It would be no surprise to many of our friends that when my family and I are on one of our vacations I spend a lot of time talking to people. My wife says I have a knack for it, and it is one of the little pleasures I get from traveling across this great nation of ours. Thus after traveling over 6000 miles, visiting 7 National Parks, skipping the Highways for the back roads, and skipping the chain restaurants for the local “maw and paws” I have to say Collegedale is “getting it right” in a lot of ways.
One way we have “got it right” is with the outstanding job developers, Greg Vital and Franklin Farrow have done with the Greenbriar Cove retirement village near 4 corners. After two weeks out west it was such a pleasure to drive by the entrances and see the freshly manicured common areas, the patriotic bunting on the fences and buildings, the lakes, and cute arts and craft style houses and condominiums. You see, it is impressive to me because I know that the city of Collegedale had no Ordinances or rules on the books to force them to build such a high quality and beautiful development; they built Greenbriar to exacting standards, which turned out to be higher than anything we as a city could have thought of. To me after all of my asking folks in so many little towns how they did things and the battles they fought to get things done right, this is refreshing beyond mere words.
If you don’t know about Greenbriar it is a master planned retirement community with an Assisted Living Center owned by Mr. Vital and Farrow, a luxury retirement apartment building owned by the Life Care Corporation of America, and then the condominium and cabin areas. It is the type of place that makes me wish I was at the age where I could retire and move in. From the lakes, the quaint architecture, the trees, and the other landscaping it is absolutely beautiful, well built, and centrally located, so if you are looking to down size a bit, and not have the chores of a house you ought to look at Greenbriar Cove in Collegedale.
An appreciation for retirement communities isn’t all I have learned, but it just struck me how lucky our little town was that these two developers took pride in their product, pride in their home town, and gave our community something that we can be proud of for years to come. Collegedale has just passed a new Landscaping Ordinance, a new Commercial Design Standards Ordinance, a Commercial Design Review Ordinance, and the Collegedale Tomorrow Advisory Board and the Planning Commission are working towards a new Sign Ordinance and a Residential Standards Ordinance. Our goal is twofold, first to protect our town from shoddy development and the town becoming a “mess,” but second to attract the kind of developers who appreciate what a beautiful little town we have here and want to see it improved not just make a quick buck. Vital and Farrow are two of those kind of developers, the kind you want in your city, and I am proud to have them in ours. We need more like them, not just in Collegedale but across this nation. Other cities have fought the same battles Collegedale is fighting right now, and I hope by traveling America and asking questions I can do my part in my own little way to help Collegedale “get it right.”
David Barto
Chairman of the Collegedale Tomorrow Advisory Board