|
Developers appeal
commissioners’ vote
On Tuesday, June
24, Raleigh attorney Lacey Reaves filed an appeal in Wake County Superior Court
asking Judge Orlando F. Hudson to review the record where the Wake Forest
Commissioners, by a three to two vote, denied a special use permit for the
Quail Crossing Shopping Center.
Commissioners Frank
Drake, Margaret Stinnett and Peter Thibodeau voted at the June 17 town board
meeting to deny the permit for the shopping center on 13 acres in the southeast
quadrant of the N.C. 98 bypass and Jones Dairy Road intersection.
Town Clerk Joyce
Wilson MMC has been busy this week preparing a verbatim transcript of the meeting.
The writ of certiorari requires the town to provide a complete certified record
on or before July 3.
The hearing before
Judge Hudson will be held Monday, July 14, at 10 a.m.
Special use permits
require that the planning and town board members base their votes on the sworn
testimony and evidence presented during the public hearing, which was held June
3 before both bodies. The planning board voted unanimously later that same
night to recommend the town board approve the plan.
The plan presented
by the developer, JDH Capital of Charlotte, included interior parking, one
outparcel, and a block of buildings that would have been anchored by Bloom, an
upscale specialty grocery store. Wake Forest Retail Investors, also of
Charlotte, owns the land. Reaves filed their appeal on behalf of both the
developer and the landowner.
During the town
board’s discussion on June 17, Drake mentioned the lack of a grocery store in
the downtown area and said, “I am not satisfied it [Quail Crossing] would not have
a deleterious
effect on the downtown.”
Thibodeau said he agreed and thought
the grocery store would undermine a possible downtown grocery store.
Stinnett said Jones Dairy Road is
narrow and already congested. “I think traffic will be an issue.”
Assistant Planning Director Ann Ayers
said the road and traffic improvements the developer planned exceeded the
requirements by the state Department of Transportation and the traffic analysis
done by the town and funded by JDH.
Another part of the plan Drake and
Thibodeau disagreed with was the right-in, right-out access from the bypass DOT
approved several years ago when a drug store was planned for that corner. Mayor
Vivian Jones said the limited access there would ease congestion at the major
intersection.
After Jones prompted them to base
their votes on the findings, Drake listed findings one, four and six and
Thibodeau and Stinnett agreed. Finding one has to do with public health, safety
and general welfare; finding four says the proposed use will not cause undue traffic
congestion or create a traffic hazard; and six says the proposed use will be in
harmony with the area.
An article about the discussion and
vote can be found in the June 18 issue of the Gazette in the archives.
|
