CLARKSVILLE, TN (CLARKSVILLE NOW) – Nearby residents have been fighting to prevent approval for a planned subdivision near Exit 8 called The Reserve at Hickory Wild section 2.
The case had been postponed for additional information from the Montgomery County Highway Department regarding an extensive drainage study of the Exit 8 area. This week, Clarksville Now received clarification that the study goes hand-in-hand with Montgomery County allocating $5 million to address stormwater infrastructure off Exit 8, including in Hickory Wild.
However, residents in the Exit 8 area still have their concerns about what the 140-plus unit residential development would mean for the overall infrastructure in the area, and a petition opposing the development has grown to include over 800 signatures. The developer said the subdivision plan will actually address many of the traffic and flooding problems that the community has faced.
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Concerns about stormwater, traffic
During the Regional Planning Commission meeting on July 28, the president of the Hickory Wild HOA, Camille Jones, who is also a real estate agent, said, “I love development, and I love Clarksville. Growth is one of the reasons people choose to call Clarksville home. But it must be responsible, transparent and supported by infrastructure that protects the families.”
Jones said there are issues with stormwater infrastructure. “We had the flooding of 2025, and we all know about that,” Jones said, adding there are “serious storm drainage issues and deficiencies in that basin. This isn’t about adding more homes, it’s more about whether the proposal adequately addresses the stormwater infrastructure, traffic and emergency access issues. We’re not asking you to stop growth, we’re just asking for better planning with this situation.”
Jones said if the subdivision is to move forward, improvements such as extending Tacoma Drive to Dunlop Lane would help provide a second arterial access point. She also suggested additional traffic studies.
Wellington Fields resident speaks out
Lacy Sansburn, who lives on the Wellington Fields side of Hickory Wild, said Kirkwood Road has come to be known in the community as “Kirkwood Lake.”
“We joke that it is Kirkwood Lake, because it holds water so often,” she said. “The agriculture there is absent now.” Sansburn said she’s also worried about overall traffic in the area, saying problems already exist. Sansburn recommended speed bumps around Wellington Fields and along Kirkwood Road, as part of the development.
Resident questions unfinished work at Hickory Wild
Michelle Thaxton said plans she was told of when her house was built in Hickory Wild have changed. “I was told when it was built, I’d have a rear loading garage with an alley way that was supposed to be a construction road only until construction was built out.”
She said neighbors were also meant to have rear loading garages, and the construction road was meant to become a roadway; however, those plans have changed. “Those houses are going to face another direction now,” she said.
Thaxton said the Hickory Wild HOA spent $55,000 to repair and repave the construction road. She said that repaving will need to commence again due to the construction road already deteriorating.
She also talked about having no egress outside the deteriorating construction road. “There’s a stub road that comes out that doesn’t connect to anything. Two lots width for me to be able to turn left out of my driveway to get out and have egress that way,” she said. “The only way I have out is to turn right out of my garage, down that alleyway that was heaving so bad from the thinness of the asphalt and the garbage trucks.”
Thaxton talked about how a single entry into Hickory Wild, as well as The Reserve at Hickory Wild, isn’t enough. “We’ve only got one way in and one way out,” Thaxton said. “And you’re going to have this development use that same single entry.”
She said the developer of Hickory Wild should be required to finish what they started before section 2 of The Reserve at Hickory Wild is allowed to proceed.
Developer: Subdivision will connect unfinished stub roads
Vernon Weakley with Weakley Brothers Engineering spoke in favor of the proposal and said the developer attached to The Reserve at Hickory Wild section 2 “has nothing to do” with the previously developed Hickory Wild community.
Previously, Gordon Seay was the listed applicant for the proposed subdivision; however, MVM Properties is now the listed applicant for the proposal.
Weakley also said what makes the proposal before the RPC unique is that it hooks all the stub roads together. “I know back in the spring of 2025 with Dunlop Road going under water, they were trapped in there, and the county came out and put some gravel out where they could get through the Wellington (Fields) subdivision to get out.” He said without that access point, there was no way for ambulances, fire trucks, or any other emergency vehicles to get through.
“Hooking the roads together is a big point of this subdivision,” Weakley said. “It will hook Farmington through Remington Drive; it will hook Wellington through Shield Drive and hopefully through Judge Duke Tyler Boulevard. It will also tie in several other locations along the existing stubs they left in that subdivision.”
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Weakley said the Montgomery County Highway Department chose for traffic calming measures to be designed at the grading and drainage plan as well. He also said the open space for The Reserve at Hickory Wild section 2 would be maintained by the future HOA associated with the development.
Stormwater plan coming up for Hickory Wild
He said the stormwater will be looked into as part of the grading and drainage plan, which is still to be developed. “The majority of the water will be going to a basin up there that will be enlarged to take care of any additional runoff from this subdivision,” he said.
When asked by the RPC if he foresees any drainage issues, Weakley said everything will be worked through the Montgomery County Highway Department.
RPC Director Jeff Tyndall Tyndall told Clarksville Now this week that the RPC received a response from the county engineer that is analyzing all the drainage in the Exit 8 area. “They have no concerns,” he said. “They considered the runoff from this property in their calculations, and as long as this development includes the appropriate retention/detention areas (which it does), it should operate properly.”
Report from Nashville-based civil engineering firm
According to emails obtained through a public records request by Clarksville Now. representatives with Barge Design Solutions said the area of the proposed development in their model accounted for flow from that area, but they were assuming it was underdeveloped.
“Generally, it looks like there are three sinkholes that runoff would drain to before it gets to our proposed pipe system and would never make it to our system. The developer will need to install detention to accommodate the increased volume of runoff from the proposed development but generally, it shouldn’t impact our work.”
Weakley: ‘Safety and security of all will be enhanced with this section’
Included in the email correspondence were comments from Weakley saying that since this is the preliminary plat stage, no precise calculations on stormwater are available just yet.
“However, the preliminary shows the direction of the drainage,” he said. “The majority of the drainage goes to the Hickory Wild basin, which was greatly enlarged in the construction of Wellington section 6. It will be enlarged more for this section of Reserves, and we will overcompensate for any additional flow.”
He said a small amount also flows to a smaller basin in Farmington. “This Farmington basin does not connect to the Farmington basins that received the overflow from the Dunlop basin when it overflowed Dunlop Road last spring,” Weakley said. “Any additional flow will be diverted to a detention basin we are building near the Meta/Silva property line. This detention basin will control this runoff as well as the natural runoff coming to it.
“Wellington section 6 calculations were reviewed and approved by Montgomery County Highway Department a couple of years ago. After the improvements made by these plans, the 2025 spring flood did not block Duke Tyler Blvd and it was used as the only escape route for Hickory Wild. … This proposed section will allow Hickory Wild, as well as the back sections of Farmington, to escape an event such as that occurred in the spring of 2025. The safety and security of all will be enhanced with this section.”
Clarksville Now has reached out to Weakley for additional comment.
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‘Existing families should not be asked to carry the risk’
In a statement sent to Clarksville Now, Jones questioned how the project can move forward when there has been documented evidence for years of drainage, flooding and infrastructure issues in the area.
“I appreciate that Montgomery County has allocated $5 million toward a stormwater infrastructure plan, but our community cannot live on another funding promise,” Jones said. “We are talking about our homes – our biggest investments and the places where we raise our families. We cannot tell existing homeowners, ‘We’re working on a plan,’ while simultaneously forcing another 140-plus development onto a broken system.
“The County openly admits it is still lacking basic sinkhole studies, independent engineering, traffic studies, and an actual solution. Existing families should not be asked to carry the risk and increased financial burdens just to fast-track another development. Please pause. Fix the infrastructure first and then build with transparency and integrity,” she said.
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