June 6, 2007

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            The planning board has made it a practice in the last two or three years to require applicants – usually developers – to meet with neighbors, explain the plans, hear their concerns and respond to the concerns with plan changes.

            When the fire department built its second station, the one on Ligon Mill Road, board members and then-Chief Jimmy Keith met with the neighbors, who were very opposed to the station. The department agreed on restrictions on the sirens at night, to buffering and a berm to shield any other noise from the station.

            “In this case, it certainly needs to be done,” planning board member Mike Martin said Tuesday night, and Steve Stoller seconded. Ward Marotti, Peter Thibodeau and Chris Kaeberlein voted no.

            The neighbors cited the narrowness of Forestville Road, its ever-increasing traffic load and the noise from the fire engines, and they were not all entirely opposed.

            Carolyn Reitz, who lives across from the proposed site, 1412 Forestville Road, said she had gone to speak with Swift and Assistant Chief Randall Cooper. “They answered a lot of questions for me,” she said.

            “We need it. I understand that,” Reitz said. “Chief, I appreciate your passion to see we get them [the stations].” But, she said, “I think a better location may be closer to the Harris-Teeter.”

            At least two other people suggested moving the station site farther north near the intersection of Forestville, Rogers and Heritage Lake roads.

            Swift responded by saying that site would move the mile-and-a-half five-minute response time – the department’s goal – north of the entrance to Stonegate subdivision “and that’s the most critical response area we want.”

            “I would like to know if the town has decided to widen that road,” Jean Viverette, a Thornrose subdivision resident, said. “My concern is them getting out of that property onto that road.”

            The plan is for it to become a multi-lane road, “but it’s a DOT road,” Planning Director Chip Russell said. There will be improvements at the high school site, now under construction, and an additional lane at the fire station, if approved, Russell said. “Hopefully, the bridge will be replaced.”

            Stan Rock, who also lives in Thornrose, said he had collected 30 signatures on an informal petition in the short time since he heard of the rezoning. He wanted to submit that or a longer petition, but attorney Roger Knight said no petitions are accepted for the original town zoning. The four acres are in the county now.

            Rock said there were other sites for the station. “My objection is the traffic, the noise. It just wasn’t planned for that when we moved here. I never would have bought that home with a fire department that close.”

            “We would like to have some significant input into the lights and sirens,” Steve Steff, a Forestville Road resident, said. “We used to live in the country, but we don’t now. Of course we didn’t want a Harris-Teeter down the road until we wanted to go shopping.”

            Russ Leach, a Thornrose resident, called the future high school “the castle on the hill,” and said much has changed since he and his wife moved to Wake Forest. Forestville Road, he said, is already congested with buses and will be more so when the high school opens. He suggested the site nearer Rogers Road.

            “I don’t want a fire station right there to wake up at three o’clock in the morning with the lights and siren,” Mike Huffman said. He lives in Thornrose.

            Swift assured planning board member Sarah Bridges that the trucks would not use their sirens if they left the station at night.

            The station will need 12 fulltime personnel and will have two trucks, a pumper and a brush truck, Swift said. They would use the existing ranch house as a station for now and put up a metal building with brick or acceptable siding to house the trucks.

            Swift also said they department had already planned to hold a meeting with the neighbors at Station #1 and he invited any of the neighbors who are interested to serve on the department’s facilities committee.

            Swift agreed to a conditional use designation for the neighborhood business zoning the department requested, which means the site plan would have to return to the planning and town boards for approval.