Monday night, it was a full house at the Conway City Council meeting.
Several folks wore red in solidarity to oppose council possibly approving a final reading to put near 200 homes where the former golf course is.
“We’re concerned,” said Connie Smith, one of the residents who lives near the site of the possible development. “We love Conway, you know, for most of us, it’s been our home all our lives, and the flooding issue is terrible. You know, we’re watching it get increasingly worse.”
People who live near where almost 200 homes could potentially go where the old Conway Golf Course used to be, banned together at Monday night’s meeting to stop council for making a final decision.
“Please, I plead with you, hold on this development that… it’s just going to ruin the whole… continue to ruin the whole side of town,” said one resident upset over the idea.
“Mayor Bellamy, you are quoted as saying there are lots more things a city can do to impact the flooding that’s become such a frequent problem,” said another resident who lives on Country Club Drive. “Wouldn’t an impact study be a logical conclusion before allowing a huge development to go up in a major flood zone?”
The developer, Forrest Beverly with Beverly Homes, suggested council hold off on a decision.
“You know, if we could do that, it might be better if we could back up a little bit and try to answer some of those questions for everybody,” he said.
And they did table it, to further study the proposal.
The main concern is whether or not adding those homes could make flooding worse into Crabtree Swamp.
“Crabtree takes on two-thirds of the water and flash-flooding, and you see what happened,” said Smith. “Conway is visibly scarred, visibly scarred. And, we want to preserve what we have. We love the city.”
Council decided to move this issue to a workshop to have more talks on it and to gather stormwater data.
