The Wake Forest Planning Board will host two important public hearings during its meeting Tuesday, Oct. 1, at 7:30 p.m., one about the proposed update for the Comprehensive Transportation Plan and one about the requested rezoning of 272 acres on the east side of Wake Forest along Averette Road between Oak Grove Church Road on the north and N.C. 98 on the south, stretching to N.C. 96.
The updated transportation plan has already received a lot of public comment both during and after a public comment meeting in the summer with a host of plans, maps, and interactive displays.
Anyone in the audience can speak at these two hearings. If there is a group of neighbors opposed to a request, they will be asked to select one or two spokespeople rather than having a dozen or more people speak, saying much the same thing. The speakers time can be limited if there are several.
The Averette Planned Unit Development will be an extension of the current Tryon subdivision on Oak Grove Church Road that was approved in 2014 after substantial controversy about its impact on the headwaters of Austin Creek and provision for sewer service from Raleigh. It will have 268 single-family homes and 136 townhouses when built out, and was requested by Tryon WF LLC with a Wendell address.
Since then the Tryon owners have acquired three tracts called the Flynn property immediately to the east where 69 single-family homes will soon be built. Again, the engineers are Priest, Craven & Associates and the name has been recently changed to The Greene at Tryon, Tryon subdivision Phases 13, 17 & 18.
The current request for the Averette subdivision from Tryon Investment Partners II LLC is for 677 single family homes and 288 townhouses, 965 dwelling units in all if built as requested. Again the engineers are Priest, Craven & Associates.
The three subdivisions, two underway and one proposed, have interconnecting streets, and one outlet is on N.C. 96 (Zebulon Road). A public hearing was initially planned for September, but that was cancelled.
Together the three projects could result in construction of 1,014 single-family homes and 424 townhouses or 1,438 dwelling units. Our current household count (dwelling units of all types) is 16,788, an 8.6 percent possible increase.
Averette Road, a two-lane winding road between N.C. 98 (Wait Avenue) and Oak Grove Church Road, will be in the middle of the Averette addition to Tryon. Oak Grove Church Road is also two lanes and only runs between N.C. 96 (Zebulon Road) and Traditions Grande Boulevard. N.C. 98 is also two lanes at its intersection with Averette Road, but there is a traffic signal at that intersection. All of these roads, or a part of them, are owned and maintained by the state Department of Transportation, which can require improvements at new intersections.
In 2015, when Tryon was approved for the second time by the Wake Forest Town Board – three suits were filed against the town after the first approval, several changes were made to the project, including a settlement with landowners which allowed the Raleigh sewer system to serve Tryon – the Wake Forest Gazette reported both Tryon and Kings Glen, the small subdivision between Tryon and Bishops Grant, were being underwritten or developed by Greystone Development Group. The group also developed Club Villas at Wakefield Plantation and Olde Town in Raleigh.
(You can read about the controversies around Tryon and the lawsuits by typing “Tryon” in the search box on the front page of The Wake Forest Gazette.)
#
