Tomorrow Night

Lennar will be back at BZA

We have been here before. This is not our first rodeo with Lennar. For those of you new to the party, let me bring you up to speed.

This all started back in April of 2022. Lennar came to the planning board in White House and made a request for an SRPUD on New Hall Road. You can read about it above. Essentially what happened is “we the people” had gotten involved and the planning board began asking questions. The representative from Lennar had the item deferred and they decided to hold a community meeting. Maybe they thought they could woo us, but they didn’t try very hard.

This letter went out to the neighbors around the proposed development.

Keep in mind they were asking for 956 units at this point.

This was the plan for 950 homes that was denid

The community meeting did not go well for Lennar. Maybe if they had brought snacks it might have gone better, but there were no snacks and there was no love for Lennar. Here is the link to what happened. Here is the link to what I thought about what happened. In the community meeting, they were warned about the topography on this property by more than one resident. They were told about traffic and schools and lack of traffic lights. When asked, they said they would not build for less than 850. In June of 2022 they were denied the rezone to R-20 for 950 some homes. They came back to the planning board in November of 2022. They had the zoning for 650 homes. That zoning had been set in 2008 before all of the other developments were approved. This was approved 4-3 with Vice Mayor (acting as mayor) Farris Bibb being the deciding vote. The city was concerned about being sued.

Nothing has happened on that property in the last three years as far as anyone can tell. Now they are returning to the city with a request. They are asking for a variance.

Lennar will be in front of the Board of Zoning Appeals on Tuesday. You can read the staff notes here. They are asking for a “hardship” variance. There was not a flood over there that caused a sinkhole or washed out most of the property. An earthquake didn’t hit and open the earth across phase 5. The property wasn’t found to be home to the extinct Dodo. This is NOT a hardship, this is a lack of due diligence on their part. It seems that maybe they should have done more listening during that community meeting. Had they done so, they would have known that these 75 acres were not conducive to building homes. But wait….there’s more.

They are “offering” this 75 acres as a park with walking trails and a dog park. T

The planning department is asking that the park be formally dedicated and maintained by the HOA. Does this mean public as in the city, or public as in the subdivision? If it is maintained by the HOA, I’m going to assume it is just for the people that live there.

The area in blue is the only area they are asking for an increase in number of homes. The area in green was phase 5, they are suggesting it be a park, and the phase 5 homes be moved into the blue space which is phase 3B and 4.

As far as I’m concerned, this is a no. They are already building 600 more houses than I would like. They are already building condos behind Kroger. They are already building like locusts all over the state. This is about the fact that it is too expensive to move and regrade land where they thought they could build. They want to squeeze every last dime out of every last inch, no matter what it costs us.

By the way, in the last county commission meeting it was mentioned that TDOT was not happy about this subdivision without a traffic light on 31W. Robertson County stated in no uncertain terms they are NOT paying for it. My understanding is that they cannot build without that light. I guess we will see.

Tomorrow night I will be at the meeting. It is my hope that I will see many of you as well.

Tuesday March 25th, 7pm at city hall.