Hoover residents plead to kill two road projects in comprehensive plan

Hoover residents tonight pleaded with the Hoover Planning and Zoning Commission to kill two road projects proposed in a draft version of the city’s comprehensive plan.

Numerous residents along Shades Crest Road told the nine-member commission they don’t like the idea of building a road down Shades Mountain between Shades Crest Road and Ross Bridge Parkway.

Others who live in Cahaba River Estates objected to building a road to connect Hoover High School with the main road through their neighborhood, providing an alternative way out of Trace Crossings.

The proposed road going up and down Shades Mountain would give Ross Bridge residents a quicker way to get to and from central Hoover, and those on top of the mountain a faster way to Ross Bridge.

But residents along Shades Crest Road and the president of the Friends of Shades Mountain group argued that such a road would destroy a huge swath of forest on the mountain, open up other land along the mountain to development and add traffic to Shades Crest Road.

“Shades Crest Road already is overburdened with traffic. It can’t stand any more traffic,” resident Bob Rast told the commission.

Jerry Smith, another resident, said he and his wife moved to the top of Shades Mountain in 2012 because of the breathtaking view and he’s worried a new road would mess that up and displace wildlife.

Larry Roddick, president of the Friends of Shades Mountain, noted that the comprehensive plan labeled the proposed road as Scenic View Drive. “You already have a scenic byway — Shades Crest Road,” he said. “It is a beautiful scenic drive that many people come to enjoy.” But as for the new connector road to Ross Bridge, “it was not a good idea 15 years ago. It’s still not a good idea,” Roddick said.

The proposed road linking Hoover High School with Cahaba River Estates is designed to provide some traffic relief for the Trace Crossings community and give an alternative access point for Hoover High School, City Planner Mac Martin said.

The situation now is that the largest high school in the state essentially has one way in and out through Stadium Trace Parkway, he said. Connecting to the road in Cahaba River Estates would provide another way to access John Hawkins Parkway, he said.

Bobby Carmichael, president of the Cahaba River Estates Home Owners Association, said such a connector road would be cost-prohibitive because the current main road through Cahaba River Estates would require a tremendous amount of work to begin serving much more traffic.

It was built as a rural road to serve a community that is still very rural in nature and doesn’t meet all the standards of most roads in Hoover, Carmichael and other residents said.  It’s very curvy and narrow and doesn’t have shoulders, they said.

Plus, “the tranquility and peace of our neighborhood would be totally disrupted,” Carmichael said. “The traffic would be unbelievable with people taking a shortcut trying to get around Stadium Trace.”

They’re concerned it would destroy the rural, secluded nature of their community, residents said.

Barry Vickery, another resident of Cahaba River Estates, said security also is a concern. Right now, there is only one way in and out of their neighborhood, and that’s a big deterrent to criminals, he said.

“They are going to think twice about trying to come in there and rob somebody, knowing that when they start to leave, there’s a policeman waiting on them,” Vickery said.

Paul Elkourie, another resident, said it would be much easier and less expensive to connect with a road in the Willow Trace section of Trace Crossings, where roads already are built to Hoover standards. However, he wouldn’t wish that connection on those residents either, he said.

Hoover City Administrator Allan Rice, who sits on the Planning and Zoning Commission, in the past has said the Willow Trace exit also is an option, but city leaders were concerned that the exit onto John Hawkins Parkway from Willow Trace is not far enough away from Stadium Trace Parkway to make much of a difference in traffic congestion.

Rice tonight said the proposed connector from the high school to Cahaba River Estates is one of 24 options being considered as an alternative route out of Trace Crossings. Those options would cost anywhere from $3.5 million to $35 million and are still being evaluated, he said.

“We’re a long way from being able to come forward and suggest a particular route,” Rice said.

Hoover Councilman Mike Shaw, the council’s representative on the planning commission, said the planning commission might want to back off some of the specifics in the plan and leave room for further analysis. While the comprehensive plan is not a binding document that sets ideas in stone, it does create some expectations for things to happen. He doesn’t want the city to be “painting ourselves into a corner.”

Planning commission Chairman Mike Wood said he thinks the commission will need to go through the 188-page plan front to back with a thorough review. “I think it’s a process that’s going to take a while,” he said.

Commissioner Nathan Reed said he agrees the commission should discuss the plan from front to back, but he doesn’t think they should be taking things out and “chopping it up and shooting it up like swiss cheese” because it is just conceptual in nature and nothing is set in concrete. Everybody is not going to agree on everything, and if they start taking things out, they might never get a true plan, he said.

Commissioner Carl West said Martin did a great job putting the plan together, but it’s a 20-year plan and the commission doesn’t need to rush into anything and make a snap decision.

“I don’t know what I’m going to be doing 20 hours from now,” he said. “We need to make sure this is well-thought out with some room in there to play if we need to make changes.”

Commissioner Ben Wieseman, who is a certified planner, said that he was very impressed with the job done by staff and that the public seems to have accepted the overall vision of the plan, which was first presented publicly in early October. It’s impressive that the only complaints in tonight’s public hearing were with some specific elements of the plan, he said.

Wood said he still sees some things he would like to change. He asked commissioners to plan on discussing it in their Feb. 7 work session at 5 p.m.

See a summary of some of the plan’s findings here and view the 188-page plan in its entirety at futurehoover.com.