Billy Pritchard. Photo by Solomon Crenshaw Jr.
The Mountain Brook City Council got answers to citizen questions about the combined effect of three projects in the vicinity of Mountain Brook Village on traffic and stormwater drainage.
Engineers told the panel that the combined results of the three projects would have negligible to no effect on the area. But councilmembers were skeptical that drainage would not be more impacted as vital information was not available.
The three projects include:
- Heathermoor, the redevelopment of 16 condominiums on Cahaba Road.
- The conversion of the former Shades Valley Presbyterian Church property to 43 residential units
- The conversion of the Village Dermatology building on Cahaba Road to 165 senior housing units.
Jim Meads of Sain Associates said projections of traffic in the area “awash in terms of traffic projections. The end result of all that is really a negligible effect on what we had planned for our overall project.”
Meads confirmed that his analysis is for a fully functioning property, not the partially vacant building on Cahaba Road.
“When you add all three sites together,” he said, “it's less than what we had planned for as part of our overall (analysis).”
William Thomas of Schoel Engineering said developers of the proposed senior living facility have not yet provided anything beyond a site plan.
“There's been no design done on the site,” he said. “They don't have the stormwater management scheme or design concepts. We don't even have a hypothetical so we really can't try to evaluate the impacts of this site.”
Billy Pritchard said not having a stormwater management plan is putting the cart before the horse.
“They'll never be able to get anything approved,” he said. “It seems like you'd want to have that known before you got an up and down vote. If you got to a yes vote you couldn't adequately provide a stormwater management plan, it's not going to ever go forward.”
Craig Ogard appeared at the pre-council meeting, repeating his concern about calming traffic on Halbrook Lane. After approving a $7,000 contract renewal for traffic engineer Richard Caudle, the council asked him to create a design for calming traffic by Feb. 12.
The council approved an agreement with the City of Birmingham for Mountain Brook to participate with as much as $50,000 in a drainage project on Montclair Road in conjunction with the planned TAP sidewalk project.
Council members also passed an ordinance creating a one-way operation of Winthrop Avenue between Alden Lane and Overbrook Road and to provide punishment for offenders. The ordinance passed 3-2 with Lloyd Shelton and Graham Smith voting no.
In other business, the council:
- Approved Public Works Director Ronnie Vaughn’s list of 2024 street paving projects.
- Authorized the contractor agreement with The Bridge Builders of Alabama for the Parkway Bridge Restoration Project.
- Authorized the contractor agreement with JP Painting Company for the Public Works Department painting project.
- Authorized the contractor agreement with B Group Architecture for the design and construction documents for the Public Works Building.
- Authorized the sale or disposal of certain surplus property.
- Awarded the bid for construction Shop Supervisor Ford F-150 XLT for use by the Public Works Department.
- Approved change order No 5 for the Jemison Trail Nature Trail Improvement Project.
- Authorized the execution of the MWCF Deductible Addendum 2024 for the $300,000 deductible workers’ compensation insurance coverage and claims administration services for the policy year beginning Feb. 1, 2024.
- Passed an ordinance amending Chapter 117 of the City Code regarding flood damage prevention.
- Reappointed Mary Evelyn McKee to the Board of Landscape Design.
The next meeting of the city council will be 7 p.m. on Feb. 12.
