development becomes a reality in their neighborhood.

It was six months ago when Linda Hill moved to Fairway Villa Town homes in Nashboro Village and just across from her home, an open field.

"The real estate agent also told me she didn't think anything would ever happen to that property, and that's all I knew," said Hill.

The new homeowner from Texas soon found out that land would become home to around 75 subsidized Town homes.

She says she found out the Tennessee Housing Authority would oversee the property once built by a private developer.

This now raised concerns of safety, traffic and decreased property value for Hill and her fellow neighbors.

"If you've got to subsidize, don't subsidize them all. If you subsidize part of them, then people who are not in the subsidize homes are going to help," said Hill.

District 29 Metro Nashville council member Karen Johnson said, "This should have never been approved. I'm just going to be honest. This road is just too narrow."

Johnson says potentially 150 cars from the new units, the current residents and the visitors to the recently reopened Nashboro Golf Club House, is too much.

She says right now there is little that can be done because residents didn't speak up during the approval vote of the project back in 2005 and 2008.

"That hurt us in terms of when we came before the (Metro) planning commission to say, 'We are concerned about the safety issue with this narrow road here," said Johnson.

Council member Johnson says now it's about standing as a community and addressing the developer, "To help them (developer) understand that this is an engaged community and we're not going to sit by and let this happen in this day and time in 2012."

Hill said, "I don't know the developer, and I want to believe he is a reasonable man, and he wants to think about how it will affect the community."

They will all get a chance to speak to the developer and see potential renderings of the project at a planned meeting next week and Johnson says it's imperative that everyone attend.

The meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Monday at the Smith Springs Church of Christ located at: 2783 Smith Springs Road Nashville, TN 37217.