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NCDOT To Meet With Public Monday, Aug. 12, About Proposed Connector Road Through Homespun Hills

By Jesse Wood

Aug. 6, 2013. At Tuesday’s Watauga County Board of Commissioners meeting, County Manager Deron Geouque noted that the N.C. Department of Transportation will hold a meeting about the proposed road to connect Bodenheimer Drive on the campus of ASU to Homespun Hills Road, which intersects N.C. 105, on Monday, Aug. 12.

While the commissioners are invited to review the maps and ask questions from 3 to 5 p.m., members of the public have been allotted the two-hour timeframe of 5 to 7 p.m. to discuss the proposed road.

The connector road would be
Click to enlarge. The connector road would be situated about where text says “Beaver Field at Jim and Bettie Smith Stadium.

At the behest of ASU, the N.C. Department of Transportation began studying the road proposal, and the Boone Town Council in early 2012 passed a resolution to support state-funded preliminary engineering design for the road. (Watauga County Board of Commissioners approved a similar resolution in 2012 as well.)

In February 2012, Susan McCracken, director of external affairs and community relations at ASU, told the council “that the university feels the project is necessary due to an increase in the number of students on that side of the campus,” according to council meeting minutes.

McCracken also noted in that meeting that the main concerns from residents of Homespun Hills’ neighborhood were the increase in traffic and the speed limit for the road.

Sue Naff, a resident of the neighborhood, posted on Facebook last year that this road would “destroy our PEACEFUL, QUIET, SERENE, SECLUDED neighborhood.” Alluding to the current noise from the adjacent athletic fields, Naff wrote: “Please ASU take us into consideration on this decision and don’t destroy any more of our neighborhoods.”