It appears the Henderson City Commission is prepared to accept a Henderson-Henderson County Joint Planning Commission recommendation of a zoning change for Braxton Park subdivision, though a handful of neighborhood residents are still fighting it.
City Attorney Dawn Kelsey has drafted a resolution that, if approved by the city commission, accepts the recommendation and findings of fact that came from the Dec. 5 joint planning commission meeting.
In that session, the planning commission, with a 7-2 vote, recommended approving an amendment to the residential zoning which allows what had been 80-feet-wide lots to be decreased to 60-feet-wide lots for a development within the subdivision.
Seven residents filed an appeal asking the city commission to hold a hearing on the planning commission’s recommendation, Kelsey said.
Mayor Brad Staton said he expects that the commissioners will vote to approve the resolution affirming the zoning change without a hearing.
“That does seem to be the will of the commission,” Staton said.
But some neighborhood residents are making a final attempt to change the city commission’s mind. Greg Billiter, a Culpepper Court resident, spoke at Tuesday’s city commission meeting.
“Having these smaller homes, I feel, will diminish the value of our homes that are already out there,” Billiter said.
On Friday, Billiter sent an email to all the commissioners, the mayor, Kelsey and City Manager William L. “Buzzy” Newman. The Hendersonian was copied in on the email.
The email stated that the planning commission’s findings of fact were inaccurate and listed 17 points of contention. Among the complaints were that the planned smaller homes were incompatible with existing homes in the neighborhood; that the new amendment allows for medium density development which contrasts with the approved low-density for the subdivision; and adding the number of new houses requires a traffic study, which hasn’t occurred.
Reached Friday, developer John Hodge of H Properties LLC said an original approved subdivision plan from 20 years ago called for 76 more homes to be built. His current plan, he said, would hold at least 35 fewer homes than which was originally approved.
Hodge said he has changed development plans twice in attempts to accommodate neighborhood residents and “was stunned by neighborhood opposition” to the most recent plan.
Hodge said the plan is a “radical reduction” of the population density originally approved for Braxton Park 20 years ago, and a traffic study at the time said one/entrance exit was sufficient for the neighborhood with 76 more homes in it.
The document, though, is a bit more nebulous. It said, “Although it would be desirable to have more than one access point for the subdivision, roadway constraints on Wathen Lane may not make that possible.”
But the document which Henderson City Engineer Doug Boom said came from Evansville Metropolitan Planning Organization, is in fact not a traffic study, but only a recommendation, Boom said.
“There was no traffic study,” Boom said in a Friday phone interview with the Hendersonian. Boom said his opinion is that the subdivision should have another entrance/exit.
Staton said the commissioners will vote at Tuesday’s 3 p.m. special-called meeting on whether the planning commission’s hearing was satisfactory and adjudicated correctly. An approval of the resolution would mean that no more hearings are necessary, thus ending the matter and leaving the planning commission’s recommendation to stand, the mayor said.
In fact, the city commission rarely agrees to hold hearings after appeals to a planning commission recommendation. Staton said he has only been a part of one other in his six years as a commissioner and one as a mayor. The assistant director of the planning commission, Jennifer Marks, said she has also seen only one in her four years in her position.
Both Marks and Staton were referring to a recent hearing the city commissioners held to hear objections on the re-zoning of downtown land where the Henderson Distilling Co. will locate a distillery.
When asked why the commission chose to hear objections to the re-zoning of the distillery—but seem unlikely to hold a hearing for the Braxton Park zoning changes—Staton said the property in question for the distillery was at the time owned by the city and the city commission felt obliged to hear concerns “because we were participants of the party (residents) had concerns about.”
Henderson Municipal Power and Light was located on the property where the distillery will be located. HMP&L moved in mid-January to its new home on Barret Boulevard, and the city closed on the land with the distilling company on Jan. 30.
During the December joint planning commission meeting, Braxton Park residents were concerned that neighborhood covenants, including one that requires homes have at least a 1,600-square-foot floor plan and a 2-car garage, aren’t being followed.
Marks said in a recent interview with the Hendersonian that covenants are in place in sections where houses currently stand, but they are not in place in the subdivision’s undeveloped sections—those that developer H Properties LLC want to build on. She also said, in effect, covenants do not carry over from one section to a new section.
Additionally, the attorney for the planning commission, Tommy Joe Fridy, said in the December meeting that the planning commission has no authority to base votes on neighborhood covenants.
Finally, the executive director of the joint planning commission, Brian Bishop, lives in the neighborhood and has recused himself from any dealings with the re-zoning process. Bishop, however, did speak at last week’s city commission meeting, saying he was speaking as a private citizen and urging the commissioners to hold a hearing.
“We’re simply asking that you hear your constituents out on this,” Bishop said.
