11/15/1999 Meeting Minutes - Laserfiche WebLink

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Thoughts on the Widening of SOM Center Road When my husband and I moved to Mayfield Village 7 years ago, we chose this community because of its natural beauty. The fact that there are good roads and accessible shopping centers influenced us, but the natural ambiance that pervades so much of this community was the decisive factor. While SOM north of Wilson mills is not rural, it has a country flavor with a few houses, many woods and a couple of cemeteries. This is a lovely entrance or exit to our community. Put a small shopping center here; or put up a McDonalds or a Burger King on the west side instead of residences and it bursts the bubble of insulation from the commercial world. It destroys the central beauty of our unique community. I realize that there are traffic problems in Mayfield Village. As I analyze them, it is the intersection of I-271 and Wilson Mills that is the biggest problem, not SOM itself. Widening SOM to a total of 4,6 or 81anes will not solve this bigger issue. We desperately need another exit. I believe that the council should expedite a request to ODOT to build a new exit on White Road to solve this problem. When council voted to allow Progressive to build offices off SOM we as a community accepted the responsibility to adapt to changes that this change would bring. Certainly SOM needs to be widened but the question is how much. I am concerned that the plan that calls for a center strip of trees would be equivalent to widening SOM an additional 4 to 6 lanes. It would so dramatically narrow the residential properties that they would become unlivable. We do not want to force residential owners to sell out to developers by running a road within twenty feet of their front doors. Let us not fool ourselves. A shopping center across from the cemetery would be an eye sore. We are leaving our ~~ community open to this kind of development if we widen SOM too far. I would like to request that maintenance put stakes in front of the historic house to show the community how much of the yard would become road under each of the proposed plans. Please ~~ make this concrete for our community so we can assess the proposed plans carefully. As I count it, there are about 12 residences on the West side of SOM and about 12 on the East that would be affected by the widening of SOM. In order to prevent an overwhelming impact on either side •I would like to propose that one lane is added to the east side and one to the west to minimize the affect on all homeowners. •In cases where it is possible to curve the road away from residential land and toward the cemetery, toward the baseball field or toward the Metro park, I would recommend doing this to avoid taking residential land. •This plan would necessitate moving the bike path. But bikes are quiet. To move the path closer to the cemetery on the east side of SOM, or run it behind the residential properties on the west side are both good options. •When non-residential land is available, I would like to see turn lanes built to ease traffic flow. In addition, lane lights could be installed to allow three lanes of traffic to run in one direction or the other during the hours of heaviest traffic. This cormunity is a beautiful, unique community. But let us not allow SOM north of ' Wilso,,n Mills to be commercially developed. I hope that each of you council members who represent us will consider carefully how to preserve the most central character of our community-its natural beauty. Sincerely, Linda Butler, Acting President, Wetlands Committee, 817 Hanover Road.