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There should be little controversy about
the one public hearing set for Tuesday –
review of the proposed pedestrian plan –
but the town’s planners and the
architect for a building in the Heritage
Professional Park are at odds over one
oak tree.
Edwards Associates
Architects of Raleigh are planning a
building for Village Family Care on Lot
G in the park on Rogers Road.
Planner Lisa Potts wrote in
her staff analysis that the development
plan approved in 2003 for the park
identified the oak tree as 18 inches in
diameter and listed it as one to be
preserved as part of the baseline
requirement.
The site plan the architects
submitted recently, Potts wrote, now
identified the tree as being 24 inches
in diameter but said it would be removed
in order to construct the
8,000-square-foot building and a tree
equal in size would be planted later.
During the site plan review,
planning staff members visited the site
to see the size and condition of the
disputed oak tree.
“Staff has evaluated the
tree as a Landmark Tree at approximately
30 inches in diameter in healthy
condition,” Potts wrote, and she is
recommending the tree be preserved.
The town’s landscape
standards say healthy trees 24 inches or
more in diameter should be defined as
Landmark Trees and preserved where
possible.
The public hearing about the
pedestrian plan will begin at 7:30 p.m.
Tuesday, Sept. 5, in town hall before
the planning and town boards.
The 80-page proposed Wake
Forest Pedestrian Plan was overseen by
planner Ann Ayers, assembled by a
steering committee which met several
times, aired at two public workshops and
vetted at neighborhood meetings. Its
goal is an accessible, safe, convenient,
interconnected and functional pedestrian
transportation system, and the plan
includes current plans, maps of future
corridors, design guidelines, policies,
priorities, funding options and public
involvement.
The town’s plan is partly
underwritten by a grant from the state
Department of Transportation. When the
plan is adopted, DOT will reimburse the
town for 70 percent ($24,150) of the
$34,500 cost.
The other item on the
planning board’s agenda is a review of
the site plan for the second phase of
North Park which calls for a building
three stories (51.3 feet) tall.
Since the development plan
for North Park on Capital Boulevard was
approved in 1996 for four office
buildings, the town has adopted a
regulation requiring site plan review
for buildings taller than 35 feet. The
plan submitted by Beacon Ventures of
Charlotte is substantially the same as
that originally approved.
One change is that the
site’s access to Capital Boulevard has
been cut off by a ramp for the N.C. 98
bypass, and the only access now is by
Northpark Drive to the bypass at Retail
Drive. |
