The College Hill neighborhood is currently fighting a proposed development that residents fear will hurt their neighborhood. The proposed Spring Garden development would be build where the Newman Machine Shop currently resides and calls for 720 apartments (need to clarify this # – residents used “apartments,” but it could be units) that will be geared towards student housing.
I attended the “Save College Hill” meeting last night at 45 – 55 residents opposing the development were in attendance, as was Cyndy Hayworth, whom sits on the Zoning Commission. Neighbors are concerned about things like parking, the sheer size of the proposed development, negative impact on infrastructure (flooding has been an issue – Wafco Mills).
At the meeting neighborhood leaders reported that a protest petition was filed last Thursday and their attorney/State Senator Don Vaughan (seen in photo) also confirmed that fact.
Given that a protest petition has been filed, the council will be required to pass this zoning matter with a super majority vote, which typically means there have to be seven votes in favor. There is a “but” in this scenario though. Since College Hill has hired Don Vaughan as their attorney, his wife and newly elected council member, Nancy Vaughan will not be able to take part in the case.
During the meeting I spoke-up (wanted to make sure they were aware) to touch on how the votes would need to play out if this case eventually went to council. Since Nancy Vaughan will not be able to hear the case the neighborhood only has a total of eight council members to potentially get two “no” votes from.
This very well could be a situation where the protest petition proved to be a useful tool, but the neighborhoods attorney selection could end up costing them the battle.
So how might the votes play out? There’s no telling, but there are some things that might be assumed.
When I asked someone with the neighborhood’s board how their council representative, Zack Matheny, felt about the case he said, “He said that if the neighborhood opposed the development that he would as well.” To be clear, Matheny has not told me that directly so it’s hearsay at this point.
It has been heavily promoted that newly elected council members, Mayor Bill Knight and At-Large member Danny Thompson are conservatives, and at least one person close to Thompson has reported that he is a property rights advocate.
To make the battle even more challenging for College Hill, city staff is supporting the new development – see their write-up here.
