Brittany Woods Residents Want to Curb Fast Traffic in Neighborhood

A new connection between the Brittany Estates Apartments and F.D. “Buddy” East Parkway will be one of several construction projects considered by the Oxford Board of Aldermen this summer when they review the fiscal year 2022 budget.

A group of homeowners living in the Brittany Woods subdivision recently met with Aldermen Kesha Howell-Atkinson to discuss concerns about the increase of traffic in their neighborhood and a lack of a second entrance/exit into the apartment complex north of the single-family home subdivision.

The only entrance into the apartment complex is through the subdivision off Suncrest Drive.

“If any apartment complex were being built today, we would require two entrances,” said Alderman Janice Antonow.

However, the property needed to build the extension road off Brittany Drive to the parkway could require eminent domain of the property if the landowner doesn’t want to donate the land to the city to use as the extension.

During a work session meeting on Monday, Alderman Rick Addy said he had concerns about building a road via an eminent domain that would benefit the owner of the apartment complex financially as it could increase the value of the land.

Mayor Robyn Tannehill pointed out that the project would be added to the city’s list of possible projects to consider in the spring and summer when the Board enters into budget hearings and that no decision needed to be made Monday.

The estimated construction costs for the extension is $225,000 to $350,000 depending on where it would be constructed.

The neighborhood is also seeking to place about 13 speed bumps inside the subdivision and is currently seeking signatures on a petition from the homeowners.

Tannehill told Howell-Atkinson to suggest the homeowners look at other areas in Oxford with speed humps that also come with several required, and unsightly, signs.

“People ask for the speed bumps and then they get them and then they want them taken down,” she said.

If a neighborhood gains approval for speed humps and then wants to have them taken up, the cost to remove them is on the homeowners.

The Brittany Woods subdivision and Brittany Estates were annexed by the city in 2018 when the city annexed about 12 square miles from Lafayette County.

Some of the other possible projects to be considered by the Board next year include sidewalks on East Jackson Avenue and Bramlett Boulevard, a cemetery drainage project, Wilson Road drainage improvements, pedestrian crossing at the Oxford Activity Center and Goose Creek pipelining.