Thursday, December 20, 2007

Part of Aspen Ridge site and Rochier Hill proposed construction sites aerial view from west



PLEASE CLICK ON AERIAL PHOTO TO ENLARGE. For more aerial photos and maps of this area, please visit

Summitt & Aspen Ridge development area


www.flickr.com/photos/7295307@N02/2125838978/in/set-72157600030494870/

A proposed development in south Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Rochier Hill south of Sixth Street and the UA and Fayetteville High School. The hilltop and hillside projects (a church on the NE part and a housing development on the rest) would replace a nursing home torn down in the past two years, a great many magnificent hillside trees bulldozed in the past two years, many trees currently standing and a grassy native-soil prairie over much of the plain atop the hill. It would include construction on a steep part of the hill almost to the railroad that runs northeast/southwest along bottom of the hill and along the western border of the unfinished Aspen Ridge site. Stormwater runoff would be directed to two arms of the Town Branch of the West Fork of the River. The western arm of the Town Branch would catch water from the western and southwestern parts of the development, while water from the east and southeast sides would flow to the main Town Branch through the Aspen Ridge site. That is the part of the Town Branch that flows from the UA athletic facilities and much of the main campus and Markham Hill under the railroad near Sixth Street and between Hill and Duncan avenues and under 11th Street and then betweem Ellis and Van Buren avenues to a bridge on 15th Street.
The project would not only decrease the tree canopy of the area significantly but would also further threaten the integrity of the railroad. Vegetation was removed from the downhill side of the RR right of way and has caused major erosion. The Summit project would do the same on the uphill side. In coming decades, that railroad right of way will become increasingly important and ought to be widened and reinforced rather than compromised.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So this is all inside the Town Branch Neighborhood Association's boundaries, right? Will you be recruiting the neighbors to speak in planning and council meetings about this? Do you think the city staff will take into account the concerns you express and are justified by what you have online and actually keep the developers' feet to fire?

Anonymous said...

Will the city really approve another development that close to an unfinished project? Won't they demand that the developers wait until work on the other site is completed.

Anonymous said...

I read someplace that you said that the opinion of the neighbors ought to count more than the recommendations of the planning staff on these projects. That is right on!

The planning staff ought to have to suffer through months of dump trucks flying past their houses before they get a chance to recommend another project to the commission!

You have handed me a few meeting flyers over the years and left others in my screen door handle but I never went to one. Let me know and I'll be there. The spring and summer of 2006 made me realize that I will suffer and pay for every new project in our neighborhood.
I WILL be there, even if I am really tired when I get off from work. How about making it about 6:30 so I can get time to relax and eat after work?