Grigsby area sites pitched again
Sal Gauldiano once again is requesting to rezone property he owns on which Farragut Board of Mayor and Aldermen turned down a proposal to rezone two years ago.
The proposal, before Farragut Municipal Planning Commission during its Thursday, Aug. 18, meeting, includes the rezoning of two separate parcels.
The first would be 11 acres off Grigsby Chapel Road and adjacent to Westside Unitarian Uni-versalist Church. It would be rezoned to S1, a community service zoning district type that allows for assisted care living facilities. Currently the land is zoned R-2, general single family residential.
The second, which Gauldiano said would be developed after the one on Grigsby Chapel with approval — possibly 5 to 6 years from now — would be between Chapel Point and Interstate 40-75, also bordering on the proposed S1 zone.
It would be rezoned from R-2, general single family residential and flood plain district, to R-4, attached single family residential, and FPD. In total, the property rezoned would be 19.73 acres.
“I am trying to work and have the least intrusive use, and this is it,” Gauldiano said.
The proposal faced criticism, as it did the previous two times Gauldiano proposed rezoning the property.
“I seem to have the only property in Town that can’t be developed in this area,” Gauldiano said.
“Why don’t you buy the property and build a park?” he asked, in reference to what the Town should do if it does not want the property developed.
Mark Shipley, Community Development director, and Mul Wyman, Farragut resident, both said the S1 zone should have a vehicular connection to Fretz Road as well as the presently available one to Grigsby Chapel Road. Wyman proposed the new access route be part of an east-west connector between Fretz Road and Campbell Lakes Drive.
“Whatever is developed, right now there’s only one way to get in and get out,” he said regarding the proposed development’s access from Grigsby Chapel.
While FMPC did not vote on the item, several commissioners criticized the proposal.
“I do not want to see another elderly housing [unit] 20 feet off a major road in this Town,” Rose Ann Kile said.
Betty Dick said she wanted to see how the two other homes for the elderly, Autumn Care along Herron Road and Goodworks LLC along Smith Road, did before approving the proposal.
“Elderly people don’t spend too much … I don’t want a town of elderly people,” she said.
Ed Whiting said, “... We need a concept of what the vision is of that development … I don’t think that’s real clear.”
BOMA turned down an earlier 2014 attempt to rezone 5 acres of the land in the current proposal, as well as one earlier proposal.
