January 4, 2005

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            “There wasn’t hardly any growth at all when I moved here in 1986,” Commissioner Frank Eagles said, although Wall Creek subdivision had been approved before then. But only a few homes were built on the 120 lots in those early years as the development went through ownership changes.

            Then Olde Town was approved, and it, too, suffered ownership changes as the three phases were built.

            By 2000 and the U.S. Census, workers counted 907 people who called Rolesville home. The state and town agreed the population reached 1,000 sometime in 2003, and by the close of 2004 the estimate was 1,200 residents.

            The deluge will hit in the next five to 10 years.

            “There have been two thousand houses total approved (in new subdivisions) in the past three years,” Bryan Hicks, Rolesville’s planning director, said last week.

            Two thousand single-family homes multiplied by 2.6, the average household size, comes to 5,200 new residents for the town in the next few years. And of course there will be other subdivision requests.

Nine residential subdivisions are underway in town, and most of them will not even begin pulling building permits until this year. Even so, the number of permits has more than doubled in a year.

The town issued about 190 building permits for new single-family homes in 2005 compared to 84 in 2004, 69 in 2003 and 66 in 2002. Hicks will get a final tally for December during the first week of January from Wake County, which does the inspections.

The important part of the growth, though, Eagles said, is that the commissioners have learned from earlier problems.

“I’ve used it as an example,” Eagles said, referring to Olde Town. “Phase one looks nice, phase two doesn’t look as nice and phase three is nice again.”

Another example is Wall Creek, which was advertised for years as an all-brick community. “Now its siding and brick,” Eagles said. “That does an injustice to the people who originally bought there.” Wall Creek is selling its last few houses and was not included in the subdivisions underway.

As a result, the Rolesville town board has drawn up development standards which specify the minimum size of houses, the minimum quality of materials to be used as well as other aspects.

The town requires the development standards through special use permits or conditional zoning. “The developers have agreed to build houses 2,500 square feet and up. They have also agreed to have two-car garages with individual doors. The standards have basically changed with each development, depending on their geographic characteristics,” Hicks said.

“The last few developers [who came to the town board] already knew we would ask them to put in paved trails [along greenways], extra lanes [along streets], parks and tot lots. They didn’t have a problem,” Eagles said.

Eagles said he has told Heritage developer Andy Ammons he would have to do more if he ever builds in Rolesville. “He said, ‘I know.’“ For example, Eagles said, Rolesville would have required Ammons to widen Rogers Road to three lanes between the shopping center and the combined Heritage South/Wildflower subdivisions on the south side of the road.

Eagles also talked about Terrell Plantation, a 77-lot residential subdivision that has access on both West Young and Weathers streets. The board required George Van Nortwick, the developer to obtain an access to West Young rather than having Weathers as the only access.

In addition, Van Nortwick must upgrade Weathers Street with better paving, curb, gutter and sidewalk all the way to West Young.

The town board has also said that 75 percent of its unused water and sewer allocation from Raleigh will be used for houses that are 2,500 square feet or larger with 25 percent for smaller homes and apartments.

“We’ve been accused of not having starter homes,” Eagles said. His answer is that there are existing starter homes in town and some smaller homes are being built in the Villages of Rolesville.

The town does not want, he said, subdivisions like the one Raleigh approved along U.S. 401 south of Rolesville. The builder for Brighton bulldozed everything, Eagles said, and built “crackerbox houses.”

Eagles and the town are also in a dispute with the head of Wake County’s Planning Department, Melanie Wilson, about its extra-territorial jurisdiction, which can extend a mile from the town limits. The town, like others, wants to have zoning and other controls over land it can expect to be within town limits at some point.

Wilson, however, is saying that if the ETJ line goes through a piece of property it cannot be included in the ETJ. Given the number of large properties around Rolesville, Eagles said, the impact is significant.

In one instance, Eagles said 75 percent of one tract is within the one-mile limit, and the county planning board unanimously agreed Ronnie Watts could build a subdivision using wells and septic tanks.

Watts builds nice subdivisions, Eagles said, but “that piece of property should have been in the ETJ. The owner “would have built a Rolesville subdivision (with water and sewer) or he wouldn’t have bought the property.” As it stands, unless Eagles can persuade the county commissioners not to approve the rezoning, the development is going to be “like a hole in the doughnut” with Rolesville-standard subdivisions all around it.

The question about ETJ is going to affect all Wake County towns, Eagles said.

The nine residential subdivisions, numbered according to the accompanying map are:

            1) Willow Crest is underway on West Young Street with the first houses near the street. There will be 173 homes on 88 lots

            2) Cedar Ridge has streets, utilities, curb and gutter but no homes yet. It is on East Young nearly across from New Bethel Baptist Church. It will have 178 homes on 102 acres and one street will tie into the Villages of Rolesville while another is stubbed to vacant land.

            3) The Villages of Rolesville lies behind Food Lion off South Main Street (U.S. 401) and will have 531 homes – single-family and townhouses – on 202 acres and is well underway.

            5) Hampton Pointe is 98 acres on the west side of U.S. 401 south of the Burlington Mills Road intersection.

            6) Granite Ridge will have 200 multifamily units. The portion of the subdivision along Rogers Road will be developed as single-lot commercial, and many of the lots are already sold.

            8) Carlton Pointe will have 300 dwelling units on 134 acres along Jonesville Road.

            10) Granite Falls will combine residential, commercial and institutional uses. The 154 acres sprawl between West Young and Rogers Road. The westernmost portion, 94 acres will be used for 237 single-family homes. Along Rogers Road, 37 acres will be for commercial uses. Between the town park and the road under construction, the 23 acres for Sanford Creek Elementary School are being graded. The school will open in the fall of 2007.

            11) Terrell Plantation will have 77 lots on 36 acres. Its entrance will be across West Young from Granite Falls, and there will be a secondary access on Weathers Street.

            12) Averette Ridge is too far out to be included on the map. It will have 149 lots off Jones Dairy Road, all at least 15,000 square feet.

            There are also two wholly commercial projects: Rolesville Commons on U.S. 401 south of Rogers Road with three buildings on 2.7 acres and Millridge Shopping Center on 11 acres at the intersection of Rogers and U.S. 401.

            One of the town’s jewels is its new park in the middle of town. The western boundary of the park adjoins the future elementary school land.

            The town has also just purchased two parcels adjacent to the park where Town Manager Matthew Livingston and the commissioners plan a 15,000-square-foot town hall in five years or so.

            The town, with the help of state Rep. Lucy Allen of Louisburg and other members of the local legislative delegation, is also pursuing more immediate funding for the widening of U.S. 401 and its bypass.

            The first step is the widening of the highway from the Ligon Mill/Mitchell Mill intersection to Louisbury Road. Construction for the four lanes will begin this year.

            At the same time, the state Department of Transportation will begin buying land for the bypass – which will go from Louisbury Road to N.C. 96. The plan calls for ramps and access to the bypass from Jonesville Road, Rolesville Road (East Young) and Pulleytown Road.

            Completion of the bypass is now slated for 2012.

            With 20,000 cars a day on U.S. 401 as it passes through Rolesville, Hicks said the need for the bypass is more than evident.

            However, the DOT’s current funding plan does not cover the 18 miles from Rolesville to Louisburg.

Click Here for map.

            (A map of the subdivisions is included in the story, but readers may not be able to make it larger or smaller. An Adobe file with the map was included in this week’s notification to subscribers. If you did not get it, e-mail Carol Pelosi at cwpelosi@aol.com and she will send it to you.)