Supervisors order traffic study for c-store
Dozens of angry Lake Caroline and Ashbrooke residents piled into a meeting of the Madison County Board of Supervisors on Monday to voice their opposition to a proposed convenience store at the entrance to Lake Caroline.
A site plan for Stribling Market, an 8-pump convenience store planned for the the corner of Stribling Road and Caroline Boulevard, was not on the agenda Monday, but supervisors allowed residents to speak anyway.
“We are three votes away from this ugly reality,” Jeanie Watkins of Lake Caroline said, telling supervisors they have “galvanized a community of people that up to now have been politically agnostic.”
Her husband, Mickey Watkins, said the residents were “energized and not going away.”
He called any gas station or convenience store on that site an eyesore, environmental disaster waiting to happen, and inappropriate for bedroom communities.
“Let businesses build around other businesses and let neighborhoods be surrounded by other neighborhoods,” he said. “While Mr. developer may have money, he only has one vote.”
Melissa Love of Ashbrooke said she and her neighbors were concerned of decreasing property values, citing a research study that showed homes within a 300-foot radius of gas stations lose property value. She also suggested an environmental study be done.
Andy Clark, an attorney for the Madison County Planning & Zoning Commission, told supervisors the site plan would likely not appear before the board for some months if the county requests a traffic study.
Mark Jordan, the developer of Lake Caroline under Lake Caroline Incorporated, had asked to present the site plan for approval in August.
Supervisors then went on to request a traffic study, not only for Stribling Market, but for all of Stribling Road. And it was ordered to begin in September-October when school was in session and there was a more accurate traffic count to report.
“We have a traffic problem, we all know that,” District 4 Supervisor Karl Banks said. “The county must do a traffic study — period. We have 55 acres of commercial property there to be developed. We have a traffic issue that has been growing for the last 10 years, getting worse and worse.”
He added, “We need a traffic study that can carry us forward and not just for this convenience store.”
The board ultimately approved to hire Kiser Traffic and Engineering to perform the study, with Banks saying the county needed to do this and not the developer.
“If we leave it up to the developer to do a traffic study he’s just going to do a Band-Aid deal,” he said.
The property is question has been zoned C-2 since the late 1980s when the first Lake Caroline Master Plan was approved by supervisors.
The Madison County Planning & Zoning Commission in June recommended approval of the site plan following a traffic study and approval for retention ponds.
Jordan was not present at the June 8 P&Z meeting, nor was he present at Monday’s meeting.