Speakers - 13 Dec 2022 Meeting

Speaker #1 said he was vehemently opposed to the proposed road. He has lived in the area for four years and is very happy with it. Currently the people who drive on the road are all residents. He is concerned that the extensions will lead to a lot of nonresidents using the road as a cut-through. All that traffic could ruin a great neighborhood.  Adding the extensions would have a negative impact on the desirability of the homes in the neighborhood.

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Speaker #2 was strongly opposed to the extension. She has lived here for 20 years and she loves the neighborhood. It is relatively quiet, and the traffic is relatively light. If the road is put in, she is worried about the car pollution, the noise, the safety of our children walking to and from school. There are children who actually cross that road to get to their school bus. If the road is put in, there will be a lot more traffic. The property value certainly as a concern as well. We voted you in, and we do really trust and respect you. And we hope that you will make the right decision and protect our community and keep it the way it's intended to be. She also questioned the cost and the return on investment. She questions how helpful it would really be in terms of the traffic situation, but it's going to be a significant cost. 

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Speaker #3 was opposed to the road.  There is almost no return on investment. We will probably have to put an expensive stoplight in at the new intersection, then the flow rate on Henry is going to be adversely affected. We really don't want our kids crossing that road because there will be people speeding through there. We all know what people do at stop signs, and since they're cutting through already, they're already in a hurry, they're like, hey, I can cut through here and miss a stoplight. So they're going to come up to the stop sign, and then they're probably going to gun it.  The road will be very narrow. It's not like the road there in front of the schools and the library, that road is very wide. The swath of land through there is very wide, which keeps people away from the road, as opposed to this road, which is narrow, designed for access to these neighborhoods, not a throughput kind of road. So we will have all these fences that come out very close to the road. That's where kids can't help it, you know, 6, 7, 8, 10-year-olds, they dart out from behind a fence and then the driver doesn't have time to stop with kids right in the middle of the road. And eventually, we may have a problem with that. Thank you. 

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Speaker #4   has lived here for 20 years. She was totally opposed to the road. The study needs to be redone. The study was done in 2019. There has been a tremendous increase in traffic just in the past three years. And the big thing is the children. I think the study needs to be redone. There are other roads that could be improved instead.  We have a wonderful community and I don't want you to ruin it. And I voted for all of you and I want you to do what's right by all of us. Thank you.

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Speaker #5  said the city has written in the comprehensive plan that it fosters West Melbourne's quality of life, future sustainability and community vision by protecting, maintaining and preserving the city's open spaces and environmental amenities. I was invited to go into The Preserve, the area that would butt up against this project. And I talked with residents and I visually saw the area and I honestly can't see how you can put a road there. There seems to be so little space. The environmental assessment mentioned pepper trees. There are pepper trees there, but there is understory as well. It was teeming with wildlife when I was there. And I saw pollinators. I saw birds. As you saw in the document that I sent out, there are four species of birds that are either federally or state threatened, listed on imperiled lists that are frequent residents. One that was just recently delisted but actually breeds in the trees across from our house.  That little spit of ground that you're talking about and developing is a wildlife corridor. People like to see birds, raccoons, foxes in their yards. They do like to see them when they go for walks. They like to have their children exposed to these things. It is a scientific fact that the removal of any opportunity to expose oneself to nature is a detriment to mental health. You will be removing what I consider a pretty vital piece of green space in this community. If you have not physically been back to that site, you do not understand how tight the space is, how important to wildlife.