April 5, 2006

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            Planner Ann Ayers said Jim and Gayle Adams requested the rezoning from neighborhood business to residential R-8 because they want to renovate the house at 851 South Main St. as a duplex. “The only reason we knew about it is because they wanted to have a separate [electric] meter,” Ayers said. Although the lot is about an acre, larger than the 8,000-square-foot minimum in R-8, that district allows duplexes.

            Planning Director Chip Russell said the changes in the zoning ordinance establishing the Historic Preservation Commission are to bring it into line with the other town advisory committees as a town committee recommended. The members’ four-year terms are changed to three years, residents of a locally designated Historic Landmark may be one of the four historic district members on the board and the commission is required to submit an annual report.

            The town has two houses designated as Local Historic Landmarks, Russell said, the I.O. Jones house on South Main Street and the Battle house on North Main Street.

            When the planning board reviewed a change in the master plan for South Forest Business Park, planning board member Stephen Stoller and Commissioner Margaret Stinnett had concerns about streets. The change was to divide a single lot owned by Capital Concrete Company into three lots. The property can be used for office, warehouse, flex and manufacturing.

            “Are there any plans to upgrade Burlington Mills Road with all the truck traffic?” Stoller asked, and Russell said there is nothing at present. Stoller persisted, citing some recent problems. “I would be really concerned about traffic on Burlington Mills Road without any provision for improvement.”

            “There are plans to have it widened to four lanes,” Russell said. (The town’s transportation plan calls for widening the road to five lanes and sidewalks from U.S. 1 (Capital Boulevard) to Ligon Mill Road and then a 45-foot road from Ligon Mill to Forestville Road. The project is number 9 out of 11 on the town plan.)

            “I don’t know if we’ll ever get any kind of funding to widen it,” Russell went on. He said the road’s condition is not so much the use by the concrete trucks going to and from the business park, “It’s the volume. Traffic in the area is going to get worse and worse.” When the commercial part of the Shearon Farms development is built along Burlington Mills Road, Russell said, the developer will have to widen and improve the road from Capital to One World Way, the business park entrance.

            (One of the options for turning Capital Boulevard into a limited-access freeway calls for a major intersection at Burlington Mills Road.)

            Stinnett’s concern was the easement for the private street serving two of those three lots and a flag lot to the north as well as the lack of curb and gutter. Planner Chad Sary and Russell told her the subdivision met all the town requirements, that the town does not require curb and gutter for lots an acre or larger or for private streets or drives.

            The plan was approved with Stoller voting no.

            There was more dissension about the single entrance/exit to Jeff Ammon’s 65-lot subdivision, one of the last two properties in Heritage zoned for residential use.

            “I’m surprised someone is not going bananas because there is only one way in and out,” planning board member Speed Massenburg said.

            The 15.6-acre site which tapers to a sharp point to the south has challenges. It is tucked between the golf course pond to the north and surrounded by four holes and greenways to the east and west.

            Commissioner Frank Drake asked several times why this piece of land was left with only access from the south from a currently stubbed-out section of Heritage Glenn Drive. “This is a contrived circumstance,” Drake said.

            Planning board members suggested emergency fire and EMS trucks could use the golf cart paths, drive between houses and across the greens or push aside wrecked vehicles on the entrance street.

            “The golf course was laid out first and all natural areas were preserved” before the developer, Andy Ammons, who is also Jeff’s brother, determined where the residential areas in the original Heritage Wake Forest would be. All of that was subject to planning staff review. Russell said they worked to interconnect every neighborhood if possible.

            Stoller and two other planning board members, Chris Kaeberlein and Kim Parker, voted no with the other seven members agreeing to approve the plan.

            All the planning board items now go to the town board for their decision during their regular meeting on April 18.

            At the end of the meeting, Russell gave members copies of the new flood protection ordinance which they will consider next month.