Taylor to Weigh New Development

Oxford Eagle
02/28/2006

Plans to create a new town center and traditional neighborhood inside the village of Taylor got the backing of Lafayette County’s planning commission on Monday.

Acting in an advisory role to the Taylor Board of Aldermen, commissioners gave their blessing to Main Street Taylor and also OK’d a handful of variances requested by developers Campbell McCool and Stewart Speed. Taylor’s board will consider next week whether to affirm those decisions.

The variances included some leeway on street width and on how close the homes can be built to the curb — concessions McCool said were crucial to his pedestrian-friendly concept. Plans for the 200 homesites include front porches within hollering distance of sidewalks, while relegating automobiles to rear alleyways.

“This is the sort of place where you can walk to dinner, to the grocery store or to the news stand — or to hear an outdoor concert or get some ice cream with your kid,” McCool told commissioners.

“It hearkens back to a day before the automobile dominated everything we’re doing.”

Changes in store

A controversial project within Taylor itself, Main Street Taylor has been perceived as both a threat to and a manifestation of the community’s identity.

Once a bustling town, the place is now a haven for quiet country living, best known to the outside world as home to the Taylor Grocery catfish house. It’s also built a reputation as home to a disproportionate number of artists and craftsmen, whose work is shown at the Taylor Arts gallery.

An affinity with the arts is a key theme of the Main Street Taylor development, which aims to include a Montessori arts school as part of a commercial square area just down the street from Taylor Grocery.

Other potential tenants for the downtown — of which McCool and Speed plan to maintain ownership — include art galleries, a grocery store, a coffee shop, antique shops, a bed-and-breakfast, a bookstore and a cinema.

The development partners also plan to build each of the homes themselves rather than selling lots to builders.

“These will be wooden houses with tin roofs and sidewalks, old-fashioned street lamps, white picket fences and front porches — in tune with the older-style homes of Taylor,” McCool said.

“What we’re trying to do — what we feel this plan would do — is to successfully capture the positives of Taylor and extend them down Main Street.”

Give and take

The preliminary plat presented Monday reserves 30 percent of the 65-acre site as greenspace in what is now a mostly open field. Nearly all the existing pockets of woods are be preserved, McCool said.

Working with community leaders over the past several months has been a process of give-and-take, with the village board still drawing up certain conditions for its support of the project. As part of the deal, the developers have offered land and a $100,000 donation to build a new fire station for the community.

On behalf of the village, attorney Joyce Freeland said Monday that artist’s renderings of what the project would look like will be included in the official permanent record, and that the village was requesting plats that showed where existing tree stands were located.

If the Taylor Board of Aldermen grants preliminary plat approval for the project next week, it would clear the way for construction to begin this spring.

McCool said the first tasks after laying roads and utility lines would be to build and sell five or 10 houses. They also plan to start work on a couple of the commercial buildings, so that people can get a better idea of what’s in store.

“This is a different kind of project for around here,” McCool said. “We’re going to have to put our money where our mouth is.”

The Taylor Board of Aldermen meets March 7 at 7 p.m. in the village hall.