16-05-2025
Brunswick mayor, City Council approve development overlay for Vista Pointe project
Brunswick's mayor and City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved a Planned Unit Development (PUD) overlay on previously annexed land.
The PUD overlay is a specific zoning district that allows for flexible site planning and development.
The land will be used for an age-restricted development called Vista Pointe.
Residents of Brunswick and Knoxville on April 22 expressed their concerns to the mayor and City Council about the development, specifically about potentially removing an area of forest land.
Pleasants Development, the developer, has been allowed to clear 57 acres of forest on the property for the 660 age-restricted units it plans to build. Residents are concerned that clearing the forest will create more flooding in the area.
At the meeting on Tuesday, Brunswick resident Neil Gormley said the forest is 'ecologically and hydrologically better than a landscaped open space.'
'A forest ecosystem supports more plant and animal life,' he said. 'It's a richer, more resilient ecological system.'
Gormley added that the forest is 'much better' at retaining water and reducing flooding than a grazed pasture would be.
Dan Fryer, the regional vice president for Pleasants Development, said on Tuesday that the engineering study that is looking at runoff and flooding, which the company is currently working on, will be released to the public.
He said the report will show the existing conditions for flooding and what the development company plans to do to address it.
Fryer said the civil engineering firm Macris, Hendricks & Glascock (MHG) is performing the study.
An annexation agreement for the land included a list of proffers that promised stormwater infrastructure improvements, such as cleaning the 21-inch culvert north and south of Brunswick Street, before the project starts.
Council Member Andy St. John said at the meeting that he received numerous emails from the community that mention how the annexation of the property was 'a lack of due diligence and mismanagement on the part of the city.'
'I, frankly, take exception to that,' he said. 'The city and the staff has been working very hard on this for a very long time to make sure that all the i's are dotted and the t's are crossed, and that we have followed the law.'
Council Member John Caves agreed with St. John, and added that the process has not been approached 'flippantly.'
'We read the emails. We listen to the comments,' he said. 'It's ultimately a judgment call.'
After the unanimous vote to approve the PUD overlay, Mayor Nathan Brown said he did not want to influence any council members' votes, but he agreed with St. John.
'Really, these annexations ... are not fresh off the press, brand-new, clean-slate annexations,' he said.
The land for the Vista Pointe development is made up of three previously annexed properties: the Daugherty, Ferris and Brylawski properties.
The Daugherty property was annexed into the city in 1992 and is approximately 113 acres. The Ferris and Brylawski properties were adopted into Brunswick on Feb. 25 of this year, and are approximately 57 acres and 15 acres, respectively.
'We had to really look at them in a way that was ... in the best interest of the city,' Brown said. 'It allowed us to have proffers where normally we wouldn't because we introduced new annexations to already annexed land, which was good.'
