Heath Park Board backs trail-alignment change for 531 Hubbard Drive, forwards item to council

The Heath Park Board voted Sept. 21 to amend the Heath Master Trail Plan exhibit to adopt an alternate alignment on property at 531 Hubbard Drive, then forwarded the discretionary request to the City Council for final approval.

Zach King, the city’s director of planning and development, told the board the property is undeveloped and that the master plan’s existing alignment would connect two built segments but would bisect two large future lots. King said staff’s technical review found no physical impediment to the current alignment and recommended keeping the plan as written, but emphasized the board has discretion and the item is ultimately a council decision. King told the board the standard trail segment is a 10-foot concrete path and that the existing alignment is outside the floodplain.

Rob Whittle, the property owner and president of Whittle Development and Heath Golf and Yacht Club Inc., urged the alternate route, saying the mapped alignment bisected lots and followed an off-site sewer easement and that routing a trail through the center of those lots would make the most expensive homes unsellable. "It won't work if you've got a trail going right through the middle of their yard," Whittle said, and offered to plant canopy trees and fund the required landscaping along the amended route.

After board members asked clarifying questions about whether a physical trail exists on the parcel and about tree species, a motion to amend the exhibit as proposed by the applicant passed unanimously. Chair recorded that the board's recommendation will be delivered to City Council for the final, discretionary decision.