ROCKWELL — The Rockwell Board of Aldermen voted to table a public hearing after concerns and questions arose about a proposed housing development on the northeast side of town.

The proposed development would be a 40-house neighborhood located near the intersection of Sides and Palmer roads. The undeveloped property, sized at 15 acres, has a current address at 750 Palmer Road.

Included in the proposed plan would be a two-acre park and open common space in the middle of the property.

The first business addressed in the meeting on Monday was to update the town’s future land use plan to change the property from industrial to residential. The property has been planned as industrial since at least 2000 despite being empty that entire time, Zoning Administrator Shelley Williamson reported.

After the plan was updated, the aldermen voted to change the property from an Industrial zoning to Residential One zoning, which only allows single-family homes to be constructed on the property. Alderman Dillon Brewer was the only member to vote against the rezoning, saying that changing it to R1 instead of residential two, which is what the owner asked for and would allow multi-family homes and duplexes, was inconsistent with past decisions on developments such as Alexander Glen, which is zoned R2.

After those two decisions were made, the aldermen moved into the controversial subject, a requested Planned Unit Development that would allow for the 40-home neighborhood to be constructed.

The proposed plan that went along with the request included 40 houses, a two-acre park and common green space and a road that would connect to Palmer Road on one side and Sides Road on the other side of the property. Frank Cantrell, an engineer working on the development, said that the houses would almost certainly be two-story houses due to the smaller sizes of the lots, when asked what types of homes could be built in the area.

One of the main issues raised by the neighbors was simply how large of a jump going from empty space in their backyard to 40 two-story houses was.

“These people brought up some good points. There’s going to be two houses in every backyard. Two, not one, not a matching situation,” said neighbor Terry Medley.

Neighbors also raised issues such as traffic, the loss of privacy in backyards and runoff or flooding coming from the development, especially if berms are built as the buffer.

Cantrell said that during a prior community meeting, the only issue that he knew was raised was that plants as the buffer would not be possible due to the roots interfering with sewage and water for the neighboring homes. He said that he also widened the lots that back up to the homes on Sides Road after the planning board gave negative feedback on how many new houses would be built directly behind the existing residences.

Cantrell also said that if the PUD was not approved, the developer would most likely not be interested in developing at R1 standards, which require much larger lot sizes and fewer homes.

At the end of the discussion, the aldermen voted to continue the hearing until the next meeting in order to allow Cantrell time to guarantee the minimum square footage of the houses, to set up a community meeting in order to decide what type of buffer will be used between the developments and houses on Sides Road, to bring a proposal of the homeowners’ association agreement.

“I’m going to vote no with the stipulation that my vote could change on that if they came back and solved a lot of these questions voluntarily. If they came back and stipulated that they will at least do this or they hold a community meeting to talk about what would be best. Until they solve some of the big questions that we’ve had tonight, mine will stay no,” said Alderman Stephenie Walker when asked to vote on whether the PUD was in harmony with the surrounding area.

Cantrell agreed to work to answer the questions and set up the community meeting so that he could successfully report back in May. One neighbor, Martha Puga, had raised concerns that she had not received a letter or notification of a prior community meeting so Cantrell, who said he mailed the letters himself, said that he would work to make absolutely certain that every neighbor received notification.