Ridgepointe Residents Air Grievances at Public Hearing

Some residents of Ridgepointe Villas are not happy that the developer, Kemp Homes, is asking the city to amend the original development plan. The new plan will allow the construction of single-family homes on empty lots in the unfinished subdivision.

The request has already had a public hearing at a Planning and Zoning meeting on March 1 but no action was taken on it. Another public hearing on the application was held at the March 19 Board of Aldermen meeting.

Steve and Joan Duffy, residents of Ridgepointe Villas, spoke up at the public hearing to air problems with the developer and issues that residents have with single-family homes being built in a development that was represented to them as an adults-only community.

Steve Duffy spoke about the couple's search for a home in the area. "We were driving around and looking at neighborhoods and I remember looking at Ridgepointe Villas. They looked so maintained. It looked really good," he said. "I thought, this is the kind of place I could live."

Duffy didn't mind the additional monthly fee to live there because so many services were going to be provided.

But four years later, Duffy said, Kemp hadn't paid the bills for those services and homeowners were being forced to pay a judgement on services that they never received.

Read more: Steve Pokin's October 2011 Suburban Journals story about the Ridgepointe homeowners association

Joan Duffy stepped up to the podium next, saying that she was there representing neighbors that didn’t have enough notice about the meeting.

"It was sold to us as an adult community and a community that would always be taken care of," Duffy said. "But the main thing is that we don’t want children running around all the time. Grandkids, okay, they go home."

Duffy said that the couple bought a Ridgepointe Villa in order to live a quiet lifestyle and that adding single family homes would change the atmosphere. She asked the board to consider the changes that would come to the community if the request was approved.

The Kemp application is up for a second public hearing and a first reading at the April 2 Board of Aldermen meeting.

Duffy asked that, if the board should approve the application, it require a commitment from Kemp to give control of the homeowner's association to the residents, put in additional parking and create an escrow account for future landscaping issues, among other things.

Duffy also said that more residents would attend future meetings to express their concerns.

"They feel cheated and taken advantage of," Duffy said. "If we allow it to happen again, shame on us."