Commissioners voted 5-1 to amend zoning for the former Wedgewood Golf Course, swapping many of the apartments for townhomes and adding a second access point for drivers. Commissioner Guy LaLonde Jr. dissented.
The approval followed almost three hours of discussion during which 15 area residents expressed concerns about traffic, drainage, landscape maintenance, building heights, and property values.
Scott House, owner of SJD Development, said many of the problems pre-dated his acquisition of the property in 2021 and can only be solved with “lots of excavation” when construction begins. But he acknowledged that he should have hired a professional landscape group sooner.
“I want to give my commitment to the city, to the neighbors, that we will intensify our landscaping and we will make sure that the culverts and all the water management that we can control with the ponds and so on, we will take care of it going forward for sure,” House said.
Work on Wedgewood cannot begin until the Commission approves a development agreement, which is expected to have its first hearing on January 5 and come up for a vote on January 20.