Lake Caroline residents fight potential commercial development. What is the controversy?

Residents of Lake Caroline, a suburban neighborhood located in Madison County, are fighting the possibility of a commercial development just east of the neighborhood's entrance.

Lake Caroline, which sits outside of the Madison City limits, advertises itself as a 3,000 acre secluded haven for a quiet, peaceful life. The possibility of a gas station at the community's entrance, some residents feel, would upend this curated lifestyle.

"You drive out of town thinking you're safe and you're in the country and you're in the quiet," resident Robin Hodges said. "And that's what we all drove out here for. Come to find out we have a street that is C2 (commercially-zoned) running through this neighborhood."

Homes in Lake Caroline are typically medium to large family homes with three to five bedrooms. The homes listed on Zillow are commonly listed for upward of $300,000. Some residents are concerned a commercial development would decrease the homes' property values.

Residents claimed the original development plan only included a gas station with an attached convenience store. This possibility alone aggravated the residents; Hodges said the majority of Lake Caroline’s residents signed a petition against the gas station’s building.

Now, new discrepancies have risen as Hodges and other residents claim the original gas station plan has unjustifiably expanded to promote a 55-acre commercial development including the gas station, convenience store, a restaurant and an office building.

"In my own opinion," Lake Caroline resident Robert DeCoster said, "if they're going to develop 55 acres upward, then there should have been a structural study of Caroline Boulevard because that is a residential road. ...This was not a generic study. This was specifically for Lake Caroline."

Much of the land around Lake Caroline is residential or undeveloped, residentially zoned land. There are a few businesses in the area including the Mermaid Cafe and two commercial offices.

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DeCoster is concerned that the new development "would be changing the character of the neighborhood," pointing to the fact that there is no public need for the new buildings as there are several existing commercial developments in the nearby city of Gluckstadt.

Hodges said a large part of the issue for her and other residents lies in the accuracy of the traffic analysis. The analysis, conducted by Kiser Traffic and Engineering and presented to the Madison County Board of Supervisors at their meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 2, states that the land of the potential commercial development is “commercially zoned”.

Lake Caroline resident Judi Fouladi believes the zoning of the land is up for debate and the board should consider making it residentially zoned given its proximity to the houses of Lake Caroline. Fouladi moved to Mississippi two years ago. Before, she served in California as deputy district attorney.

Madison County Engineer Tim Bryan confirmed that the land in question is 55 acres and sits on Stribling Road but did not confirm whether it is commercially zoned. Bryan said the traffic analysis presented on Jan. 2 is a starting point and was intended for the general area as a whole. The analysis is step one of a longer traffic study.

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In the Jan. 2 meeting during the analysis presentation, Bryan told the board that the studies were conducted for Stribling Road, not for Lake Caroline.

The traffic analysis heading, however, states "Traffic Analysis for the Proposed Lake Caroline development in Madison County, MS." The first sentence states the analysis covers "the potential office building, restaurant, and gas station/convenience market in commercially zoned property in the Lake Caroline development."

Regarding concerns about the project's details, Bryan made it clear that the gas station is not a sure thing nor is the restaurant and office building. As for the accuracy of the traffic analysis, assumptions that the analysis was conducted for just a gas station are "misconstrued," he said.

"We did (the traffic analysis) just to give a basis for a traffic impact study at this point as a starting point," Bryan said. "That would be modified based on what actually happened. As that 55 acres develops out, and we know more...say we put a holding spot on a restaurant in there. Well, say that space is not a restaurant, and it becomes a strip mall type development, then the traffic associated with the strip mall would replace the traffic associated with the proposed development of a restaurant."

Bryan also said he and the board are aware of an existing traffic problem in the Lake Caroline area.

"People sit in traffic for a long time and they wait, and they wait, and they wait," Bryan said. "And we've got an issue that we've got to solve. And so what this traffic impact study did was it told us what we need to do right now to solve problems, and then it estimated what this addition development, if it ever happened, would generate in the future. What it did was it just gave us an additional load of traffic that might be on that road so that we could forecast an additional amount of cars that would be on that road in addition to what there is now, so that we could build a road that would accommodate all of it."

Another glaring issue for residents opposing the construction is the involvement of District Four Supervisor Karl Banks. Banks is a resident of Lake Caroline, which Fouladi said violates the board’s rule of mandatory recusal.

The ethics opinion, which Banks himself requested, is from Nov. 7, 2008 and states, "The supervisor must recuse himself from any matter coming before the board of supervisors related to the development in which he resides."

Last Thursday, Fouladi said she and other residents were upset that Banks had not officially recused himself. She brought up the issue two days earlier at the Jan. 2 meeting during the public comment section.

On Thursday, when asked about the potential commercial development, Banks said he could not speak on the matter because he had recused himself.

Banks said he left the Jan. 2 meeting after Fouladi brought the mandatory recusal to the board’s attention and remained out of the room while the others discussed the commercial development. In the Jan. 2 meeting footage, Banks is seen leaving the meeting after stating he believed his absence would make the residents more comfortable.

Before leaving the meeting, Banks said the sole reason for the traffic analysis, in his opinion, was to correct the traffic issue on Stribling Road. District Three Supervisor Gerald Steen then corroborated Banks' opinion, stating he didn't consider the study a "Lake Caroline study," but rather a "study of the whole entire road."

Despite his opinion, Banks said on Jan. 4 he has officially recused himself and will not involve himself in future potential development plans.

All of this discourse has the potential to come to a head on Jan. 16, the next Madison County Board of Supervisors meeting.

DeCoster said he anticipates the board members will vote on the issue then, and he encouraged Madison residents to show up and make their voices heard.

"If this can happen in Lake Caroline, this can happen in their county too," DeCoster said.

If the board approves the building plans, Hodges said she will consider moving.

DeCoster said he and other residents will consider bringing the matter to court if the board approves the plans on Jan. 16.

This article originally appeared on Mississippi Clarion Ledger: Lake Caroline residents oppose potential commercial development