The Cookeville Planning Commission has approved a final plat for the 16-lot River Ranch Development located on Mine Lick Creek Road.
Community development Director Jon Ward said the preliminary plat was granted with the condition of a divided median with 12-foot travel lanes. Ward said the fire department had concerns with the depicted grass median, as it may cause stabilization issues for the outriggers on a fire truck. Ward said the developer has revised the plat to have a 50-foot divided median at the entrance of the development.
“I have talked to Chief Young (Cookeville Fire Chief Benton Young) about that, he does not anticipate there will be any issues with providing a median for length there for signage and some landscaping and things like that,” Ward said. “So you see that on the southern end of the development.”
The commission asked if the street would remain 32-feet-wide or be narrowed down as the development heads into phase two. Ward said the street will narrow down, but would meet the city’s code.
“There is a lot of discussion here because our code doesn’t allow a dead-end street longer than 1,200 feet in length,” Ward said. “We also have standards for multi-family development that require multiple points of ingress/egress for over 49 units, for 50 units and over. This was a proposal to try to mitigate that to allow the split street design, so it would have to continue that 32-foot width until where it was proposed on the initial preliminary plat. I think you can see that it goes a little ways into phase two before it tapers back down into a regular street section, which would be approximately 20 feet in width.”
Ward said the developer has requested that the city install curbing and gutter once construction is finished.
“We feel like that is a good practice too cause we do see a lot of damage to curbing with the construction of homes in the development,” Ward said.
Ward said the city’s Public Works Department has provided amounts and confirmed amounts for financial guarantees for the developer. The commission unanimously approved the final plat.