Yet another proposed development in Murfreesboro has resulted in a struggle between area homeowners and a developer, another chapter in the local topic of balancing preserving green space with growth.

Many residents near the greenway and Cason Lane stand opposed to a new development, Hidden River Estates, and have made their opinions known to the Murfreesboro City Council at a January 2020 public hearing. The City Council considered a request to rezone the property in question to allow a large development of this density, and weeks later approved the rezoning on first reading, allowing the project to move forward.

The concerns of residents include preserving the wildlife in the area, the impact the new development will have on traffic and issues related to what they see as a shifting quality of life in the city of Murfreesboro.

Hidden River Estates, a neighborhood planned by Brian Burns of Blue Sky Construction, would bring affordable luxury housing to Murfreesboro, according to the developer. In the original proposal, the number of houses to be built were 384. Currently, that number has risen to over 700 units. The homes will be all smart homes, equipped with water-reducing toilets, Nest smart thermostats, Samsung SmartThings kits and energy-conserving roofing material. The neighborhood will feature a swimming pool, kayak launch and its own restaurant, with home prices ranging from $200,000 to $1,000,000. The entire project will take an estimated 10 years to complete.

Although many are concerned about the issues this could cause for the wildlife and traffic, the Murfreesboro Greenway will not be disturbed, according to plans.

Murfreesboro City Councilman Bill Shacklett said Hidden River Estates sounds like “a quality development, a good project” but he could not support it at this time due to the existing stress on the infrastructure in the area.

“With the stress on [highways] 96 and on 99 and with the difficulty I see with getting around during certain times of the day, I just can’t support it,” he said. “It’s just the wrong time.”

Some residents are so upset about the new development that they are moving out of the neighborhood. Says a former resident by the name of Tavner McKelley, “We couldn’t handle the nonstop noise from the chainsaws and clearing equipment that the developer has already begun . . . so we moved out of Murfreesboro two weeks ago. We purchased the house five years ago based on the fact that it backed up to the Greenway and the 2035 Master Plan published by the City of Murfreesboro led us to believe that the land between the home we purchased and the Greenway at Cason Trail would not be developed because it’s in a very high-risk FEMA flood zone. We also enjoyed having so much wildlife in our backyard which has been pushed out since the developer has started clearing. The last straw for me and my husband was seeing that the developer had set up deer stands to bow-hunt the wildlife that we had watched be born and grow up over the years. Even though it seems very unsafe being so close to neighborhoods, homes and the Greenway bike path, it’s apparently not illegal.”

Currently, there are at least two dozen homes in the Cason Grove neighborhood for sale. Other residents are concerned about how this will affect the property value of their homes. Some residents question the changing character of Murfreesboro as acres of trees are cut down and replaced with concrete and homes. Some are worried about a traffic increase that would come with this new development and dealing with the noise of the construction of these new homes, along with possible additional tax increases.

McKelley and other people in the community near the Hidden River Estates proposal created a group in protest of this new project by the name of Preserve Our Green Spaces. Preserve Our Green Spaces started as a Facebook page to inform the community about the proposed rezoning request that would drastically change the neighborhood. The page has grown to over 1,000 followers, coupled with an online petition to stop the plans of the development from moving forward that has close to 8,000 signatures.

Preserve Our Green Spaces got started calling the City Council in December 2018, asking them to consider the many reasons why the rezoning request should not be approved, according to McKelley.

When asked about the main goal Preserve Our Green Spaces wanted to achieve, McKelley responded, “To get the City Council to listen and consider how the proposed use of the land that could be rezoned would hurt the city and the neighborhood. The development [Hidden River Estates] would include hundreds of condos and add thousands of cars to small neighborhood streets and two major intersections that cannot handle more traffic.”

Officials with Blue Sky and the City of Murfreesboro said they did take the improvement of area roadways into account as the plans progressed.

The Hidden River Estates development will have multiple access roads. Cason Trail will be accessible to the southern entrance with Racquet Club Drive being accessible to the northwestern entrance, and the middle development accessible through Eastview Drive, which will be extended, built prior to the development site.

The developer has acquired an additional 16 acres on the southern side of Cason Trail to create a direct connection between the existing public roadways and the new development to Highway 99, New Salem Highway.

According to city officials, the constructed roadway will be completed prior to the construction of Phase 1 of the Hidden River Estates development, to allow for the new connection to serve as construction access for the Hidden River Estates development. Although this particular road is the main concern for residents right now, there are additional plans for more road construction in the Salem Road and Warrior Drive areas.

“We have a 10-year project for our buildout and the roadway improvements are slated to be ahead of us,” stated Bill Huddleston of Huddleston-Steele Engineering, representing the developer at the city council meeting on Jan. 9.

Councilman Ronnie Martin pointed out that the neighbors’ involvement in the process had helped shape and improve the project.

“There has been a tremendous amount of change in this plan from when it was originally presented,” Martin stated at the Jan. 30 City Council meeting, prior to casting his vote in favor of the rezoning. “There have certainly been things that have been done different because of you,” he stated to a group involved in the Preserve Our Green Spaces effort.

Sam Huddleston, executive director for the City of Murfreesboro Development Services Division, agreed that residents’ “involvement in this has had a huge impact in changing the shape and the outcome of the development” and that the new roadways could benefit the existing residents.

“This connection to New Salem Highway is a very significant development. It provides another way in and out of the River Rock area for residents there,” he said. The new road would also give the public easier access to the Greenway at Cason Trailhead.

Another area resident and a member of Preserve Our Green Spaces, Mariah Phillips, said that although many neighbors had been working for over a year on opposing the project, “it’s looking like the city will approve. The developer promised the city a new road, and that seems to be the magic bullet to approval.”

Though she brings up concerns about whether the developer will actually have the ability to complete this grand plan, and says that the city should require independent traffic studies on zoning change requests.

“I think that should be a requirement for any zoning change,” Phillips says. “Density is one of the factors considered in the original zoning.”

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You can follow the group Preserve Our Green Spaces on Facebook or find their petition on change.org; find contact information for the Murfreesboro City Council and other city officials more on upcoming Murfreesboro business at murfreesborotn.gov.