That smell in the air is roads being laid
A month has gone by even though it only feels like a week! Things have been very busy at the construction site of the Pondcrest Phase. The first house has started going up, sidewalks are being poured, asphalt has now begun, electrical lines are being pulled, gas lines are being installed, pool building permits have been submitted, and Cherokee Farms streetscape improvements have been staked out. As you have seen from previous posts, each of these takes careful coordination to avoid conflicts with what is already in the ground and with additions in the future.
Asphalt was a little bit of a surprise. I think we may have mentioned this previously, but typically you wouldn’t pave until the water and sewer company (BJWSA) has signed off on their pressure testing because if there is a leak somewhere, it may require digging up a road to get to it. But at the same time, remember we said a site contractor must make hay while the sun shines! Available crews and favorable weather don’t always align, so sometimes they make a decision to move forward on something like this. It isn’t a huge risk for them, as they will have already pressure tested everything for themselves and can feel confident enough to do it. There’s also some benefits to going ahead and getting asphalt down when you’ve got your base prepped so well, it’s been dry, and it’s nice and hard. You know you’ve got everything covered up and safe now while the conditions were ideal. So, benefits and risks, as with anything, but we’re thrilled because it always starts looking a lot better when asphalt is down.
Speaking of looking better, things will look a lot worse before they look better along Cherokee Farms Road. You have probably seen all the stakes up and down the shoulder of the road.
This is the stake out for all of the streetscape improvements. As part of the original rezoning of the parcel across Cherokee Farms Road years and years ago (almost 20!), one of the requirements of the county was for traffic calming along Cherokee Farms Road in the form of on street parking, street trees, crosswalks, etc. If you are wondering how these things help with traffic calming, I’d invite you to check out these two great articles: https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/research-trees-make-streets-safer-not-deadlier
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2022/01/04/let-main-streets-be-main-streets
Here is an image that shows the streetscape plan for Cherokee Farms Road. The image on top is the existing conditions and the one below shows the parallel parking, crosswalks, sidewalks, street trees, etc. You may need to click on it to make it larger.
To put this in will require a bit of disturbance along Cherokee Farms Road for a few weeks. There shouldn’t be any road closures, but things will definitely look a little messy along our entrance while the construction takes place. In the end, it should provide a big improvement to the streetscape of Cherokee Farms Road and a greater connection to the new phase from the existing neighborhood.
Some more sights around the site:
Sidewalk being formed and poured going in front of the new houses. The little circles sticking up are water valves. There is one main water line following the sidewalk and a tee that goes to the right, so there are valves on either side of the tee and then a valve for the tee.
The first house that is being framed up is by Lanthorne Homes. It will have a wrap around porch as it sits on a corner.
We have a well! The well was dug for all of the irrigation needs. There is always something satisfying about watching a well being drilled. It’s fascinating to think of something going so far underground I think. Wells aren’t too deep around here, maybe around 120 feet deep.
Parking spaces are getting completed around the pool site and the sidewalks wrap the pool. Hopefully this time next year, these sidewalks will lead to a refreshing dip overlooking a beautiful pond.
