Why are we opposed to this development?

1) More Traffic Congestion. Ariza Bellevue will have a single point of access and push all of the traffic impacts of hundred of new apartment residents onto Coley Davis Rd. Traffic on Coley Davis Rd. is expected to increase by more than 50% due to this project, which requires significant improvements to infrastructure to accomodate new traffic. Coley Davis Rd., a two-land access road that connects with 70S and dead ends at an electric substation, already serves the sole means of access for more than 2,500 residents and is regularly congested during soccer events. The developer’s traffic study for the project does not reflect cumulative impacts from using the bridge for the sole point of vehicular access to Bellevue Park or from additional independent living units currently under construction on Coley Davis Rd., and relies on base traffic data collected in May 2021, a time when more than 40% of MNPS children were not attending school in person and many, if not most, adults were working at home. This developer is proposing improvements to Coley Davis Rd., which currently site atop a raised levee, to support its SP request but Metro has not conducted a Local Planning Study to address the best design and future plans for this critical access road. This proposed project allows a private out-of-state developer to dictate the design of Coley Davis Rd. with no meaningful community input or long-term planning, and leaves more than 2000 existing residents dependent upon a private out-of-state developer to manage access to their homes across a sensitive flood plain until the new road has been constructed.

2) Heightened Flood Risks. It is unprecedented to approve a land use change for a large, high-density apartment project on the banks of the Harpeth River, one of the only free flowing rivers in the state. The cumulative runoff from upstream Williamson County flows through this sharp bend of the Harpeth River, which is a location of repeated flooding in Bellevue. Ariza Bellevue’s developer seeks to construct five 3-4 story apartment buildings with concrete parking for nearly 600 cars just outside of the flood zone. This would place impermeable concrete over almost the entire footprint of a buildable parcel that is currently in a natural state and serves to absorb rainfall and manage flooding. Under existing law, to obtain permits the developer is required to retain all rainfall on the property based on average annual rainfall and design the project to a 100-year flow standard. However, the average rainfall data for Nashville was last compiled in the NOAA Atlas 14 more than a decade ago (in 2011) and FEMA’s Administrator has recently warned that the 100-year flood map routinely used to plan and design storm water retention does not reflect the severity and increased frequency of recent storms associated with climate change. The lived experiences of Bellevue residents confirms an increased frequency and severity of recent rainfall and flooding in the area, and there have been multiple 100-year flood events on this very property over the past decade. Existing storm water regulations based on historical average rainfall set the floor—not the ceiling—for flood risk mitigation in land use planning. Regulators and the developer of Ariza Bellevue have moral and legal responsibilities to protect against additional flooding that is foreseeable and to avoid adding to flood management problems in this sensitive area. Even if this project is designed to the usual permitting standards of retaining water based on historical rainfall averages and is consistent with the current 100-year flood map, additional storm mitigation measures would be needed to account for the flood risks of an increased frequency and severity of rainfall events over the past decade and the cumulative impacts of upstream underdesign of stormwater retention on flood risks for downstream residents.

MUST READ! - GREAT OVERVIEW OF THE CONCERNS WRITEN BY THE HARPETH CONSERVANCY GROUP

3) Serious Safety Concerns. This project would sit at the highest elevation of a peninsula surrounded by flood plain. Coley Davis Rd. needs to be elevated outside of the moderate flood hazard area (which represents a .2% to 1% annual flood risk each year), but there has been no Local Planning Study with community input about the design options for this access road, which sits stop a narrow levee. A proposed gated emergency access connection for Ariza Bellevue requires crossing railroad tracks via Morton Mill Rd. in an area that floods even more often—hardly a dependable emergency access or evacuation route for new apartment residents. This new project also makes a bad safety situation for existing residents, including senior residents in the Meadows community, worse. Hundreds of emergency vehicles travel over Coley Davis Rd. each year to address the urgent care and safety concern of residents who live in the area. These vehicles need clear access on the road in times of emergency, but Ariza Bellevue would present new risks of delays in critical emergency medical treatment, a life-death safety risk for senior residents and others in the area with urgent medical needs. This is a public road that more than 2500 residents depend on daily, and like other public roads in Nashville Metro has an obligation to invest in infrastructure improvements related to them. These risks should not be managed by and dependent on the decisions of a private developer, and no private project requiring new road designs should be allowed to move ahead until Metro government has conducted its own study and design for this critical access road and its long-term future. Click here to see video footage of the firetruck getting stuck on Morton Mill Rd (the proposed emergency exit street location)

4) More School Crowding. School crowding is a real issue in Bellevue, especially in elementary schools that are absorbing 5th grade students as well as K-4. Estimates of the number of school-aged children from this proposed project vary but at a minimum, the hundreds of new residents of Ariza Bellevue would include enough elementary-age school children that the equivalent of one new classroom would be likely required at Harpeth Valley Elementary School. Approval of this proposal, which has the capacity to grow Bellevue’s population by more than 1%, will accelerate demands for new elementary classrooms and school rezoning in the community.

5) Cost to Taxpayers and no Significant Benefits for Bellevue Residents. Cypressbook, the Houston, Texas developer of Ariza Bellevue, has built eight multifamily projects (in Texas, with one in Florida and one in Alabama), all with fewer units than Ariza Bellevue. As a merchant multifamily developer, Cypressbrook routinely sells these projects once they stabilize and according to its website it has only held onto ownership of one of these projects (in Texas) for more than three years after occupancy. The developer is pitching its project as a “public/private” partnership that would offer a number of “free” benefits, including a bike path extension of less than half of a mile through a flood zone and the private developer’s reconstruction of Coley Davis Rd. However, based on the developer’s track record, it is likely to sell the project to pay its investors once it stabilizes and it cannot be assumed that it will be a long term partner with Metro. Promising new amenities as a quid pro quo for changing Bellevue’s Community plan and rezoning this parcel to fit this developer’s project will burden taxpayers long after the developer has left the picture, as Metro will be responsible for maintenance and upkeep costs. Many Bellevue residents question the value of the benefits the project offers too. Metro already owns a pedestrian bridge that connects to a large parcel of land (known as Bellevue Park, from land donated by the Frist family), adjacent to 1084 Morton Mill Rd. Residents already have an existing, unpaved pathway along the west side of Bellevue Park that can provide access to the greenway at a higher elevation than the proposed Ariza Bellevue bike path. This proposed development would provide vehicular access to Bellevue Park, there has been no makes no investment in public parking to access Bellevue Park and its amenities, allowing private Ariza Bellevue tenants to enjoy access to a public park while other Bellevue residents (especially those entering off Coley Davis Rd.) have no parking to access the park. Metro has not planned or budgeted for public access to any public access facilities for Bellevue Park, not has it made any commitments to preserve existing amenities in the park (such as the current access path and a cemetery) during and after construction. Nor has an archeological study of this parcel been conducted, even though there is a good probability that land with these topographical conditions on the Harpeth contains important historical artifacts. Relying on a private developer to reconstruct unsafe public infrastructure without any Local Planning Process and to provide limited access to Bellevue Park, before Metro Parks has even developed a Master Plan for the park and its amenities, places the cart before the horse. 

6) Inconsistent and Incompatible with Bellevue’s Community Plan. Growth is inevitable—and is already encouraged in many areas of Bellevue—but it is not inappropriate to develop the parcel at 1084 Morton Mill Rd. for 417 high-density apartment units. Bellevue’s Community Plan places this parcel in the Green Network and applies a Conservation Overlay policy to it. Singling out an undeveloped parcel of land at the end of a residential street on a bend of the Harpeth River to support five 3-4 story apartment buildings for over 700 residents (a scale and density of growth that exceeds development occurring on nearby commercial corridors in Bellevue), is not consistent or compatible with surrounding property uses or transect and zoning designations for this parcel. Bellevue’s Community Plan (adopted in 2017) provides legally significant principles and considerations for the Planning Commission to use in evaluating the the harmony and compatibility of requested land use changes concerning the density of development for this parcel. Bellevue’s Community Plan deliberately embraces preservation zoning for all undeveloped land along the Harpeth River (including this parcel), striking a balance between rural and suburban property uses; it embraces this diversity in zoning as a part of the community’s signature identity, for land resilience and flood protection, and as a tool to help spread the burdens of growth. The current AR zoning designation for the unique parcel at 1084 Morton Mill Rd. (the same zoning designation used on the next bend of the river downstream, which is a residential community of 9 single-family homes) works for the community, and produces a number of benefits such as flood control and preserving a balanced approach to growth. Existing zoning does not disfavor future development on this parcel but would allow this 43-acre property to be developed for residential use (with 1 home per every 2 acres), allowing both the current property owner and a developer to make a substantial profit; even if some zoning changes were in order, less dense forms of zoning could be used to facilitate residential development on the property. Requests for “new” or public CSX rail crossings (such as those being sought by the Ariza Bellevue developers) are extraordinarily difficult to obtain, but there is already a private drive easement for this property that supports 12 vehicle crossings per day, and that could definitely support a handful of residential homes. According to CSX’s published policies, it would not object to a private access road (building on an existing gravel crossing for 1084 Morton Mill Rd.) to cross the railroad tracks for “landlocked” properties such as this one to access a limited number of residential properties—supporting lighter density development of this property. Rezoning this property to accommodate conversion from a single tenant horse farm to a high-density apartment complex for over 700 residents, at the maximum allowable height, runs rough shed over the policies in Bellevue’s Community Plan. This is exactly the kind of ad hoc, wild swing in land use that Bellevue’s Community Plan and existing zoning designations are designed to protect against.