CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – For several months, Britton Springs residents and developers have had public, open house community discussion over what people would like to see in the area, working toward a Britton Springs Neighborhood Plan.
However, at last week’s City Council meeting, residents of Britton Springs protested the plan, and it was rejected in a council vote. The vote on the ordinance Thursday night was 2-11 with only Ambar Marquis and Wanda Smith voting in favor.
What’s the Britton Springs Neighborhood Plan?
Alongside consultants from RaganSmith, a design firm based out of Nashville, Director of the Regional Planning Commission Jeffrey Tyndall spoke in detail about the plan at the council’s Dec. 1 meeting.
“Since April we’ve been working on the Britton Springs Neighborhood Plan,” Tyndall said. “We had two fairly-well attended public meetings out there in the area. As you know, about a year ago, we talked about adopting the Comprehensive Plan, which is the larger plan for the entire community. One of our goals after the Comprehensive Plan was to start to drill in on specific smaller areas of our city.”
Tyndall said that many years ago, they put together a Red River Neighborhood Plan to serve as a pilot for a smaller area of the city. However, Tyndall pointed out Britton Springs is a much larger area.
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‘It’s not intended to promote certain kind of development or make changes’
Michael Barille, Senior Project Manager for RaganSmith, told the council one of the first things Tyndall wanted to emphasize was what a neighborhood plan is intended to do. “It’s not intended to promote certain kinds of development or make changes; it’s really about giving the neighborhood’s residents an opportunity to give their voice to what it is they hope to see in the future,” he said.
Barille said some of the questions they asked during initial community engagement included what’s working for you; what’s not working for you; what kind of priorities do you have moving forward; what are the types of development you would want to see.
Residents say transformative plan not needed
Barille said one of the things they had heard clearly from the Britton Springs neighborhood is that a transformative plan was not needed. “I think a lot of what we heard was, help us make the neighborhood streets safer, whether that’s getting to a friend’s house, the new library, or the store,” he said. “Help us to reduce speeding, or the temptation to cut through our neighborhood.
“Help us take some of the guess work out of where the next set of townhouses and apartment buildings might be built, give us some reassurance that the single-family parts of our neighborhood are going to stay single-family.”
Barille said the consultants had a more aggressive plan starting out but had heard some feedback that they may have gone too far. “So, we pulled those additional housing densities out to the edges of the neighborhood, next to the commercial areas, or along the main arterials.”
Barille also recognized the resilience of the Britton Springs neighborhood, as they have dealt with not only flooding in their area in recent years, but tornado damage as well.
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He suggested there be a place where buffers can be put in along the corridors to help protect against future events. “Maybe a trail along the creek, a little pocket park someplace to have some quiet enjoyment and visit with your neighbors and enjoy being residents together,” he said.
“Our recommendation is pulling all of that together, separate into those safety categories with the neighborhood pride and identity, then some land use pieces that help add some stability and assurity to where future uses might occur.”
Lauren Sands with RaganSmith also went over the recommendations for connectivity in the Britton Springs Neighborhood Plan, as well as housing and neighborhood development recommendations.
Community speaks out against neighborhood plan
During Thursday’s meeting, 30-year Britton Springs resident David Smith said most of his neighbors are 50 or older. “Most of those people have lived in the neighborhood most of their lives, and they live in one-story ranch houses that have been there since the ’60s,” Smith said.
“Mine was built in ’87, and there’s some a little bit newer than that. This is not a neighborhood for tall and skinnies, for duplexes, or for triplexes and/or quadplexes. On the north side of Britton Springs you have some townhouses right across the street from Fort Campbell Boulevard. You have a huge apartment complex all around this neighborhood, and it’s different types of housing.
“But in this neighborhood, it’s only one- to two-story single-family homes,” he said. “There is a little bit of devastation left from the tornado but not much; most of these houses have been rebuilt. At the second meeting that was held at Minglewood School, there were a lot of residents there, and they were very unhappy.”
Smith said there is a reason for sidewalks, connectivity and some traffic signage on Jordan Road, but asked the council to vote down the plan. Two other community members spoke out against the proposal.
Smith told Clarksville Now after the meeting he doesn’t believe the plan should come back before the city. “There could be an issue where five years down the road, the City Council changes and it’s brought back, and maybe there’s a different feeling on the council,” he said. “I think the plan should be shelled.”
By rejecting plan ‘they are hurting the community’
Johnathan Blick spoke in favor of the plan to the council on behalf of several investors in the area. After the meeting, Blick told Clarksville Now the overall goal of the Britton Springs Neighborhood Plan is to create a guide for future growth in that area, he said.
“It’s had so much devastation. I feel like the City Council did a good job of hiring somebody and getting an expert opinion on that, but to not follow through with it is kind of an insult to the overall goal of it,” Blick said.
“They’re not really hurting us as investors or developers in the area, but they are hurting the community. Unfortunately, what we’re going to have to do is with these larger lot properties that are in the area, we’re going to have to develop those, and we’re going to have to build larger homes because they fit in the area. People will pay for that extra acreage, and essentially, we’re pricing out the people that live there.
“We’re just disappointed with the City Council going ahead and not only spending around $50,000 on the plan but not taking the experts’ opinions just because you didn’t agree with it,” Blick said.
Due to a portion of the plan being located outside city limits, the County Commission was set to vote on the Britton Springs Neighborhood Plan at their meeting on Monday, Dec. 8. However, it was pulled from their agenda leading up to the meeting.
Michael Barille was misspelled in an earlier version of this article.
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