HomeMy WebLinkAbout2021-05-30 Michael Blowers
Charlene Way
From:Michael Blowers <mjblowers@gmail.com>
Sent:Sunday, May 30, 2021 10:28 PM
To:City Clerk
Subject:Topgolf CUP H-2021-0033
External Sender - Please use caution with links or attachments.
I'll be echoing others and have residents in this area have been expressing these same sentiments since one of the first
meetings regarding new development off this road in 2017.
I have lived on Rolling Hill Drive for the past 8 years, since March of 2013. I do not support Top Golf, or any of the future
development that is coming near the Silverstone development using Rolling Hill Drive as an access. Good for the city
and its growth and all those that benefit from this - but I would like for the city to look into alternative ways to get
multiple entrances to this development without steamrolling existing established neighborhoods.
This is not a "typical" sort of neighborhood transformation. This is a formerly dead-ended residential neighborhood,
with no HoA, lots of agricultural use, farm animals, cattle raising, with some homes sitting off the road only 30-40
feet. It's a 1/3 mile dead straight away street with zero mitigation to speed - even before development began there
would be occasional people blitzing pedal to the floor speeds and it will certainly increase it frequency. While just my
opinion, I am perplexed that city planners and even developers are ok with this being 1 of 2 entrances to this
development. Not to be self deprecating but my home isn't going to be on any Dream Home TV shows nor will the
majority of them remaining on the street. It's also perplexing that we have heard opinions that this road wouldn't be
used much to access Top Golf, let alone the future 400 apartment complexes we have heard whispers of - it absolutely
will be. No sidewalk or lampposts or anything like that is going to be enough to hide the fact these are mostly 60 year
old homes with not a lot going in the way of aesthetics. What a weird entrance to a new development.
I observed for years the heavy traffic during the fall corn maze events and watching that absolute debacle the city?
ACHD? allowed with that entrance. Does the city or ACHD share the concerns for a lack of runway for the left hand
turn into Silverstone which is only going to amplify people using Rolling Hill as they won't have space to get in line to
turn left (north) coming west to east down Overland. And certainly anyone aware of the proposed Rolling Hill entrance
coming east to west down Overland will avoid the light and just come down the street. We are talking about an
absolute monolithic change in traffic... for a RESIDENTIAL neighborhood. Yes, we understand the boundaries, and owner
rights, and "it's legal" and all of that - we've heard it all. I've even been told that the "20 MPH CONSTRUCTION ZONE"
sign they put up at the end of the road was a courteous and not required. I guess let's just wait until something happens
and then deal with it then? That doesn't make it right. It's unconscionable. I can't imagine a single city council member
being ok with this sort of thing happening in their neighborhood with the traffic. I haven't even touched on the
absurdity of Top Golf and some of the patrons that will inevitably be intoxicated leaving the establishment and driving
out down Rolling Hill. What message does this send to any existing neighborhood out there? Just pray that no one buys
land at the end of your street?
Why can we not just have Rolling Hill Drive be a dead end / emergency access only street? At bare minimum - why
can't the Silverstone streets be built first so construction access flows entirely through there?
Since BVA and one of their contractors began developing the north side of Rolling Hills, we have endured months of
incidents such as :
Multi-ton construction equipment barreling down a 25 mph road going well over 40, causing some of us to call
law enforcement and contractors as well. Has any city council member had the opportunity to check their mail
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box with construction equipment driving past them at 40mph? It caused me to make my first call to law
enforcement. BVA didn't care, the ALTA construction certainly didn't care, I didn't know who else to call to get
the issue mitigated.
Construction trucks starting before 7 am, even on weekends... unreal.
We've had nights where crews, at 3 AM (yes, 3 am) and crews of men yelling, with construction lighting, guiding
detached homes and equipment down our street, sometimes parking and strategizing for 30 minutes as they
slowly drudged up the street as if we didn't even exist.
I've personally had construction dump trucks attempt to squeeze past me as I back a trailer into my driveway,
causing the first of many altercations.
Crew member vehicles, throughout the day, flying up and down the road.
Tractors, for whatever reason, driving the full length of the street with the bucket down scraping the pavement?
In one specific incident, sometime around 10pm? someone decided to get in a heavy loader and just start
digging dirt until I drove out to see what was going on.
When I say a stream of construction dump trucks I'm talking ~10 trucks an hour, every hour, all day, every day
(yes, weekends included, starting sometimes before 7 am) for months. What will it be when actual construction
begins?
All of this occurs with 10 feet of where we unload/load our kids, adjust and deal with irrigation, we cross the street to
adjust and change irrigation, mailboxes, etc. I thought OSHA had rules surrounding construction zones - if this isn't one,
I don't know understand what is. This neighborhood wasn't built with sound or traffic mitigation in mind, the front door
on many of the places is 30 feet off the road. That's not far, and will be much closer if proposed road changes happen.
Side Note :
It's already a "close your eyes" and pray moment attempting to leave or enter our neighborhood during rush
hour. There's about to be another cluster of apartments across overland south of Rolling Hill sharing the same
turnout, along with this proposal - does this eliminate the Movado subdivisions request to have a traffic light
installed at their turn in for that massive residential neighborhood? Or are we going to have an Overland traffic
light party and just have 5 stop lights within 1/4 mile of one another?
The Movado subdivision often requires their residents to turn out into the turn lane to proceed west. The
Rolling Hill Subdivision often requires turning out into the turn late to head east, and the Apartments that are
south of Rolling Hill almost 100% of the time require the use of the turn lane when moving west before turning
in there. I'm aware of these situations every time I leave my neighborhood and have on several occasions
avoided a wreck because of it. Visiting patrons will not always be aware of these scenarios.
MUCH of the absurdity of this could have been subdued on our end had we gotten one... just ONE single letter, phone
call, email - SOMETHING, that told us about their time tables, construction schedule, or hey, just an acknowledgment
that we are going to be doing this from approximately X month until X month. Nothing. Not even a note telling us they
would be moving these homes at 3 AM in the middle of the night.
I would love for ALL council members and those involved to take the time to drive up and down our road and examine
this personally. Envision the aesthetics of our neighborhood to a new development area, envision kids playing in the
front yard with proposed changes, envision cow trailers, goat trailers, people digging ditches right off the road... envision
all of that with traffic that, once fully development, could be as hectic as The Village entrances. I've ready several public
comments regarding other unrelated projects out there and I hope you all can see the uniqueness in this situation and
the severity of the change it brings, I would be hard pressed to find a equivalent comparison. It's not right and to allow it
is, as I've said earlier, unconscionable.
Thank you,
Mike Blowers
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1325 Rolling Hill Drive
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