---Save Mill Mountain

Mill Mountain Conservancy

"Don't be afraid to hold on to your best land for the public realm." Joe Riley, Mayor of Charleston

Environmental Issues of VF Restaurant Proposal

Service vehicle access	Additional road construction would be needed for supply and waste removal truck access. In the limited space of the mountaintop area, this is significant.
Nightime outdoor lighting	To accommodate night business, parking lot lighting would probably be needed.
Restaurant lighting	Any lighted building on the mountaintop would be visible at night from the valley, and moreso in the winter.
Noise	All of the relatively flat open space (blue-tinted in the photographs below) of the mountaintop park area is closer to the building than one-and-a-half lengths of the building. With the restaurant's outdoor patio activities, the noise intrusion on the rest of that area of the park would be substantial.
	-
Vehicle traffic to and within the park	The added daily vehicular traffic necessary to provide the two restaurants with staff, an adequate number of customers, and supply delivery and waste removal, would substantially alter the park's natural ambience and add to air pollution.
Delivery truck and garbage truck access	No truck unloading/loading area, access driveway or dumpster pad is shown for the restaurant building in any of Valley Forward's plans. This makes it easy to overlook not only the need for the additional grading and paving, but the regular coming and going of these heavy, noisy vehicles. These trucks would require a new approach road or they would have to use the parking lot for their arrival and departure.
Loss of natural ambience	The combined impact of the building's size, its adjacent siting by the grassy picnic/play area (the only flat and nearly-flat space other than parking lots) and the busy commercial activity necessary for the project's survival will heavily impact the existing values the park now offers. One can see that the footprint of the building and its patio nearly equals the grassy picnic/play space of the park.
A sampling of expected park visitors

Back to Homepage