BellAria (Italiano: Beautiful Air). I wonder who selected that name for this development. The person should have their head examined. Well I guess for us around here, the smell of horse manure, chickens, dust from the gravel pit and the sage when it rains is truly beautiful. I’m not sure what others will think when they get their first whiff of it.
I don’t know exactly where to begin as this has been the most ridiculous development proposed in the area as of yet. The developer D.R. Horton, Inc. purchased 2 five acre lots, in the RNP zone directly across from each other running North and South. As you can see from the map colored in blue are properties that have or have had livestock surrounding this future development.
Not to mention the chickens, goats, geese etc.. Now this is the strangest thing ever, on the North Property they are going to build 8 homes in a hapazard layout where they showed 2 parcels running North South on the West side up against the horse properties, and then 6 all crammed together from South to North on the east side of the property. They tried to even get the County to give up the roadway so they could squeeze some more in which luckily didn’t occur as the trash trucks come and service the neighbors on that road.
The South property is even crazier. In their infinite wisdom, they developer is going to build 9 homes in a “Gated Community” with the entrance on the South side of the property directly facing a farmhouse complete with stalls and Chicken Coops. That neighbor vehemently faught having the entrance there due to all the traffic and headlights at night shining into his living room. The neighbors even agreed to work with the developer to put the entrance on then North side of the property where it would face their other development, but no we can’t have that, instead let’s disturb the farmhouse folks. You can read all about the farmhouse fiasco here.
Directly West of this so called “Gated Community” is a 5 acre mini-ranch with capabilities of up to 2.5 horses per 1/2 acre or 23 horses, or 100 goats etc. It is important to know that the Winds in the area blow from the NorthWest mountain range. You can imagine how thats going to be like for the purchasers of these luxury homes in that so called “Gated Community”. It certainly won’t be BELLA ARIA!
This project was a monster for the neighbors who went to meeting after meeting at the Town Board to try and get the developer to just build to what is currently in the area. After all properties in the valley that can have horses are rare nowadays and fetch a premium.
Tensions were high and the current County Commissioner Larry Brown got involved promising to uphold the minimum lot size standards that are supposed to be in the RNP. At the end of the day he also sided with the developer to allow an extra home on the Southern most parcel allowing 9 instead of the standard 8. So much for promises. At least the community did win some conditions that were placed on the developer, one of which was to have any purchaser sign a disclosure document stating they have been advised they are in the middle of rural properties with livestock and all that comes with it. You can listen to the decision of the planning commission and the conditions of approval here, the item is TM-0014-15 and DR-0050-15. It’s truly boring but may be worth listening to if your purchasing a property here.
You can listen to the whole planning commission meeting on April 7th, 2015 here.
Ultimately the owner of the farm house appealed and it was heard by the County Commission who let the developer have their way. Not only is this a true injustice to the Community they serve, but it’s also a great injustice to future purchasers of these properties, if any, who fail to understand their surroundings.
CLICK HERE for more updates on this ridiculous project!
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