Seeking solutions: county considers new subdivision regulations

Published 2:31 pm Tuesday, August 15, 2023

At the Aug. 7 meeting of the Limestone County Commission, more than 300 new subdivision lots were approved in District 2. In 2022, more than 2,300 new lots were approved countywide. With the unprecedented growth being experienced in Limestone County, especially in eastern parts of the county, the commission is considering changes to the current subdivision regulations.

The News Courier spoke with Limestone County engineer Marc Massey about the proposed changes and issues the county has faced that led to the proposed changes.

“If we don’t find solutions now, then the things that are affecting east Limestone County will be affecting west Limestone County as we continue to grow. Let’s find some good solutions that we can regulate and allow smarter growth to happen within Limestone County,” Massey said.

Massey realizes that there are no perfect solutions to the issues Limestone County is facing, but when a public hearing is held at 9 a.m. on Sept. 5, 2023, during the commission’s work session meeting to discuss the proposed changes, he is hopeful that the public is willing to give helpful options and alternative solutions if they have them.

There are several changes to the subdivision regulations and Massey explained the following ones.

• Provision to ensure that any apartment or rental community must comply with these regulations

“Currently, unless they are actually dividing a piece of property, then our regulations don’t apply. You take a 20-acre piece of property and it stays a 20-acre piece of property, you can pretty well do anything you want to with it. We have some apartments that are being built and some rental communities that are being built in unincorporated Limestone County and they are staying one piece of property and one property owner, but there (are) going to be multiple residences on the same piece of property. The access management is not being looked at. The stormwater is not being looked at. Construction is not being reviewed,” Massey said.

The new provisions would give the county the ability to review these types of properties just as they would a new development in which the property was subdivided.

• Requirement to mitigate construction storm-water runoff to ensure no increase during construction phase

“Storm-water is a difficult issue. Usually during the construction phase of anything, because the nature of the soils, when they strip a property, especially like farmland or forested land, you get an increased amount of storm-water. The way our regulations are right now, they have to provide retention or detention to pre-development versus post. Pre doing anything, existing conditions, there is a certain amount of storm-water runoff. Once they are completed, the house and streets are built, there is a certain amount of runoff. They have to reduce the runoff rate to what was previously coming from that property.

“There is a period of time when that runoff rate will increase because bare land will allow more water runoff. People around the development are actually impacted negatively during that time. What we are wanting to do is put a requirement for their engineering and design calculations and take that into account and propose to us a solution for them to handle that additional runoff during the construction phase,” Massey said.

• A requirement for developer to obtain a traffic study in which the County determines the limits and scopes of the study

“Our current regulations don’t have any method for requiring that. When a developer creates a new intersecting road, that new intersecting road — the more houses they build off that entrance — At some point, it triggers a requirement for turn lanes, stop signs or whatever the case may be. At this point, because we don’t have a mechanism to require the developer to do that study or do that review and determine when that is required so that we can make the developer build it at the appropriate time.

“A lot of times, the way these studies look, Phase 1 is not going to require it. They aren’t going to have enough houses there to impact that thru roadway. Phase 2 may require a left turn lane because of the amount of traffic. This would require the developer to build that turn lane when they build Phase 2 of their subdivision.

“It’s to identify at what point and what measures need to be included in the construction process of the subdivision, depending on how they are impacting the existing county road. It would keep the county from having to go out there and do it after the fact,” Massey said.

• Clarified that when the construction of the development requires work on county roads, the entire affected construction area is to be paved.

“Most of our developers do this already. We just don’t have it in writing in our regulations. Let’s say they have to widen the road, they are going to tie into our road and they have elected to put in a turn lane. Currently, they could just match up to our existing road, and we end up with a joint right there matched up to our existing road. A lot of times, those joints get water in them and the joint fails. We end up with a really bad potholed section right there. This would require an overlay of that section,” Massey said.

• Added language to increase the size of lots on existing roads based on speed limits.

“We have several places, and it’s more in District 1, District 2 and part of District 3, where somebody buys a 40=acre field. It might have 1,000 feet of road frontage. They divide the 60-foot lot all the way down the 1,000-foot of road frontage. So, there’s all these driveways intersecting the road with a 45 mph speed limit,” Massey said. “People end up parking in the driveway, which is fine normally, but on a high-speed road, one neighbor gets ready to back out of his driveway to leave and, the neighbor next door, they can’t see past their vehicle that’s parked in their driveway. This creates a dangerous situation.

“What we want to do, is require a wider lot so that there is more driveway spacing. On higher speed roads, it gives the homeowner pulling out and the people traveling that road an ability to, when they see a potential issue, they have a greater distance to react to it. It’s a visibility issue,” he said. “Whatever we do, we have to keep in mind we are talking about the safety of the citizens of Limestone County. Whatever solution ends up being in that spot, it’s got to account for the safety of the traveling public in Limestone County.

“I want safety for the traveling public and longevity for maintenance. Those are the things we are trying to make sure we have in place. The goal is to not have to go back and redo and cost the citizens money when we could have taken care of when it was the developers’ money and the developer would have been happy to do it,” Massey said.

The proposed subdivision regulation changes are currently on the Limestone Commission’s website for public review, and Massey urges people to help in finding a solution to some of the County’s growing pains.

“This whole 30-day review process, it’s not about jamming something down anybody’s throat. It’s not about saying ‘This is what’s going to happen.’ It’s about, ‘Hey, if is the world you work in or the world you live in, take a look at it, make some comments to us, bring some alternative solutions with alternative perspective.’ Let’s find something that makes the most sense for Limestone County. Just because I put it down on paper does not make it necessarily the best,” Massey said. “With others’ perspectives, we might find a more elegant solution. That’s the goal.”