By Terry Schrimscher, For The Tribune
SPRINGVILLE — The Springville City Council met for the second regular meeting of March on Monday night, March 21. The agenda consisted primarily of public hearings for the rezoning of property.
One proposal involved a Planned Unit Development (PUD), named The Haven, to be located near the Big Canoe Creek Nature Preserve—a Forever Wild property located near Murphree’s Valley Road in Springville. The Haven is a project of Holland Homes, based in Auburn, Ala. Preliminary plans for The Haven included as many as 484 homes, although that has been revised.
Springville native Daniel Holland owns Holland Homes. The proposal was presented to Planning and Zoning in August of 2021. The proposal would rezone 40 acres of property owned by Lewis Windham to PUD.
The development would also annex and rezone unincorporated property owned by Betty Bettis. This property lies north and east of Old Mill Road and north of Robinson Street behind the historic district of downtown.
“We hope to put quality homes in an awesome community where folks are proud to live,” said Thomas Johnson, head of community development for Holland Homes.
Johnson spoke on behalf of the Bettis and Windham interests and said the plans to move property into the city limits for PUD zoning would allow the city more input.
Johnson said Holland Homes has worked with Springville for the past seven months to revise the plans to meet the needs expressed by people in the area.
“Some of the things we’ve looked at was taking as much traffic as possible away from highway 11, which we’ve accomplished by routing the vast majority of the lots out through Murphree’s Valley,” Johnson said.
Road plans were rerouted to take pressure off the traffic at the middle school.
“We’ve also reduced the lot count from 484 lots down to 246,” he said.
Citizens, speaking in the public hearing, expressed concerns over traffic, school crowding, water pollution, and home sizes. Although Johnson said the smaller homes would be between 1400 and 1800 square feet, the plans call for a minimum of 1100 square feet, which caused some concern about crowding and home values.
The hearing was the first public reading of the proposal. The Council did not act on the zoning request or the annexation during the meeting. The requests are expected to appear on the agenda in April.
Ken Beasley spoke to the council in a public hearing to request the rezoning of property on Walker Drive to be rezoned from B-3 business to I-1 industrial. Beasley owns the storage unit facility on Walker Drive. He currently has 217 units and plans to add approximately 40% more after the rezoning of the adjacent property.
After the hearing, the Council approved the rezoning request.
Trey Massey spoke to the Council about rezoning the Bagley/Clements property near Spring Valley Church on US Hwy 11 from A-1 agricultural to I-1 industrial.
Massey is the owner of Massey Asphalt Paving. He has proposed building offices and storefronts and an equipment storage facility on the land.
Several residents spoke in opposition to the plan due to concerns about large truck traffic and flood zones from the stream behind the property.
The Council did not act on the ordinance during the meeting, placing it on the agenda for the first meeting in April. The proposal was not approved by Planning and Zoning when presented in February.