Subdivision reviewed

Engineers and planning commissioners met in a tech review meeting at 1:30 on Thursday, July 9, to review the submission of the Belmont subdivision planned for West Pickens Road.

Planning Commissioner members reviewed plans submitted by Bates and Associates which will consist of 16 lots zoned at R-2 (Residential Medium) for multifamily houses, according to the designs submitted to the city.

The city has been working on correcting previous comments on the project, according to Tony Townsend, city building official.

Dr. Karen Sherman, Planning Commission member, brought up a new issue with the development — the single entry to the subdivision.

“How do we get fire protection if something blocks that entryway and somebody has a fire on the backside of that?” Sherman asked.

Townsend said he had a conversation with the engineer and developer and they decided to go with one entrance instead of two within a short distance of each other. Fire Chief Jack Wassman said the fire code states if a subdivision has more than 30 homes

then two egresses are required.

“This one has a 36-foot wide entry so it’s ideal,” Wassman said.

Planner Michael Wilhelm was concerned about the future stacking distance leading to the ingress of the subdivision.

“It’s a pretty low volume street,” said Nathan See, Street Department superintendent. “We have it built all the way back to the Master Street Plan right-of-way. So it’s not going to move back any further.”

Engineer Geoff Bates asked planners if they were requesting a second entrance. Bates said he discussed the second entrance and asked if making the entrance wider with some kind of emergency lane would satisfy the Planning Commission.

Sherman said it would but reiterated Wilhelm’s concern about stacking distance adding that the ingress/egress is across the street from the exit to the football field.

“Imagine having to wait to get one car out if there’s that many people trying to get out where are they going to back up to to get to the highway,” Sherman said.

Water Utilities inspector Mike Nida said the high school is going to be moved so with the high school moved further down the stacking distance will be eliminated somewhat.

“They brought it to us before they did all of this engineering and asked us what we wanted to see there and we told them this is what we wanted to see,” Townsend said. “So it’s a little ridiculous to renege on what we said we wanted to see.”

Bates said the city agreed to only one ingress/egress because a second entryway would have encroached on some of the lots.

Sherman understood, but said going forward, two entryways should be considered when designing developments.