This view of the developer's scale model shows Another Broken Egg in the lower left corner. The largest building in the back is the hotel with residential over retail behind it, surrounding 3 levels of parking, with one below grade. All of the free-standing buildings can be 2 1/2 stories or 42' high. The hotel can be 3 1/2 stories or 56' high.
Please sign our online petition asking our city council to address and resolve several critical issues before voting on the Lane Parke proposal.
Please also see Know The Facts for information and references to specific pages in the Lane Parke proposal.
At the public hearing on June 14, 2010, many compelling arguments were made by Mountain Brook residents against approving the Lane Parke proposal as it is currently presented. Visit our Lane Parke News page for links to their statements.
Please write or email your city council members to recommend that a vote right now is premature. The Lane Parke plan does not adequately resolve the many concerns raised by the community. See What Can I Do for contact information.
Read our recent presentation to the community from May 6, 2010, on issues related to Lane Parke, including traffic, economic feasibility and design standards.
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- The redesigned development does not cover only 14 acres. The PUD application is for +/- 27 acres, with design for residential redevelopment of the 12+ acres in the back being submitted at a later date (which they were going to do anyway, per the October 2, 2009 proposal). There are several reasons this is advantageous for Evson, Inc. It allows them to create the illusion that they have made the development smaller, because in Phases I and II they are only building on 14 acres (as originally planned). As an aside, the commercial site housing the Western, etc, is about 5 acres. Next, it allows them to claim in their Site Coverage tabulation more green space than there really will be in the end. And lastly, Evson originally requested 197 residences in the Residential District. A cursory glance at the numbers revealed that this number of residences could have increased school costs by an amount equal to or in excess of expected increases in city taxes from the expansion. Deferring development of the residences thus deferred the negative impact of the overall PUD. So they leave it out this time around.
- The new Lane Parke design calls for 374,658 ft2 of retail, office, commercial, hotel and support space, and an additional 47,244 ft2 in up to 30 residential units. The old plan actually called for 352,977 ft2 of retail, office, commercial and hotel space and 46,200 ft2 in up to 40 residential units. This is a 5.6% increase in the size of this development. This project has not been cut in half. It is a project of the exact same scope.
- The building heights are lower, and the hotel has 85 rooms. The original idea was for a 40-50 room inn that would serve the community.
- Although information to the public includes statements such as “The plan does not call for a redesign of the remaining units left in the Lane Park Apartments area after construction is over,” it is clearly stated in the revised plan (page 20) that “In the future, the Project Owner intends to redevelop the Residential District. At such time, the Project Owner will apply for an amendment to the Lane Parke Plan that will propose, based upon market conditions, an arrangement of residences that may include single family homes, townhouse buildings and stacked flat dwellings.”
- The developers were recently quoted “retail interest for the project is high among restaurants, retail clothing stores and home furnishings.” The marketing study commissioned by the City in the Fall, 2009 does not report any particular interest, and indeed there is a lack of interest, in high end retailers locating in Mountain Brook Village.
The goal of this website is to share information and facts about the 27-acre PUD rezoning application for the proposed Lane Parke Development in Mountain Brook Village. We are making every effort to be as accurate and as factual as possible. All of this research and information has been gathered and studied by a group of volunteer residents who live in and care about the Mountain Brook community.
Opposition to the plan is widespread and growing. A petition expressing opposition to this project has already been signed by more than 600 Mountain Brook residents.
Some of our Mountain Brook City Council members appear at this time to favor the proposed rezoning. A majority vote (3 out of 5) of our council members is required for the initial approval of the rezoning. If our mayor were to veto such a proposal, however, it would take four council members to override his veto.
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