The Russell Springs City Council rejected a zoning change intended for local resident Cody Coffey to build apartments in the city limits at this morning’s special-called council meeting.
The council voted 3-2 against the ordinance with council members Sherry Bottom-Daniel, Lisa Mann, and Cody Wilson voting against the zoning change, and council members Ricky Barnes and David Blakey voting in favor of changing the zoning from R1 to R3.
The zoning change originally came up in last week’s city council meeting after it was passed on by the zoning board, with Coffey and three neighbors of the property at 2043 West Steve Warner Drive in attendance.
Two of the neighbors expressed concern about the proposed building, and the other supported it.
One of the neighbors, who lives next door to the property, expressed concern that the apartment buildings would be too close to her driveway, but Tommy Holt, the city’s zoning administrator, said city regulations would require a six-foot tall privacy fence to be built at Coffey’s expense that would be built around the sides and back of the property.
Holt said city regulations would also require the building to be a minimum of 20 feet from the property line since it would be next to a single-family residence.
Coffey said he wanted to build apartments in that part of the community due to a lack of available housing in the area and a high demand for it.
At this morning’s meeting, Holt said Coffey was willing to decrease the number of apartment units from nine to seven in order to make the plan more palatable to the city council.
However, the council still opted to shoot down the proposal.
