The Flowery Branch City Council gave final approval to changes to a proposed addition to the Sterling on the Lake subdivision at it's meeting Thursday.
The changes are for a new section of houses that was originally proposed as part of "Pod Z" but is now being cut off from that pod and moved into the "Knutson Tract". The developers, Looper Lake, LLC, are also planning to divide the originally planned number of lots from 12 into 55 to allow for higher density housing.
Several residents have expressed concerns about traffic onto Capitola Farm Road, which will be the only entrance and exit for the new section. In particular, residents have been concerned about their ability to turn out of Capitola Farm Road onto Spout Springs Road, especially left turns after the road is widened.
Some residents asked for the council to push the county to break the proposed median for the road and give the intersection a traffic signal. City Manager Bill Andrew told the council that the county would prefer other options to achieve the left turn.
"(Spout Springs Road) is literally just bombarded with people wanting to make median breaks into the road," Andrew said. "If they put in all the median breaks people are asking for, then the road would be completely a mess."
He said the county has proposed a solution that would have people looking to leave Capitola Farm Road and go left on Spout Springs turn right out of the road and then make a U-turn at an intersection at a nearby church. He said that configuration is generally referred to as a "Michigan left".
City Councilman Joe Anglin encourage residents to keep pushing the Hall County Commission for a potential traffic signal at the intersection.
"I can see where residents that live off of Capitola are going to have a really strong case to have a red light there. I can't imagine any other place that's coming off of Spout Springs is going to have even close to that amount of traffic," Anglin said.
