Shiloh needs measured growth

Sometimes the residents are heard, sometimes they are ignored. Sometimes even those to whom you entrust your community’s planning are ignored.

Shiloh leaders tonight are expected to vote on a housing development that will put 328 apartment and other housing units on 55 acres at Hartman Lane and Frank Scott Parkway. They already gave it a preliminary OK over the unanimous rejection by their own Planning Commission and over the vocal opposition of neighbors.

Shiloh Mayor James Vernier dismissed concerns about the congestion issues currently overwhelming the local roads. He said they are being addressed by St. Clair County and road construction will end before Hartman Lakes construction wraps up in 2019 or 2020.

So the plan is to compound existing congestion with highway construction, add in traffic from subdivision construction and hold off allowing any Hartman Lakes sales or occupancy to add to it all until all 328 units are completed?

“I have been in this community 55 years and when I grew up there was 400 people — if I said ‘No!’ to every thing, and let traffic congestion stop a development, then we would still be at 400 people, and we’d have never grown to a community of about 1,000 people (in 1981), to about 14,000 (today),” he said.

You wonder whenever someone overplays his hand, and it sounds like that is where Vernier is at.

This is not a “yes” or “no” proposition. This is a “now” or “later” question.

Let the development wait until the infrastructure catches up. Listen to your residents. Money shouldn’t speak louder than an orderly community.

This story was originally published April 3, 2016 at 2:00 PM with the headline "Shiloh needs measured growth."