Developers Tim Poston and George Vogler of GVTP Developments have cleared several hurdles in their quest to build an apartment complex on Three Springs Road. Now they face another one.

The proposed 304-unit complex, first recommended for denial of rezoning from agriculture to multi-family residential in a 6-4 vote by the City-County Planning Commission of Warren County, was approved for rezoning by the Bowling Green City Commission, which voted to annex the property into the city after the planning commission’s recommendation.

Now a group of residents in and around the Silver Springs subdivision that abuts the proposed 33-acre development has filed an appeal of the city commission’s unanimous rezoning approval.

The appeal will be heard in Warren Circuit Court and has been assigned to Judge John Grise. No date has been set for the hearing, which will be based strictly on the record of planning commission and city commission meetings.

Louisville attorney Stephen T. Porter, representing the Silver Springs-area residents, believes that record favors his clients.

“The majority of the planning commission members saw it our way,” Porter said. “The planning commission is familiar with the codes and the comprehensive plan. You can usually rely on their decisions.”

Porter also said the city commission didn’t give a valid reason for overruling the planning commission.

“The planning commission determined that this development doesn’t comply with the comprehensive plan,” said the attorney. “Usually, if the planning commission says something the city commission goes along. In this case they didn’t, and they didn’t give any reason why.”

The city of Bowling Green, the planning commission and GVTP Developments are named as defendants in the appeal, which alleges residents living near the proposed apartment complex are “injured and aggrieved because, if the rezoning is allowed and the proposed development is constructed, the existing character of their neighborhood will change drastically.”

The appeal also cites a possible decline in residents’ property values because “the intense and dense use of the land adjacent to them will be a radical change from the existing situation.”

The appeal asks the court to declare the city commission’s rezoning decision null and void and asks that the plaintiffs be granted any attorney’s fees and court costs associated with the appeal.

Planning commission attorney Hamp Moore, who will work with Bowling Green City Attorney Gene Harmon in opposing the appeal, thinks the appeal filed by Porter “only tells a small part of the story.”

According to Moore, Bowling Green Mayor Bruce Wilkerson and the city commissioners found the application for a zoning change to be “consistent with the comprehensive plan and compatible with the surrounding neighborhood.”

“I think the city commission certainly met its burden,” Moore said.

This will be the second rezoning appeal waiting to be heard by Grise. Warren County Fiscal Court in August approved rezoning 46 acres along Matlock and Long Roads from agriculture to single-family residential in order for the same GVTP Developments to build 100 homes in the area. The rezoning application had been recommended for denial by the planning commission.

A group of residents in the Matlock Road area has appealed the fiscal court’s decision, which came on a 3-2 vote with one abstention.