After six years, multiple applications, a name change and a developer change, the Wake Forest Planning Board unanimously recommended the town board approve former mayor George Mackie Jr.’s subdivision called Radford Glen on Wait Avenue. The town commissioners will vote on the project at their Sept. 15 meeting.
In May of this year the planning board unanimously turned down a version of the plan which called for 167 single-family homes and 10 townhouses on 47 acres lying on the south side of Wait Avenue next to Bowling Green. The town board was expected to follow suit on May 19, but a letter from developer Russell Gay’s lawyer arrived at town hall late Tuesday afternoon. It asked that the subdivision plan be remanded back to the planning department because the developer plans to “make substantial, material changes to the Master Plan.” The town commissioners voted unanimously to do just that.
The new plan which emerged Tuesday night is substantially different. It will have 165 single-family houses on the same 47 acres, but now 11.69 acres will be in open space and 1.66 acres will be park space. There are small open spaces scattered around the subdivision, and the site for the 10 townhouses is now open space with a small pond and trees, adjacent to the park. There is a large dog park planned that will be near the large open space.
There is a connection to Frog Hollow Way in Bowling Green in the plan and the staff’s 12 conditions said it must be completed before the developer can plat the 100th lot. However, John Meyers with JPM South Development said it would be done after the 50th lot is sold.
The engineer/designer is BNK in Raleigh, which designed two small roundabouts on the major roads as well as “shrinking” streets which become less wide as drivers progress through the subdivision. The lanes remain the same width. Both will help reduce speeding.
Member Karlene Turretine attended by Channel 10 and telephone. She said her concern is that the developer provide the amenities – open space, playground, clubhouse, benches, community garden site, etc. – as pictured. She did not want 20 parking spaces instead of a clubhouse.
Mackie has been trying to develop a residential subdivision on the land he and other family members own lying on the south side of Wait Avenue (N.C. 98) since 2014. In August of that year the J.R. McAdam engineering firm was the applicant, the name was Quail Crossing and the plan called for 307 housing units – a mix of single-family and townhouses on 116 acres which included the only trailer park in town, Wellington Trailer Park. The land extended to Jones Dairy Road where there would be another entrance. (If the subdivision name sounds familiar it is because the defunct plan for a shopping center nearby at the N.C. 98 bypass and Jones Dairy Road was named Quail Crossings.)
After this announcement there was no official action. The plan disappeared until March and May 2015 when it was twice on the planning board agenda but named Westford Place with 100 acres. The trailer park was now renamed Deerfield Crossing Mobile Home Park and would be untouched. Both times the plan was removed from the agenda before the meeting.
Westford Place resurfaced in 2016 with 248 single-family lots on 100 acres. Bob Zumwalt with the John R. McAdams Company was the engineer but the purchaser’s name was not known. The item was on the Wake Forest Planning Board’s agenda for March and delayed until April. In an email on April 7, Zumwalt wrote to a town planner, “Unfortunately we have run into some contract issues with the purchaser of the land that have cause further delays of the project. Since we are unclear as to how long it will take to resolve these issues, we would like to officially request that both the rezoning/master plan and the annexation be withdrawn at this time.”
In 2018 it was Russell Gay who was negotiating with former Wake Forest mayor George Mackie Jr. to purchase 47 acres on Wait Avenue (NC 98) for the Radford Glen subdivision. The subdivision was on the planning board’s agenda in May and June and each time it was continued because of contract issues between the owner and developer. Then on June 27 Gay submitted a request to withdraw the subdivision’s rezoning and masterplan application “since no resolution between the developer and property owner on the contractual agreement had been reached.” It did not resurface in 2018 or 2019.
This 2018 version began with the town’s technical review board looking at a plan on Dec. 21, 2017 for 176 single-family lots on 100 acres. By the time the plan was officially withdrawn it had become 177 lots on 46.97 acres.
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