
DEFER the Elliott Ave. Broadstone in 12South/Sunnyside: It's fast-tracked & wrong.


Nashville Vice Mayor and Council lady Moore,
I've joined my neighbors in signing a petition respectfully urging you to defer the scheduled March 17th Third Reading of "Broadstone on Eighth" SP zoning legislation, which imposes a contextually inappropriate four-story residential development on Elliott Avenue in Nashville's Sunnyside/12south neighborhood.
Our
request is for deferment until the developers of the project can honor
their commitment to make the necessary revisions that address our
community's important concerns.
As you know, only a fraction of
the impacted community has been represented in this matter, primarily
those who support retail/commercial development along the 8th Avenue
South corridor. Hundreds of hours have been spent coordinating with
developer-affiliated teams, while only a fraction of time was extended
for appropriate public education and notification of the development's
impact and the councilmatic process.
Encumbered public
engagement has led to false depictions of our neighborhood's position on
the development, perpetuated mistruths about the development's height,
and generally dismissed widespread concerns about traffic that will affect streets
far beyond the Elliott Avenue construction area. Failures to
represent homeowners and neighbors now imposes an over-scaled, overbuilt and contextually inappropriate
development on the community.
Specifically, we protest that:
•
by proceeding to a crucial Second Reading of this legislation four days
before the actual community meeting on March 7, neighbors were denied the opportunity to discuss, process and present a unified and compelling
case before the Metro Council on March 3. Further, at least two
community residents, with their talking points in hand, were unable to enter the overcrowded Council Chambers to testify on March 3;
•
by providing the neighborhood as little as five days notice about a
second, crucial community meeting on March 7 (occurring four days after the
Council's sole public testimony forum on March 3), community leaders minimized the
public's participation with inadequate notification and a mis-ordered
meeting;
• Slanted, biased and incomplete testimony
was presented to Metro Council on March 3, as it was stated that only
nine negative comment cards were received after a December community
meeting — despite more than 30 emails of opposition received in the
72 hours prior to this Second Reading. These letters were disregarded without
mention, lending false pretense that our community is not providing feedback
and does not care (we are, and we do);
• strategic mistruths have also been perpetuated regarding the scale and height of this project, thus obscuring the public's perception
and the full understanding of voting Metro Council members.
As recently as March 3, the development's team and affiliates repeatedly stated before Metro Council that plans were reduced from four stories to
three. This “reduction” only pertains to a portion of the
structures; the false perception left that this entire complex will be three stories. Let this petition be
clear: A fourth floor is proposed above the third floor on
much of this development, bringing inappropriate height, density and
traffic issues into various neighborhoods within Sunnyside/12South;
•
beyond Metro Planning Department's "bare bones" required minimum,
little communication about the development or the legislative process
occurred. Inspection of Metro Planning’s mailing manifest shows 60
recipients of meeting notices live out of the city, state and/or even
this country. While they are property owners, they are not our
neighbors. Another 156 notices reached residents of a single over-scaled
nearby condo/apartment complex. Thus residents most impacted on the
neighborhood's significant arterial streets (10th, 12th, Bradford,
Belmont, Douglass, Montrose, Waldkirch, Vaulx, etc., and shortcut
roadways that will be most significantly burdened by extraordinary, new
traffic) were not advised;
• Despite vibrant and ongoing
conversation with 50 concerned citizens on March 7, a community meeting
was prematurely halted before issues about scale, height, traffic,
setbacks, landscaping and process were adequately addressed;
For these reasons, and because
the Developer's representative deferred all potential design revisions to
the will of Council Lady Sandra Moore, and named her solely responsible for next steps, be it found
that this petition is primarily directed to the Council lady and the Vice
Mayor of Nashville Diane Neighbors.
Respectfully, we believe that by not adequately addressing the concerns of this community at this time with deferral, the
people of District 17 are being failed their deserved and adequate
representation;
Specifically, we request that you:
—
immediately defer of 3rd Reading of Ordinance #BL2015-1027/Proposal No.
2015SP-003-001 from the March 17 Metro Council meeting;
— require
diversion of the currently planned traffic from Elliott Avenue to more
direct access of Hillview Heights and Inverness, and adequately
publicize the complete anticipated traffic impact, particularly along
Elliott Avenue and arterial roadways in the residential community;
— require increased setbacks along Elliott Avenue from the proposed 5 feet to 15;
— require reduced height on all structures located and/or situated within Metro boundaries from four stories to three stories;
—require greater landscaping concessions, including the salvation of its resident 75-year old magnolia and Maple trees;
—
require a final meeting between the community and developers, after
meaningful concessions on these points above, to review an acceptable
plan.
Respectfully, the undersigned:
Comment