Tuesday evening, after thanking Wake Forest Police Lieutenant Trent Coleman for his service as he retires and proclaiming the week of August 7 as Purple Heart Week, the town commissioners and mayor held three public hearings for annexation.
The first was a part of the plan for the apartment complex Greenway Village at Heritage approved in 2019. This separate annexation is for land also along South Franklin Street on the opposite side from the apartments and also at the deadend of Forestville Road. A small shopping center called Heritage Corner is planned.
The second was for 78 acres lying between the CSX rail line and Ligon Mill Road that is planned for the Merritt Capital Business Park and the petitioner was Merritt-WF 1 LLC.
The third was for four acres on the south side of Durham Road where Crenshaw Trace, apartments for low and middle income older residents is planned.
These three requests will be voted on at the Aug. 4 work session because a new state law, 2020-3, requires written public comment to be accepted up to 24 hours after the close of the public hearing.
Next on the board’s agenda was the consent agenda when the commissioners voted to accept an annexation petition from ALF Holding Village LLC for seven separate property tracts that will become Phases 5 through 7 and the multifamily section of Holding Village. There are already two developers who plan to purchase part of the Holding Village property to develop single-family homes, townhouses and apartments, and the Wake Forest Planning Department has their separate annexation petitions.
According to some plans made public, Franklin Street will be divided into two sections in this part of Holding Village – sort of a large roundabout – before it continues north to reach the N.C. 98 Bypass. Friendship Chapel Road will be extended across the development and several new streets are planned.
Finally, the board approved a petition for annexation from Legacy Heritage Lake Road for the property on Friendship Chapel Road which was approved by the town board in December of 2019. The 305-unit apartment complex is in the construction process.
The board then went on to the planning items, and the first item was The Cottages at Cardinal Hills, which has provoked a tremendous outpouring of comment from residents to the commissioners. Commissioner Chad Sary said they had received comments from “dozens and dozens of residents,” some which said the commissioners are rubber stampers. Not true, he said. “We listen and we care.”
Commissioner Adam Wright said it is a question of preserving the community and he “really appreciated the community reaching out.”
Commissioner Jim Dyer said he liked the concept but had questions.
Commissioner Bridget Wall-Lennon said she went to the site and “it felt tight to get in there.” She also enlisted her backyard neighbor in testing how far 100 feet would be and what they would see if the cottages were built.
At first, Mayor Vivian Jones said, “I thought it would be OK,” but later she decided the plan was “not true to the cottage concept.”
The vote was unanimous to deny the revised plan the planning board recommended 4 to 3 in July with 16 conditions.
Next up was the Forest Pines Retirement Community on Royall Cotton Road where the request was to rezone 21 acres from highway business to conditional residential mixed use. The vote to approve was unanimous.
The board also had to review the construction drawings for Greenway Village at Heritage Apartments and did so with Senior Planner Patrick Reidy phoning in. He said the current plan moves all the buildings and parking out of the 500-year floodplain of Smith Creek. The original plan was for over 212 apartment units and is now for 164. Again the vote was unanimous to approve as was a vote to approve the changes in the Unified Development Ordinance regarding where schools can be placed.
The final item was for approval of an upset bid process and authorization of the town manager to execute documents for the sale of two lots at 527 and 532 East Pine Street. F7 Enterprises wants to build a single-family home on each of the lots directly across from each other and to place limitations on the original sales. That limitation includes limiting the home buyers to early 60 to 120 percent of the area median income and giving town employees meeting those income requirements the first offer to purchase. To help the developer the staff recommended waiving the Fire Protection Facility fee of $337 and the Recreation Facility Fee of $3,691 for each. Again, the board voted unanimously for approval.
At the close of the meeting, Town Manager Kip Padgett said the town needed to cancel more town-supported events, this time through October when the town will have to make another round of cancellation decisions. The board voted to approve the list of cancellations.
Also, Wake Forest Power will now begin to ask customers to either pay the bills they did not pay earlier because of the pandemic or come to the town to work out a payment plan.
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(Channel 10 was blank for the first 15-18 minutes of the Tuesday town board meeting, meaning the reporter missed some comments.)
3 Responses
The unfortunate part for the residents of Cardinal Hills is that the property will still be developed and it will now be a quasi-judicial process under the current GR3 zoning rather than the legislative rezoning process that allowed for an open dialogue between the developer, the public, and the town council. Hopefully the developer will still be willing to offer the several amenities and concessions proposed in the cottage plan, but I am not optimistic.
I am disappointed to hear about the unanimous disapproval of the Cottages at Cardinal Hills by the WF Board of Commissioners, especially after the Planning Board worked so diligently to address concerns, and the developers made numerous changes to the plans in an effort to accommodate those concerns. Our town officials appear to have no problem approving hundreds more apartments and townhomes, the “same old same old” solution which offers high density living without the sense of “village” or “community” that cluster-type cottage homes provide. This innovative concept may be unfamiliar to many, but it has been proven successful and sustainable in numerous communities around the country.
I must take exception to those who accused the Commissioners of being ‘rubber stampers’ of projects such as the Cottages at Cardinal Hills. Conversely, the Commissioners as does the Planning Board all give careful review of projects. ‘We’ listen carefully to input from residents and weigh projects based on how it fits the community as a whole.
We’ve heard comments that amount to ‘not in my backyard’ for projects that would be an overall benefit to the community. Infill is not easy. in this case, cottage-style homes would be placed on a currently derelict lot that often sees nefarious activities which endanger local residents.
Public hearings are held for residents to come and hear all sides of a proposal including the deliberation by the Commissioners and Planning Board members. Residents should come with an open mind and not be too quick to respond to ‘gossip-style’ information that often paints a very slanted and inaccurate picture.