Letters abounding

There's been an overwhelming response to the proposed soccer complex in writing letters to the newspaper and the Henderson County Board of Commissioners. Thanks to everyone for making their views knows. Below is an excerpt from one such letter:

The purchase of the 65 acre Highland Lake Golf Club in Flat Rock from Course Doctors Inc., to convert the property to a soccer complex and public park raises several questions:

• Could the Henderson County Board of Commissioners have applied the $1.15 million to a more suitable location within the county for less money?

• What will the maintenance and debt service amount to a year, and every year? One estimate has stated to probably be $400,000 plus.

• What about the increased traffic and road issues that will bring some 2,000 plus visitors and players to the soccer field activities? Is the state DOT aware of this proposal? Has the DOT been asked for a study ?

• How will the residents living near the park handle the noise and additional traffic volume?

• What will be the environmental and financial impact on homeowners near the park?

• What about the impact to Season's Restaurant and the Flat Rock Playhouse?

• How will the buffer area along perennial streams or along the water’s edge of a lake or designated wetland border be affected?  (See Section 911. Riparian buffers adjacent to streams, lakes and designated wetlands)

• What will happen to the existing trees and landscape of the former Highland Lake Golf Club acreage?

It appears to us that the County is about to destroy a peaceful, beautiful and quiet environment and convert it into an ugly, noisy congested mess just to satisfy the whims of a few hundred soccer enthusiasts. Certainly a better less destructive plan could be implemented to satisfy those needs!

I don't think anyone is against soccer per se, but we are very concerned about putting nine soccer fields in the location the County is proposing.