January 3, 2007

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            If the changes are approved by the commissioners in two weeks, the Holding family can go forward with its plans for Holding Village, a 1,290-home TND on 300-plus acres, half of what was the Holding Dairy Farm.

            Planning board members Pete Thibodeau, a hydrologist, and Ward Mariotti, a biologist/environmental scientist, were strongly opposed to the changes to the zoning ordinance setting up a TND district. Chris Kaebelein joined them in voting but did not comment.

            “We still don’t have a regulating code,” Thibodeau said. “We haven’t created these definitions.”

            His motion to deny the proposed change “because it lacks sufficient specificity,” was turned down five to three.

            Planning Director Chip Russell’s proposed TND district would require a detailed master plan for a specific piece of land of at least 60 acres.

            Along with the master plan, the developer would have to submit a regulating code specific to that development which would include specifics for the construction of streets and alleys, how homes and businesses are to be built, where street trees and landscaping would be placed, architectural standards and what Russell called “the horizontal and vertical mixing of uses.”

            The proposed change does include a number of design provisions: some of them are, streets are to be interconnected and blocks are to be small, housing types will be mixed and close to each other, civic building will have prominent sites and most homes will be with a quarter or a half-mile of the center of the neighborhood.

            Some of the questions planning board members may have had were apparently answered in a series of e-mails the circulated to the planning board and town board members and the planning staff.

            When Thibodeau said there are other ways of regulating TNDs that include much more specific detail, Russell agreed. “There are a variety of ways of doing them. The approach I’m proposing is the setup of our code right now.”

            It follows the same approach as the urban code for the Renaissance area, allowing the district and setting out a regulating code with specifics, Russell said.

            There was agreement the new approach would need more review.

            “Maybe we ought to put in that we have to have it sixty days before the public hearing,” Mike Martin said.

            “I’m going to be giving this to the board as soon as I get the draft. You can review it at the same time the staff does,” Russell said.

            “During the review period, with this being so general, we have nothing to guide the development. You can’t tell me no,” Thibodeau said.

            He and Marotti worried about open space, and Thibodeau foresaw requests for TNDs on every 60-acre lot. “Do we want to spread out Wake Forest in many mini-urban centers?”

            Marotti said there was no definition of open space. “How much of that is going to be developable land, wetlands or buffers that are greenways?”

            Commissioner Frank Drake asked is there was anything to protect a town green from become the site for apartments several years after the TND is built.

            Tarboro has a town green that was created 150 years ago, Martin said. “We’ve got to hope that the folks who would follow us down the line” would preserve a town green or other open space.

            Thibodeau and Marotti voted against the proposed changes in the subdivision ordinance allowing exceptions for planned unit developments and TNDs.

            The site for Holding Village would be directly south of the N.C. 98 bypass – look for the pond and three silos to the south as you head east from South Main Street – north of Heritage Wake Forest, west of the Dameron land and Heritage North and east of South Main Street and the CSX railroad line. It would abut the town’s operations center on Friendship Chapel Road and Friendship Chapel Church.

            The developers would build South Franklin Street from the bypass to its present deadend in Heritage and would extend Friendship Chapel from its deadend east of the church.

            Preliminary sketches show Franklin Street divided by at least two blocks through the heart of Holding Village while Friendship Chapel would be diverted north and south through the village.