Wake Union plans withdrawn

There were familiar faces in the audience Tuesday evening, waiting to hear the vote on two planning requests. Those people were pleasantly surprised when Mayor Vivian Jones announced two items, both requested by Rialto for the Wake Union site on Wake Union Church Road, had been withdrawn.

Those requests, one for up to 90 townhouses and the other for 300 apartments in 12 buildings, were not recommended by the Wake Forest Planning Board after the public hearings on May 7. The plans on that night were nearly identical to plans that were turned down by the planning board on Feb. 6, 2018. Two weeks later the lawyer for Rialto, an Atlanta, Georgia firm, asked if the plans could be resubmitted with “substantial changes,” a promise the May 7 plans did not meet. (See the May 8, 2019 issue of the Gazette for more coverage.)

However, that was not the end of planning because Anne Marie Selaya, a resident of Pineview Estates subdivision whose property backs up to the Siena Townhomes on the NC 98 Bypass, brought pictures and information showing how the approved plans for the townhouses have not been followed. She showed pictures of the 20-foot buffer, supposed to be planted with trees, has been cut in half with a wood fence, how rain water off the roofs of the houses falls at their back where an approved drainage system was never installed, how as a result she has standing water in her yard after rains and a neighbor says he has water under his house.

Selaya said the remedies include installing the drainage lines so rain water runs to the detention pond, regrading to keep water on the townhouse site, installing the retaining walls that were in the plans and redoing a privacy fence.

The townhouse subdivision, still under construction, was one of the most contentious land and development wrangles in town history. In 2012 Ninety Eight Associates, headed by realtor Russell Gay, owned two parcels on the north side of the NC 98 Bypass (Dr. Calvin Jones Highway) and filed a request for a special use permit to build 102 townhouses on the 18 acres. Residents in Holding Ridge and Pineview Estates subdivisions objected because they thought office buildings would be built to conform with the office and institution zoning. But townhouses were also a permitted use. The neighbors also objected to opening Siena Drive to the bypass.

Planning board and town board members were critical of the 2012 plan because there was no clubhouse or amenities center and the open space was around a bio-retention pond across Siena Drive. Other concerns were the lack of sidewalks along the bypass and the lack of a walkable connection to other areas.

After the planning board split four to four on whether to recommend the plan to the town board, that board voted unanimously for Commissioner Margaret Stinnett’s motion to deny. “I’m of the conclusion that this particular project does not meet all of the town policies.” The board later against a request to waive the six-month wait before the project could be reheard.

That second request was heard in July, 2013 with a few changes. There were now 99 townhouses and more than the town-required open space, about 8.56 acres. Half was in small parks in the corners of the project and a tot lot in the middle. The rest, 4.1 acres, was across Siena Drive where a mulch walking trail circled the pond. There would also be a 50-foot wooded buffer along the bypass and 20-foot wooded buffers shielding Siena Drive, Pineview Estates and the Weatherstone townhouses.

The town planning department recommended approval for each plan. Neighbors in Pineview Estates and other neighborhoods strongly protested both times during the quasi-judicial public hearings before the planning and town boards. In 2013 some neighbors hired an attorney and a qualified real estate appraiser to bolster their testimony. That hearing lasted five hours. When it drew to an end, the planning board deferred action until its Aug. 6 meeting. On that date the members voted six two not to recommend the project. When the town board met on Aug. 20, Stinnett again made the motion to deny, objecting to two of the eight findings of fact as well as possible injury to the value of adjoining or abutting property and failing to prove it would not create traffic congestion or hazard. She added a third finding, that the applicant failed to prove the project met all the rules and regulations in the zoning ordinance and town policies.

Ninety Eight Bypass Associates filed an appeal with Wake County Superior Court on Oct. 16, 2013. The matter was heard before Judge Paul Ridgeway on Sept. 2, 2014, after which he took it under advisement.

The judge issued his ruling on Tuesday, Nov. 25, 2014, finding for the petitioner, Ninety Eight Bypass Associates. On Dec. 3, the Wake Forest Town Board voted not to appeal the ruling and issue the special use permit for the townhouses.

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Three people spoke about different aspects of environmental health. Seventeen-year-old Michael Warriner told the board members about his Eagle Scout project, placing recycling bins in Wake Forest parks and then examining the contents to see what people will recycle. He recovered 180 gallons of plastic, including water bottles with the caps on and liquid still inside. He considered several aspects of recycling and said that “efforts might be better spent on consumer education campaigns.” Commissioner Bridget Wall-Lennon thanked him for all his work “. . . although your project may not have had the desired outcome you hoped for.” She said it would encourage us all to do better because we know better.

William Blaine and David Anderson sent a letter of introduction to the commissioners and mayor, and Blaine encouraged them to join 22 other North Carolina governments in drawing up a 100 percent clean energy resolution with plans to achieve that goal. Mayor Vivian Anderson said they would discuss the matter during their next work session.

Although the board had voted earlier in the meeting to approve a petition for annexation of land along Cliff Lane, they voted unanimously to deny the rezoning request for the 18.77 acres after a passionate argument by Commissioner Brian Pate. He said the property, called Marshall Village when it was built in the 1950s, “is a very important piece of property to me.” It is the first part of Wake Forest people driving north on Capital Boulevard see. “I am not a fam of all the storage buildings that have appeared (here he named several) . . . and we’re going to have a town full of them.” He also said the 12 or so houses there are affordable housing. “One of the few places where people can rent.”

The board also:

*Approved a resolution to approve Kimley-Horn & Associates for construction engineering and inspection services for the widening of Ligon Mill Road at $256,687.49 even though there is no construction contract. There were no bidders when it was first out for bid. The town is trying to make the contract more desirable for contractors. One of the undesirable aspects of the project is the amount of rock in the area and a 20-foot deep sewer line.

That line once led, when the town was in the water and sewer business, to a deep sewer pit down the steep slope from the Walmart driveway. One day in 2003 or 2004 one of the town workers in a two-man crew accidentally fell in and was rescued by his mate.

*Accepted a gift of three interpretative sign panels for the Ailey Young House from the Wake Forest College Birthplace Society. The panels were made possible by the Jandy Ammons Foundation’s gift of $2,625, and they will be placed near the house.

One of the panels tells of Ailey Young, a farmer’s wife and mother of 12 children, who bought the house in 1899 from Mary Elizabeth Simmons, widow of William Gaston Simmons who built several of the saddle-bag houses across the railroad from his home in the North Brick House.

The second panel tells part of the story of Ailey’s son, Allen Young, and his Wake Forest Normal and Industrial School on East Pine Avenue and other nearby streets. At its height, the school, the only school for African American children at that time, had over 200 students and 30 teachers.

The third panel is about the architecture and the importance of the Ailey Young House as one of a very few surviving homes for poor black families in the late 1800s and early 1900s.