Preliminary Plat Approved For Shawnee Development

A hotly contested development proposed for an Indian Trail neighborhood has taken another step closer to completion, leaving neighbors with mixed feelings.

County Hearing Examiner Michael Dempsey recently approved - with conditions - a preliminary plat application for Shawnee Canyon Estates. The Five Mile Corp. plans to build 10 single-family residences on about 17 acres there.

“A lot are very good conditions,” said Muriel Bechtel of the North Indian Trail Neighborhood Council. “They deal with our concerns, but not all of them.”

Developer Bob Frisch of Tomlinson-Black also has a certificate of exemption from the county for six additional single-family lots next to the site. The certificate allowed him to bypass the plat process for those homes.

Shawnee Canyon Estates is located on a hill at the east end of Shawnee Drive. The Five Mile Corp. also hopes to develop an area, known as Falcon Ridge, immediately to the south of the proposed project. A different developer recently won approval for three projects - Prairie Breeze and Granger Terrace subdivisions, and Willow Run manufactured home park - located about one and a half football fields to the east.

Shawnee residents have been leery of the development since the clearing of the first tree from the slope. Each year, from January through March, they watch snow melt and rain flow swiftly down the hill and pour onto Shawnee Drive.

What will happen when roofs, streets and other non-porous materials take the place of absorbent natural vegetation, they wondered.

Developers say potential flooding is under control.

The development contains an array of water-retention and direction mechanisms. Pipes of various sizes feed into dry wells, retention ponds, stone basins and ditches.

In his decision, Dempsey acknowledged residents’ flooding fears, but supported the developer’s drainage plan. He noted that it makes an effort to follow the natural drainage channel that runs through the site, which “will logically increase the probability that the proposed drainage system will work and decrease the risk of erosion due to flooding downstream properties.”

He also added an extra provision, however, that any open drainage facility be designed and installed so that it is not a safety hazard to children, which was another of the residents’ concerns.

That provision, however, raised more questions for the neighbors.

“It’s good that it’s in there, but we wonder how and when they will do that,” Bechtel said. “Right now it’s not done and right now it’s dangerous.”

Bechtel noted that Frisch has other developments on Five Mile Prairie - namely Crestview Estates - for which he has yet to fulfill such conditions.

Dempsey disagreed with the neighbors’ plea for a determination of significance - a ruling that the project would have a significant effect on the environment.

“The issue at hand is whether or not the project is likely to have a significant probable adverse impact on the environment…,” he said in his decision. “The record does not establish that the project will have a significant impact on the quality of the environment.”

Bechtel said she doesn’t believe the neighborhood will appeal the decision, “as long as Frisch does what he is supposed to.”

“It’s such a small development,” she said. “And now it’s better than what we started with, the conditions we had before.”

The last day to appeal the decision to Superior Court is March 22.