The Beginning of the End

County planning meeting January 23rd, 2025

Last night the county planning commission heard from Clarion Homes again after they held a community meeting in December. Let me remind you that the builder told me in the meeting that they could not afford to build on anything less than R-30. They had already put too much money into the project for an R-80.

The builder presented the plan and now has promises of no more than 38 homes and all with individual septic systems. At this point, they do not know how many septic systems TDEC will allow them, but they are confident that 38 will be approved.

Only a handful of people were there to speak. The builder had three speakers on their side. The man that sold the property and still lives next to this project was of course in favor. His real estate agent threatened all of us with a nation wide builder. She said that if this didn’t get approved, nation wide builders had approached her for this property and they would not build as nice of a project. Mr. Frost was there. He’s all for this too. One of the neighbors of this property also said that there does not seem to be any reason to deny it since there is already R-30 and R-40 across the street. I was the only no voice there. While I agree, it is a lovely project, it opens the flood gates for the Frost and Fletcher properties that are waiting for this rezone here.

Clarion Homes is so benevolent that they are going to widen Horseshoe Road without being required. They will widen 750 feet in length by 2 feet. That is it will go from 16 feet wide to 18 feet wide. Gosh, golly, thank you so much. The planning approved this 3-2. I got a text with those numbers. As soon as they said approved, I left.

This is a photo from my living room window. Those brick houses on the right were not there when we moved in. The subdivision on the left was not quite finished. See all of the orange beyond the fencing on the left? That will be half of the 455 houses that are being built over there. I was not exaggerating at these meetings. They don’t care. Everyone is afraid that the real estate agents of the world are correct and a bigger company will come in and build 400 houses. Guess what? You can say no. I said that at the meeting. White House said no to the 85 acres on Bill Moss, and now they are selling it off in 5 acre lots. The county is like your uncle on Christmas that shouldn’t have another, but says, “What the hell. Just one more won’t kill me.”

The Clarion property is in blue here. The Fletcher property is 16.00 on the top and the Frost property is 101 and 104. They will be back as soon as this passes through the county commission. Calista is finished at that point. There will be more than 1100 south of the freeway, and this intersection will probably have 300-400 homes. After that, there is property in Cross Plains that the developers are salivating at. This entire area will be suburban sprawl. I don’t want that, but no one in a position to say no gives a damn.