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Developer and neighbors clash over traffic, buffers for 280-area project
Summary
Developer Keith Owens updated the council on the 280 project and said traffic studies show summer counts exceeded school-period counts; residents from nearby neighborhoods urged closing an exit and adding traffic controls and buffering to address safety and volume concerns.
Developer Keith Owens and neighborhood residents on May 20 used the Hoover City Council meeting to update the council on the proposed 280-area commercial project and to press the developer and city for traffic and safety changes.
Owens, who identified himself as the developer of the “280 project,” thanked council members who attended a recent public forum and said the development team had met with residents and shared plans to address concerns. Owens told the council that school-period traffic counts already had been conducted and that, in the developer’s analysis, “the summer counts were more busier than the school counts.” He said a memo documenting the counts was sent to city staff on May 10, 2023.
Several residents from the Beaumont, Lake Heather and Danbury areas spoke and cited safety and traffic-volume concerns along nearby Inverness Center Drive. Resident Steve Scarro said his group was worried about blind curves and additional traffic and urged changes to the project’s access configuration. “This development … is … it’s going to generate additional traffic,” Scarro told the council, and he asked that the developer and city consider closing one exit off Inverness Center Drive and adding traffic controls at subdivision entrances.
Owens said the development team had been responsive: he described multiple neighborhood meetings, one-on-one conversations with residents, and changes the team had made to the site plan — including removing a left-turn lane and truck access on one connection — after sharing analyses with the city and county. He also said he and his partners met directly with Scarro after the public forum and that Scarro was “very apologetic” during follow-up conversations.
Council members who attended the forum were thanked by Owens by name; he singled out Councilmen Murphy, Middlebrooks, McClinton and Sweeney for staying through the town-hall session. The council did not take formal action on the project at the meeting; no votes or referrals to a planning commission were recorded in the meeting transcript.
Residents asked the city and developer to revisit access and buffering plans and to consider traffic control measures at neighborhood entrances to reduce impacts on nearby subdivisions. Developers and staff indicated additional traffic studies and design modifications had been performed earlier in the project, but the council made no directive on the record at this meeting.
