#Environment    #tennessee wildlife    #environmental advocation    #native wildlife    #Rezoning rural    #Rural Towns   

The property in Collegedale, Tennessee, where the well known Hidden Hills Farm business is currently located, is an invaluable asset to the city. Not only does this property contain an important cultural & historical aspect of this city, it is an extremely ecologically important area, with the majority of the 600 acres being natural and undeveloped, woodland, valleys, creeks, and refuge for native wildlife. The recent rezoning request submitted by Empire Communities, a Canadian based company, seeks to do away with this rich, gorgeous land and replace it with 591 upscale homes and townhouses that do not match the surrounding neighborhoods in terms of architecture, safety, and density. By signing this petition, you are standing with the people of Collegedale and asking the zoning committee to maintain this property of 600 acres and its status as an agricultural plot.

Possible consequences of the rezoning of this property includes, but is not limited to:

• Edgmon Road and Lee Highway already experience a heavy burden of traffic. With the addition of this neighborhood, an estimated 1,200 vehicles from new residents as well as additional traffic from construction, delivery, solicitor, family/friends, and service vehicles traveling in and out will be added to this bottleneck, only furthering the issue.
• With the addition of just this neighborhood, the entire population of Collegedale will increase 25%. This is absurd, and the sudden population increase will cause massive issues with infrastructure, including local schooling systems, businesses, roads, utilities, emergency services, etc.
• With this neighborhood existing adjacent to an extremely active train track, many traffic and safety issues will inevitably arrive such as daily traffic jams along Lee Highway & Edgmon Road, delayed response time for emergency services, increased risk of hazards/wrecks at this intersection, etc.
• The environmental issues that would occur from this construction include displacement of local wildlife & plantlilfe, decrease in surrounding water & air quality, noise pollution, mass deforestation of hundreds of acres, topsoil erosion, flooding, extreme runoff into local streams, creeks, & overloaded sewer systems, groundwater pollution, etc.
• With this property existing in a flood-prone area, this future neighborhood and the nearly 600 homes would experience the brunt of local weather and possible natural disasters, especially after the destruction of natural preventatives of flooding such as trees, topsoil, and vegetation.
• This property has been claimed to be a similar to other nearby locations where several Native American artifacts have been found, as well as it being a historical location of a traveling/resting point for soldiers during the Civil War. This would mean the possible destruction of ancient Native American artifacts as well as an important historical route in the Civil War.
• The construction of these half-a-million dollar homes and town houses before a predicted recession will cause drastically higher property taxes for local citizens as well as possible financial issues.
• The current designs, proposed densities, and houses per acre for the Empire Communities developments bear no resemblance to the style, density, acreage, and flow of the surrounding residencies.
• The addition of 591 high price homes in Collegedale will not expand the availability and affordable housing in Collegedale, it will actually decrease the availability as existing housing prices commensurate with those of the new houses.
• The property, landscape, and business of Hidden Hills Farm has become a great bringer of local revenue, with not only locals coming to enjoy this irreplaceable, natural gem, but tourists from hundreds of miles away. By destroying this land, a great source of local revenue as well as tourism will be gone forever.