Residents come to city with concerns about Ridge Creek road plans

Concerns over a planned road design for the Ridge Creek development dominated discussion at Tuesday’s Lebanon City Council meeting. The issues came up in a public hearing for the final plats of Ridge Creek Phase 1 and 2 at the 100 block of Daytona Drive and 1500 block of Rolling Hills Road. Both plats were approved by the Council. A group of residents attended the meeting with a petition asking that phase 1 of the preliminary Ridge Creek plat be modified by closing and removing Rockingham Road. “There are several reason for this, but primarily it’s about the safety of residents already living on Daytona and the future residents of Darlington,” according to J.D. Muschany, who spoke on behalf of residents. He said people chose to live there because Daytona was a dead end street with light traffic, but Rockingham Road would change this and create safety issues. He said under the plat, the next phase could connect Rockingham to Darlington, which would increase traffic flow, and add 15 homes on Daytona and 35 on Darlington. Resident Thea Decker said Rolling Hills Road is not ready for more traffic and is not in very good condition. “Now you’re going to be adding these houses,” she said. A resident noted that the preliminary plat dated back to the 1990s. Interim City Administrator Ben DeClue said later in the meeting that the city’s plat ordinance did not set a time limit on how long a preliminary plat is valid. “The Planning and Zoning Commission has the ability to impose certain conditions and work with the developer. Since this was preliminary platted 30 years ago, that window sort of closed and what we’re left with now is do they meet the requirements of our code and at the point at which we’re here, Planning and Commission reviewed and said yes, codes said yes and you’re (the Council) the final check of that list of whether or not this complies with our subdivision development,” he said. Before voting on phase 1, Councilman Gib Adkins said he wished there was a different way, but “if it meets all the codes, we don’t have a choice as far as I’m concerned, so yes.” The plat was approved earlier this month by the city’s zoning and planning commission, which added the requirement of a turnaround on Daytona Drive. For more on this story, see Saturday's LCR.