DAPHNE, Alabama (GCN)— Residents from Tiawasee Trace filled council chambers Monday night to voice their opposition to a new development in their neighborhood.

The Retreat at Tiawasee is a planned subdivision development in the same area as the Tiawasee Trace and Tiawasee Estates subdivisions off County Road13. The Retreat will be a 31-acre, 57-lot neighborhood that, without the Tiawasee Trace access, would be landlocked.

Residents from Tiawasee Trace are upset the developer plans to build the new subdivision without also building a new access point, planning instead to use their neighborhood’s entrance and exit.

The Tiawasee Trace Property Owners Association has now hired lawyer Robert Stankoski of Fairhope to represent them in the matter. At Monday night’s meeting, Stankoski made a presentation to the council about the city’s comprehensive plan and the growth of the city.

“One of your goals in your comprehensive plan is to preserve existing neighborhoods,” Stankoski said. “If you allow this, you will have three subdivisions all using the same roads, all using the same exit and entrance and what kind of traffic nightmare are you going to have on 13 then. You are going to have another Rock Creek or Lake Forest with traffic issues because you now have three subdivisions that were never designed to do that—to be using each other’s infrastructure.”

Stankoski also pointed out that the developer had a proposed right of way that ran all the way to Park Drive.

“They have their own right of way,” Stankoski said. “They purchased it. They bought it. They don’t want to develop it now because it would cost a whole lot more money. It’s cheaper to build a tiny road and hook it onto another subdivision.”

Stankoski told the council that this is not what residents of Tiawasee Trace signed up for when they bought their homes.

Residents echoed that sentiment later at the public hearing, saying they bought their homes to be a part of a secluded natural subdivision, not a giant one such as Lake Forest.

This was just the latest in a series of public hearings that have been heard on the issue, and each time Tiawasee Trace residents have come out in full force with their opposition.

At a previous public hearing, then Tiawasee Property Owners Association President Page Sims said that this wasn’t the plan for their neighborhood.

“Tiawasee Trace was never marketed as a gateway to future subdivisions because it just doesn’t make sense,” Sims said at the Oct. 25 public hearing.