Last night Danville City Council voted to approve two rezoning applications that would convert 24 acres at 1700 West Main Street and address the housing shortage in Danville. 14 Acres will be rezoned from Threshold Residential to Multifamily Residential to build 204 luxury apartments with 17 buildings that would front West Main Street.

The apartments will be one, two, and three bedrooms. It will also include a pool and vehicular storage.

10 acres will be rezoned from Threshold Residential to Neotraditional Residential and will allow for the construction of 24 single family homes.

Many residents that live in the area spoke against the proposed development for a number of reasons including traffic, contaminated dirt, and wildlife in the area as outlined by Chris Winslow.

“You do have bald eagles here, three have been sited, there may be more. A review needs to be made of where these protected birds are and we need to understand what precautions are going to be made. We also have the soil contamination issue. We have a e-mail from Mr. Huggins, who my understanding is the Chief Engineer of Public Works for the city, stating that there was once occurrence of contaminated soil found at the Caesars construction site. This is an issue and it represents the possible contamination of the river and the water supply,” said Winslow.

Chris Vail with Sycamore Development Company addressed the concerns about the dirt.

“The dirt that’s on the site came from the Caesars Casino site,” said Vail, “Caesars had a brownfield abatement program with state funded money that took place and it was well publicized. The way this program works, the way the world works with dirt, you cannot just take contaminated dirt from one site and move it to another, it is against the law. Those programs have plenty of red tape around them, they are overseen by lots of organizations at the state and local level.”

A traffic impact study and any environmental work will have to be completed before the projects can begin construction.