MORGANTOWN – Sunflower Village, a proposed development of 108 townhomes on 12 acres of property at the corner of West Run Road and St. Clair Hill Road has received site plan approval from the Monongalia County Planning Commission.
After initially tabling a request from Steve Fansler – agent for Alghadban LLC – for site plan approval of the major development of significant impact in December, the body approved the request during its February meeting.
One of the major talking points raised by commission members and surrounding property owners during the MCPC’s initial consideration focused on the condition of St. Clair Hill Road.
Roughly a quarter-mile long, the sloped road routinely becomes a cut-through between West Run Road and Bakers Ridge Road despite being too narrow for vehicles to pass one another along much of its length.
A representative of the project initially said the developer would work with the West Virginia Division of Highways to widen the road along the entire frontage of the development and improve its connection to West Run Road.
Alghadban LLC has since offered to widen and improve the entirety of St. Clair Hill Road, including its intersections with both West Run Road and Bakers Ridge Road. In conjunction with, and as part of, those right-of-way improvements the developer has further offered to construct DOH-compliant driveway skirts for the neighbors along St. Clair Hill.
Should the project move ahead, Monongalia County Director of Planning Andrew Gast-Bray said the initial phase of work will focus on the lower portion of St. Clair Hill Road, including its intersection with West Run Road, in order to provide equipment access to the development property.
There will be significant site work undertaken once the first part of the road is finished, but construction of actual units ready for sale or lease will come after the full road and both intersections are improved.
Some members of the commission initially said they would like to see additional traffic data indicating the impacts of this development on the surrounding area. Gast-Bray said that work is coming, but as part of a more all-encompassing process included in the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Transportation Improvement Plan (TIP).
Commissioner Darin Glitz countered that the MPO’s TIP is a planning document that considers a multi-year window.
“It could be next year. It could be nine years from now. That’s a 10-year TIP. That concerns me that we’re putting the cart before the horse,” he said.
The proposed site of the Sunflower Village development falls within a high-density residential (R-4) zone of the county’s West Run Planning District.
Independent of this project, Gast-Bray explained the DOH has agreed to examine areas of concern along West Run Road highlighted by the MCPC, including two “hazard” trees encroaching on the roadway and a narrow bridge near its intersection with Stewartstown Road.
