The North Bend Eagle

 


The preliminary plat of Old Settlers Estates includes 20 lots.

Preliminary plat of Old Settlers Estates approved

by Nathan Arneal
Published 5/15/24

The North Bend City Council got a look at the proposed plans for the newest addition to the town at its May 7 meeting.

Christened “Old Settlers Estates,” plans show 20 lots on ground north of the city park.

The development will be reached by an extension of 13th Street to the east. A street called Settlers Drive will run a loop to the north of 13th to provide access to the lots.

Developers Mike Arps and Kelly Thompson had two versions of plans. On one set, Settlers Drive makes a closed loop through the development beginning and ending on 13th Street. The other version had a street continuing to the north to access potential future development.

Thompson said the problem with the through street is that the elevation required for the street would mess with the drainage plan for the new lots. He suggested sticking with the original plan of the closed loop.

“We don’t know if the owner to the north has any interest in development or when that would happen,” Arps said. “It’s kind of an incline to nowhere now.”

The city council agreed, approving the conditional preliminary plat with the closed loop without the road north.

Mayor Rod Scott gave the first of three required readings of an ordinance to change the zoning of the ground from traditional ag to high density residential. A first reading was also given to an ordinance to annex Old Settlers Estates into the city limits.

Next, a group of people voiced their opposition to the speed humps recently installed on Cottonwood Street.

Jeff Kluthe told the council it installed speed bumps, not speed humps, pointing out that the warning signs say “bumps.” He said speed humps are broader and can be taken at 15 mph, while the sharper speed bumps require the driver to slow down to 5 mph or less. Speed humps are intended to keep traffic flowing, Kluthe said, whereas bumps are intended to bring traffic to a halt, such as in a parking lot or before a stop sign.

Kluthe also said an engineering study should have been done on Cottonwood before installing speed bumps or humps and nearby residents should have consulted.

Councilman Chuck Krenzer said what is installed on Cottonwood are speed humps, according to the manufacture, which are supposed to be speed calming to 15 to 20 mph. He also said the speed humps they wanted were not the ones they got, the ones that came being about 3/4 of an inch taller.

Three or four other people spoke against the speed humps and one person spoke in favor of them. Gene Ruzicka said the city had no documentation that people were speeding on Cottonwood Street other than anecdotal observations. Others said the humps just diverted the speeding traffic to another street.

Councilman Ken Streff said the city engineers from JEO Consulting knew about the speed hump plan and did not mention an engineer survey being required. He said the city needs to make sure what is installed is legal and was done in the proper way. He also said the speed humps were installed after multiple residents attended multiple meetings requesting them.

“We kept getting more and more complaints (about speeding),” Streff said, “and everything we tried wasn’t working. So we felt this was the next step. And we’ll look at it. If it’s the wrong step, we can fix it.”

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