Franklin's Windstar Subdivision: An Environmental Disaster

Franklin's Windstar Subdivision:
An Environmental Disaster

In the late 90's, the sages running the City of Franklin, particularly the Planning Commission and Planning Department (headed at that time by David Weir AICP), gave carte blanche and a big kiss on the behind to Thomas Homes to construct "Windstar 2", yet another phase of a cookie-cutter sprawldivision. Problem was, nobody cared that there were 39 acres of forest remnant in the way. Also, Franklin apparently has no sunset on approved plats. Perhaps our city motto should be "What, me worry?"

Red line at left is City of Franklin boundary. Franklin Lakes subdivision is at right. 39 acres of old forest is at lower center. Early stages of Windstar "cookie-cutter" subdivision construction shown on parcel 5100-22-05. 5100-22-01 is owned by Johnson County. Franklin's Blue Heron park is to the right of that. The old FF&M Rail Road cut throught the southeast corner of the woods circa 1853.

2006 photo (yes, still online in 2007). Note the stormwater retention ponds, which conform to State and City requirements.

Close-up of forest. Tree removal may have begun when this was taken.

Pop question: Imagine it's 2006, and you're the developer in question. You've developed hundreds of acres of stuff that all looks the same. And it looks like a zillion other subdivisions in the area. You'd be savvy enough to realize that the market is overbuilt, a lot of the demand is artificial and driven by speculation and bad lending practices, and that if you changed course and used the same amount of land for fewer, larger homes with lots of trees, you might make as much, if not more, money, right? Well, not this guy.

"Property values increase 5-15% when compared to properties without trees (depends on species, maturity, quantity and location)."
- Anderson, L.M. and Cordell, H.K., 1988, Influence of trees on residential property values in Athens, Georgia (USA): A survey based on actual sales prices, Landscape and Urban Plann.

Former trees, May 2007. There were some very large ones also.

View from high ground of the former forest, looking downstream towards Franklin. Note that the forest topsoil is already gone, helped along by bulldozer joyriding.

Remnant of the former forest floor.

A tool of the forest-destuction trade.

Where a lot of the trees went.

What a lot of the trees became.

The mark of the beast. "Recycler"?

The maker of the beast. Bandits, eh?

Owner of the beast. They'll "clear" it, and then some, all right.

Poetic justice?

This forest was also an archeological site. Perhaps a village. We'll never know. The land and all artifacts are thoroughly destroyed.

Welcome to Mr. Thomas' new moonscape.

Will Franklin, Indiana, ever be a "Tree City USA" again? We're running a big deficit.

"Progress."
They say you can't stop it, don't they?
It seems that not even laws nor common sense prevail in Johnson County.

Downstream Effects of the Windstar Disaster.

Back around Easter 2008, there was an extremely heavy rain in the Franklin area. Province Park suffered unprecedented damage from the resulting flood.

The March 2008 flood demonstrated exceptional velocity and scouring.

The point between Youngs and Hurricane creeks was stripped of soil and heavily eroded.
What was the added factor since previous years?

The answer: A massive flow from the denuded and unremediated Windstar site. A fan of debris, pointing straight downhill and towards Youngs Creek, stretched north from the former forest site.

Another view. The debris fan consisted mainly of wood left from the "land clearing", and large rocks.

View across debris field towards Franklin.

And to this day, despite demands from IDEM, Thomas Homes has not done a lick of erosion/runoff remediation work on their destroyed forest site.

WHAT FRANKLIN LOST... and reaped...

39 acres at perhaps around 200 trees per acre, conservatively... Let's round off and suppose that 8000 trees were uprooted.

"A healthy tree stores about 13 pounds of carbon annually -- or 2.6 tons per acre each year. An acre of trees absorbs enough CO2 over one year to equal the amount produced by driving a car 26,000 miles."
- Nowak, David J., "Benefits of Community Trees" (Brooklyn Trees, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report, in review)

"The cleaning value of forests has been known for decades, and has been actively used to protect water quality near reservoirs and lakes. Studies have shown that trees planted on open cropland can reduce soil erosion from 10 tons per acre per year to less than l/2 ton per acre in 3 years.

Trees are nature's air conditioners. An acre of trees can grow about 2 tons of wood per year. This same acre removes 3 tons of carbon dioxide and produces 2 l/2 tons of oxygen per year. A person uses less than one pound of oxygen per day, or about 278 pounds per year. So every acre of forest produces enough oxygen for 18 people. At the same time, an acre of forest removes 13 tons of dust from the surrounding environment and releases 8,000 gallons of water into the air. This results in forest areas being cooler and cleaner than surrounding areas."
- Alabama Forestry Commission

"Trees reduce topsoil erosion, prevent harmful land pollutants contained in the soil from getting into our waterways, slow down water run-off, and ensure that our groundwater supplies are continually being replenished. For every 5% of tree cover added to a community, stormwater runoff is reduced by approximately 2%."
- Coder, Dr. Kim D., "Identified Benefits of Community Trees and Forests", University of Georgia, October, 1996.

"Research by the USFS shows that in a 1 inch rainstorm over 12 hours, the interception of rain by the canopy of the urban forest in Salt Lake City reduces surface runoff by about 11.3 million gallons, or 17%. These values would increase as the canopy increases."
- American Forests, "The Case For Greener Cities", 1999.