“It’s gonna really impact our neighborhood, our property values,” resident Cheryl Singleton says.
Cheryl Singleton loves where she lives. The neighborhood filled with custom homes is quiet, and the views are some of the best. But a development project in the works, has she and some of her neighbors concerned.
“The high density housing would be so out of place,” Singleton says.
The residential development would be built behind the homes on Whitney and Bordeaux. According to the architectural firm, the plans include 40 single family lots and 132, 2-story townhomes. While neighbors don’t mind the added growth, it’s the high-density additions that have them concerned.
“That’s going to dump anywhere from 4 to 5 hundred cars on two roads,” Singleton says about concerns for added traffic.
She says single family homes would coincide better with the existing neighborhood.
The planning director for Medford says at this point only the planned unit development, or PUD has been approved.
“That property owner has that land use as an entitled land use right,” planning director, Matt Brinkley says, “any development that is actually going to occur has to undergo additional reviews before the planning commission as well as the city’s site plan and architectural commission.”
That means there’s still plenty of opportunity for the public to weigh in.
As for the concerns that it will negatively impact property values, both the firm and the planning department say that’s unlikely.
“The scarcity of residential land that’s available, home prices are continuing to climb,” Brinkley says, “and so I would say that I’m not 100% convinced that this development is going to suppress property values or negatively impact them.”
The next step in the process would be submitting a pre-application showing any changes or updates to the proposed plan from 2003. Oregon Architecture Inc. says the earliest they would likely get started is spring of 2018.
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