Sound of "progress" at new West Branch neighborhood

Grading at the new 306 home West Branch neighborhood off of Davidson Concord Road has been underway for quite a while now. However recently the tree cutting that was inevitable has finally begun.

This 3 minute video was taken on Saturday.

Click here to play.

Damaged Old Growth
Tree

New view from greenway,

piles of trees 

Now, take a look at this.  The below picture is the approved master plan for this neighborhood.  The picture below it were taken from about where the red X is.  The area within the circle is the upper right side of the first two pictures and directly across the access road cut in the second two.  The area in the red circle is forest, and it will be going as well.

The approvals for this project required only one vote of the Davidson Board, and it wasn't even for the project itself.   The project was "by right".   The one vote Commissioners did have was for something called a historic viewshed at the other end of the property which is largely unbuildable floodplain.  However, the Board could have leveraged that vote to protect more of the land.

They didn't.  Now we have this, and this is why November's election is so important.