The Providence Village Town Council gave the go ahead for Freestone Development to move forward with a planned development along Brewer Road at its Feb. 18 meeting.
The zoning change proposal was largely unchanged, though requested a 12-month extension on the excavation deadline, bringing the timeframe to 24 months.
Council members Dustin Clay and Klayton Rutherford led discussion on the topic with several small amendments from Ruther- ford and a broader discussion on the comprehensive plan from Clay.
“I was not here when some of you were filling out the community survey with what you wanted, the thing that eventually became the comprehensive plan,” Clay said. “I’m obviously reading it differently then you, so I want to make sure I understand why,” He then read the portions of the plan which call for multifamily housing to be mixed use with retail on the ground floor and living quarters above as well as other portions which lay out the type of housing both the community and the council at the time expressed interest in.
“The community said no housing changes, council said mid and neither of those are on the PD,” Clay said.
Both Mayor Pro Tem Kelly Nelson and Mayor Linda Inman weighed in alongside Rutherford, explaining the nature of planned developments and the give and take current state legislature forces councils to engage in.
“This is part of the PD process,” Rutherford said. “We are ahead of time allowing things and in exchange we’re getting a commitment to meet design standards that we have otherwise no way to hold them to.”
Economic Development Corporation board member Abigail Allen, who served during the development of the comprehensive plan Clay cited, also spoke.
“The reason I presented that was because I thought it may be more palatable to the 66% that said they didn’t want any apartments whatsoever,” Allen said. “We talked about it a lot with EDC, so I think that’s where that particular language came from. I don’t think it’s that we were stuck on that being the only way apartments were acceptable.”
Rutherford’s proposed amendments revolved around further limiting the possible uses for the commercial portion of the development, which Freestone representative Chris Weigand explained were far from set in stone at this early stage.
“I don’t have a day care operator or bank or convenience store chomping at the bit to go build a facility there right now, but we fully anticipate that in the future with our project, with the activity and hopefully with some connectivity from the trail, it will activate the need,” Weigand said.
From Rutherford’s requests for removal of day cares, kindergartens, car washes and self-storage, the final was the only one Weigand requested be allowed to remain.
“Storage might be something else,” Weigand said. “We specifically removed it from a large portion that’s in the activity center and moved it off. In all reality, I don’t know if that would ever get built, but to completely remove that land use from that whole portion— we’d like to keep that.”
Rutherford’s final motion reflected Weigand’s sentiment, calling only for the first three to be removed from possible uses in the commercial space and including the developer’s request for 24 months of excavation time.
Clay dissented, maintaining his desire for the apartments to require a retail space on the first floor and suggesting a full 12 months of extra time to excavate was excessive, while the rest of the council voted to approve the zoning change.
