Neighbor requests delay on rezoning for development

Residents of Rossville neighborhood deserve more info first, she says.

HAMILTON — A neighbor of proposed development at the former Adams Elementary School has asked Hamilton City Council not to approve a rezoning of that property unless residents of the Rossville neighborhood are given more information.

Linda Cheek of Ridgewood Avenue, who owns a property in the 400 block of G Street, asked council to “at least hold off on any change until you show the neighborhood impacted exactly what the plan is for the area, or no zone change at all.”

“We still have no idea exactly how many homes or types of homes, or how the area will be accessed off Milliken or off F St.,” she wrote in an email that was read to council. People are discouraged from attending meetings in person because of COVID19 concerns.

While city officials in recent weeks have said there is no plan for the Adams site or the nearby Beeler Park, resident Dan Acton recently told the city’s Planning Commission he has seen copies of such plans.

Neighbor

“There is no one that has done due diligence, no one that has come up with anything set in stone,” Planning Director Liz Hayden told Cheek at the March 18 Planning Commission meeting. If that were to happen, neighbors would be informed “and have an opportunity to weigh in on that as well,” she said.

Acton told the planning commission, “I was told there was an executive session set with the (city’s) Architectural Design Review Board, where they actually did a road trip over to review the property.”

“When I asked to see any information about that executive session, I was told that that was private, and would not be released until the appropriate time,” he said. He later provided this media outlet a copy of those materials.

Acton said he has spoken with city schools officials and was told a redevelopment plan for the properties “was in fact discussed in executive session with the Hamilton school board.”

“It seems as though the people bordering one side of the proposed development are in the know and have all the paperwork, and they get to have the wine-andcheese reveal party, where they show the plat and the house plans,” Acton said. “Meanwhile, the neighbors on the other side, that don’t have the $300,000 houses, are left to subjective advice, and innuendo and rumor mill and what might happen over there.”

The planning commission, Acton was told, has seen no such plans and has not discussed plans for the site.