Published: August 20, 2009 11:12 pm      

Coffee Creek still has hope

Edmond residents proved once again this week that the word “apartments” can turn out a crowd quite unlike any other phrase used in the city.

Residents of the Coffee Creek development area turned out in droves, filling the Edmond City Council Chambers and spilling out into the lobby and outside the downtown building for the Edmond Planning Commission hearing Tuesday night. The Planning Commission heard, and delayed any action upon, a request by Covell Road Properties LLC to consider an extension of a previously approved Planned Unit Development zoning for the undeveloped areas of Coffee Creek.

This area has developed into upscale housing divisions with adjacent office and retail as well as a premier senior living facility. Many of the single family homes in the area are in the $300,000 to $600,000 price range.

The City Council approved the PUD zoning and plan for the area in 1996 with little action since then. Many of the area’s homeowners have moved in after 2000 as building has proceeded at a brisk pace in the area.

With much of the development now built, it’s time for the developers to take stock of how they will proceed with the final parcels, including an area that originally was planned for multi-family housing on 74.33 acres. Some of the land was actually built as single family homes, soaking up some of the multi-family-zoned land, leaving about 43.23 acres. In a memo to the Planning Commission by City Planner Bob Schiermeyer, the number of multi-family units now proposed has gone from 960 down to 514 as possible for the development.

The positive note out of Tuesday’s Planning Commission meeting is that both sides agreed to a Community Connections meeting at 7 p.m. Sept. 1 in the Downtown Community Center, 28 E. Main St.

We strongly urge the residents of this area to take this opportunity to forge a solid working relationship with the developer. This is the time for residents to get to know the land owners, express their concerns and their wishes and try to promote a plan that all can live with in the future. Other neighborhoods have successfully modeled this type of interaction with developers and there’s no reason why the Coffee Creek area cannot continue to be a premier development in Edmond.

There is little that can be done by the city at this phase of the process. The worst thing that could happen is for the extension to be denied, the land sold off and the residents starting over with a new developer and an unknown plan. Coffee Creek is a beautiful project and the best way to keep it that way is for residents to calmly and reasonably influence the process now before it gets to the site plan phase at the City Council.