Flooding is still a worry, but Knoxville City Council approved a 264-unit Washington Pike residential project after the developer and neighborhood representatives worked out a compromise on seven of eight issues of concern to surrounding property owners. The vote was unanimous on the use-on-review request for the Legends at Oak Grove-Maddox Companies after the developer and the neighbors agreed to more give and take on the issue of detention ponds.
Developer Steve Maddox wanted detention basins – dry ponds designed to hold water temporarily. The neighbors wanted retention basins – permanent ponds. The developer won, but agreed to release 20 percent less water than originally planned
Kevin Murphy, who lives just east of the development on a farm his family has owned for 200 years, headed up the opposition. He said he appreciates the developer’s willingness to negotiate with the neighbors (and particularly attorney Arthur Seymour’s cooperation) but he is not complimentary of the Metropolitan Planning Commission members who would not allow a postponement to give the two sides time to work out their differences. Not only did it cost the neighbors $500 to file the appeal, but Murphy also believes the developer could have gotten the project approved weeks ago if they’d been given a postponement this summer.
Map shows location of proposed development
“It cost Maddox money, too,” Murphy said. “The planning commission should have postponed this so we could work to resolve it by September’s MPC meeting. He could have been on his way weeks ago.
“But the planning commission is loaded with developers who will pass anything that’s put in front of them and who don’t care what the neighbors’ viewpoints are.”
The points of agreement included requirements to submit landscape/buffer plan, close temporary entrances and restrict use of McCampbell Drive on the back side of the property, and submit a lighting plan that curbs light pollution.
James McMillan, who farms land just west of Legends that his family has owned since the 18th Century, has been fighting developer-caused storm water runoff for decades. He is skeptical of the agreement:
“Impervious surfaces (driveways, roofs and roads) produce runoff at least 20 times greater in volume than from grass. And detention ponds increase flood levels because they do not account for the tremendous increase in volume of storm water released into streams that have evolved to handle only a fraction of that runoff. The more this happens, the greater the likelihood of a cataclysmic flood. This is science, it’s a fact and has been proven nationwide. I am very skeptical that this (project) will not damage other people.”