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HomeMy WebLinkAboutBOC Meeting Minutes - 146th Street Access ApprovalHAMILTON COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS NOVEMBER 13, 2007 The Legacy Development Mr. Tim Walter, Platinum Properties representing East Carmel LLC (Developer), presented their road cut requests for The Legacy development at the southwest corner of 146 Street and River Road. It is 419 acres and zoned for 1800 residential units as well as commercial, retail and office space. Walter stated they are requesting approval of access off of 1461h Street. Access 1 (west side) will access the residential portion of the development and they are requesting right in,. right out and left in access. Access 2 (immediately to the east of that point) will access some office and retail ground and they are requesting right in and right out access. Access 3 (central portion) will serve the main collector road, and runs through the development and corresponds to an existing full access intersection on 146`h Street for the apartment complex to the north. They are requesting full access at this location. Access 4 (east side) would access retail and residential and they are requesting right in access. Howard asked what are the east -west interconnectivities as planned in your development plan? Walter stated they have a combination of frontage roads and interior streets. There are blocks with east -west roads running between those blocks to move traffic east and west. Howard asked if there is intercwnnectivity among the four intersections, all away across? Walter stated the three to the east will be connected by a frontage road or through a road that will fall back. To the west is all residential; there is a major grade change at the existing tree line. It will all be low density, large lots for custom homes. The only connectivity would be an extension of Cherry Creek Boulevard, which goes through Cherry Creek Estates and connects to Hazel Dell and River Road eventually. Walter stated they would like Commissioner's approval today and they will work out the details with the highway department. Altman stated her concern on the low density residential is the -left- in. You have full access request and you need to develop out as quickly as possible to encourage people to access primarily through Hazel Dell or River Road. Walter stated they did consider it to be just right-iri, right -out but one concern was the potential of people going onto Cherry Tree Road and trying to make a "U" turn. Altman stated we can post a "No U-Turn" and arrest people that do that. Walter stated there is a development approved in Carmel that will have access that could potentially bring traffic down Cherry Tree Road. This signal does not have protected left turn at Cherry Tree Road and will slow down the green time for thm traffic on 146th Street. Altman stated long term we might choose that option but it does not need to be done currently. Holt asked why would you not do a protected left hand turn on Cherry Tree when it was warranted? Neal stated currently it is not warranted. Holt stated at build out wouldn't that be a logical thing to do? Neal stated it could be but if they don't access that way the left turn may never be warranted at Cherry Tree. Mr. Steve Fehribach, A&F Engineering, stated when we give recommendations as to where a turn lane should occur at access points one of the things we look at is future build out. Future build out is the entire vacant area. Today you have no problem at all, but in the future he does not think it will continue to work that way just out of sheer normal growth that will occur. If left turn lanes are done safely, and this left turn lane would be designed as a slotted left turn lane where no one could physically move out, what will happen in the future is the left turn lanes will fill up. The capacity, will be used. If you don't allow people to move into their development through access points people will use the Cherry Tree access and the que length or delay will increase because you will have people that need to turn left and go onto Cherry Tree. Once you use up that green time there are only a couple things you can do, the clock is only so big with the signal. You will have to increase the green time for the left turn lane. If you talk about a protected left turn lane instead of 7, 10, 12, or 15 seconds maybe we have to go to 20 seconds. At that point in time the engineers have to make a choice of where do they take the green time away from; is it the thru movements on 146`h Street, is it the dim movements on Cherry Tree, something will have to give. Today, that is not an issue but in the future Fehribach believes it will. If we can provide for a left turn.lane that works safely and prevents anybody from turning left out is why we made this recommendation. The signal at 1461h Street and Cherry Tree will produce gaps for anybody that wants to turn left into the site. Fehribach stated his recommendation was that it will help his development but in the future it will help the green time in the left lane. Altman stated long term that may be the solution we choose, but we are projecting out in the future. There may be a lot of tweaks we are going to need to make across the whole 146th Street, long term. Fehribach stated the problem is once you build it as a right in, right out it is only so wide and you would have to come back in and widen the approach, all of which can be done. Altman stated you could build it with the intent of putting it in? Fehribach stated we can design for anything with enough money. Once it is a subdivision and people realize this is the way they are going to get in, you will be tweaking the signal time at Cherry Tree rather than put the left in, he has never seen left turn lanes put in subdivisions once they are built out. If this was a retail area he would agree with Altman. Altman stated she would rather work on how things are operating now rather than tie the hands of people 20 years from now. Holt asked if there is any impediment on how long the decel lane would be for the left hand turn on 146`h Street? Fehribach stated the volume is extremely small, in sense of a traffic engineer. The difference in that left turn and the main access is 1,000 feet or more. You would never use all of that lane or median. If the gaps are occurring because of the Cherry Tree signal will allow those cars to get in. The bulk of the traffic to a residential site is the people coming in to during the pm peak hours. Holt stated he is concerned about people westbound on 146`h Street on the inside lane and the guy in front of them decides to execute the left in; he is going to start breaking in the travel lane? Fehribach stated he does not have to be, there will be room to put a taper in. The taper would be probably be 100 feet long but the decel lane is based on the posted speed limit, he would estimate 300 feet. It could be designed for the decel so the person that exits the thru traffic on 146`h Street, enters the left turn lane has enough time to decel from 45 mph to 0. Holt stated we are not deciding that today, we are passing that decision back to the highway department, depending on the vote? Fehribach stated yes. Altman stated her experience has been that if you have a left turn people will decel in the thm lane and it disrupts traffic. Holt stated he is intrigued with Febribach's perspective that any governmental entity would go back and invest the moneys to build it later. It would be easier to slow traffic down with a left arrow at Cherry Tree. Holt motioned to approve The Legacy's request. Dillinger seconded. Howard suggested it be conditioned upon a commitment by the developer that the balance of the right of way contiguous with 146`h Street would be dedicated as a non -access, so you don't diversify title. Walters agreed. Howard stated that will be part of the negotiations. Holt included that in his motion, Dillinger included it in his second. Altman asked what about the inclusion of signalization if it is ever warranted? Holt stated that is part of the negotiation with the highway department. Davis stated they have discussed it but it needs to be part of this discussion. Walters stated they are fine with that. Holt added that to the motion. Dillinger agreed. Holt asked how is the signalization going to work, up front or when warranted? Davis stated when warranted and we concur with the warrants. Altman stated what if they are in and out and are gone. The question is will it be a repository deposit? Holt asked will it be bonded? Holt stated if you are pouring concrete why would you not do it up front. Holt asked what did you visualize for the lights? Mr. Ken Bras'seur stated they will enter into a standard covenant that we will pay for that and if necessary if you want us to put some type of bond they will work that out with the highway department. They have no problem putting a signal in. They have talked with Pedcor and they are willing to participate in that. We can enter into a three-way agreement with Pedcor and us and the county where the county would incur no costs and.we would incur those costs. We can work out the details. Howard recommended putting a bond behind it. Brasseur stated they can do that. Holt called to question. Dillinger. and Holt approved. Altman opposed. Motion carried.