March 21, 2007

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            Showing the same ambivalence as the town’s Comprehensive Planning Committee, which split two to two, the town commissioners voted three to two to reject the offer. Commissioners Velma Boyd-Lawson, Frank Drake and Margaret Stinnett voted to reject while Stephen Barrington and David Camacho voted to accept.

            The CPC – Camacho and Drake with planning board members Bob Hill and Kim Parker – voted unanimously in December to reject the plans by Rhein Interests Inc. in Greensboro and Priest, Craven, & Associates Inc. in Raleigh because there was only one access, Heritage Branch Road running south from Rogers Road.

            The two firms reappeared in February with an offer to pay $500,000 toward the cost of a road that would extend Heritage Branch south, then east, crossing Smith Creek before reaching the extension of a road in the future Heritage High School campus. The CPC split two to two three times and could not reach an agreement whether or not to recommend the project.

            The request Tuesday night was for a water allocation more than the town’s current limit of 40 water taps a year, but the discussion was largely about roads and access.

            Mayor Vivian Jones said she had asked the town staff to estimate, in today’s dollars, the cost of the road extension and the bridge over Smith Creek. They said it would be at least $2.8 million, and she said the cost would surely rise.

            “If we don’t have this road, we’ve got massive problems in this part of town,” Planning Director Chip Russell said.

            The land between South Main and Forestville Road, where the high school will sit, is former farm land without roads. The land, in several owners, is split by the CSX rail line and Smith Creek, both running generally north and south. Camacho noted the rail line would be “even more expensive to cross than the creek.”

            The only railroad crossing between Rogers and Ligon Mill roads is a private crossing on Seawell Road. “In essence it has a public purpose,” Russell said. It could be improved, he said, to provide access to properties but “it’s not going to happen unless it’s grade-separated.” He said one of the large landowners, Dr. William Hedrick, will not develop until he gets a road in the area.

            Boyd-Lawson said her concern was putting the road through the land to the south of the proposed development, a large tract the town purchased with county bond money as a future park or open space. Town Manager Mark Williams first said the county would not be happy with a road through the property, but Russell told him he had checked with the county and they had no objections.

            Russell pointed out that the town had purchased the property and taken it out of the development pool. “When we do a road network in that area, we will try to impact that area the least.”

            “Connectivity for the high school is just as important,” Camacho said. “The town needs to consider how we can get a second means of egress. The offer such as the one on the table is about the only way.” The high school will have three driveway cuts on Forestville Road: one on the north for carpool and other general traffic, one just to the south for the bus parking lot and one farther south for the ball fields and joint-use park the town plans and is paying for.

            (Heritage families are still concerned that there is no sidewalk leading from Rogers Road to the high school. Andy Ammons owns that intervening land and said recently he would certainly allow the school to build a sidewalk on the property.)

            Jones motioned for Thomas Craven to speak, and he said the proposed townhouses would be affordable for the people working in the new high school and other businesses.

            Also, “If you don’t complete that road you’ll have far worse problems on Rogers Road than you have now.”