Jan 23, 2025
Residents are pushing back on plans for a new housing development amid fears it could trigger a landslide.The Glen Eagles subdivision proposes 24 two-unit buildings at the top of a currently tree-covered hill. However, residents on St. Annes Drive living roughly 100 feet downhill from that location said they already contend with unstable ground. For months, neighbors have gathered around Tom Mendels kitchen table to discuss how to prevent the proposed development from moving forward. "Why would you do that in a high-risk area?" Mendel asked.For him, development concerns are framed in terms of common sense: "It doesn't take a genius to realize you got a steep hill, water coming down the hill, and unstable ground." History of hillside slippage for residentsTerry Snider, who purchased his new construction house in 2003, said the first indication the ground beneath it was shifting was the back decks railing getting out of alignment. That was in roughly 2014-2015.There were things in the house that started cracking, Snider said, pointing to cracks in the brickwork and in the interior walls. The more we looked into it, the more we realized it wasnt just settling the house was moving a little bit, he said.As he was determining the best course of action, he said his next-door neighbors backyard dropped 30 feet: It just caved. Our creek in the back there had dropped pretty dramatically.Over the years, Snider has spent nearly $100,000 to stabilize his house, including the installation of 29 soldier piers in 2017."I didnt know that the land was unstable. I didnt know that we needed to do that," Snider said, describing it as both disappointing and frustrating.While those soldier piers seemed to have stopped the slippage, he remains worried about what could happen to the ground if construction starts on the proposed development up the hill."We just don't want to have a big project up there to kind of ask for more trouble," he said. The voteOn Feb. 3, the North Bend Planning and Zoning Commission will vote on the development. The five members will take a simple majority vote.Mayor Doug Sammons is on the commission. He is also on the Board of Zoning Appeals, according to the citys website. Sammons declined an interview with WCPO, citing advice from his law director.Before making a decision, commission members will hear from residents and the developer, John Niehaus.What the developer saysNiehaus has built nearly three dozen developments over his 52-year career. In a phone interview, Niehaus stated that plans to build on this specific hill have been in the works for decade, since the original Aston Oaks neighborhood was proposed back in the late 1990s.The residents all knew it was going to happen, Niehaus said.He said the original 1997 plan was 221 units on that same hillside before it was scaled back to 110 units in 2005. That 2005 concept was approved by the Village of North Bend, but it never was executed.In February 2024, Niehaus said he went back to the drawing board after residents pushed back on a plan for 68 units.The current plans call for 48 units, two in each of the 24 buildings. Niehaus said pricing can not be determined until building is ready to begin due to inflation. He said the plans for the new development will reduce the stormwater runoff to residents on St. Annes Drive. WCPO reviewed videos from residents of streams of water running down the hillside.While Hamilton County GIS data indicates the area has a high susceptibility for landslides, Niehaus said his consultants have run tests that show the land is stable.The soil on the top, all the geotech reports, theres nothing up there thats sliding, he said.In a letter shared with WCPO that he said will soon be sent to existing homeowners, Niehaus writes when the track hoe test bores were done, they showed the existing slide was 2-3 feet down and then there was bedrock.Asked about whether residents on St. Annes may be impacted by construction with the possibility of additional shifting soil, Niehaus replied: The area that is slipping is down at the bottom. The areas that we're building on is at the top.He cited bedrock in the middle of the two areas that the development will be built on.When you bench that into bedrock, you don't have to worry about what's down there, he said, referring to the cut-and-fill construction technique that will occur roughly 100 feet from St. Annes Drive.Hillside Trust weighs inEric Russo is the executive director of The Hillside Trust, a nonprofit thats been consulted on hillside development for decades.While he said the plans on paper could work, he raised concerns about the project. He said pinpoint execution would be necessary to prevent any additional hillside slippage."It's essentially a lot to ask for, with this many conditions on here, with this kind of a problematic hillside, that you can engineer it and not expect to have a problem occur either during construction or sometime after construction takes place," Russo said. Whats nextAs the residents prepare for the upcoming vote, they have enlisted legal counsel."The reality is, we got to use every resource we can to try to stop this," Tom Mendel said back at his kitchen table. "I see problems down the road," he said.Niehaus said he will have consultants ready to answer questions, but reiterated development is safe. "Please know, just like the high standards used to design and build every other phase of ASTON, the same will apply to Glen Eagles," he wrote in the letter.The North Bend Planning and Zoning Commission will hear about the development on Feb. 3, 2025.
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