Rezoning raises interesting questions

A simple rezoning request on the Wake Forest Planning Board’s agenda for Tuesday, Aug. 4, raises questions about the town’s plan to build the Northern Loop, a plan which largely relies on others, including the Southeast High Speed Rail plan. The town is counting on that plan to fund the bridge over North White Street and the CSX rail line, the most expensive part of completing the Northern Loop.

Presidential Investors Inc. is asking the town to rezone 23 acres lying between North White and North Main streets. Although the land is not connected to any streets, the staff report by Senior Planner Charlie Yokley says the land “may be accessed via N. White Street, a minor thoroughfare (across railroad right-of-way), and Lotus Lane, a local collector street,” which is apparently stubbed out toward the land. Then in a oh, by the way addition, “The Wake Forest Transportation Plan shows the North Side Loop, a future major thoroughfare, traversing the property from east to west.” The town has the route on its plan but has not purchased or otherwise reserved the route.

The request does not include a topographic map, which would be interesting because there is a steep slope on the east side of the property where the land falls away from the railroad line and the continuation of a steep slope on the south side below the former cotton mill that was converted to apartments, Glen Royall Mill.

A faint line on the colored aerial map is an extension of Royal Mill Avenue on the east side of North White Street. That avenue will become part of the Northern Loop. On the property in question, the faint line runs along the west property line and ends about where another property abuts it. If extended to North Main through a different property, that faint line would be offset from Harris Road, the continuation of the future Northern Loop.

The 23-acre parcel is identified in the Wake County Revenue Department website as “9 lots Holding land” and the deed history shows that it was purchased from Rupert Flaherty (who sold land to the town for Flaherty Park) and his wife in 1996 by Franklinton Commerce Center Partnership for $115,000. It then passed to local realtor/developer Jim Adams and Charles Grant of Raleigh in 1999 and then to Presidential Investors in 2002. The deed for the property was recorded in March of this year. Adams files the annual reports for Presidential Investor, organized in 1992, and signs as the president. There are no other names on the reports.

The zoning requested is RMX, residential mixed use district. Yokley wrote: “If the request to rezone this property is approved, it will allow a variety of housing types to be built on the site as well as office, light commercial, civic and institutional uses.” Staff is recommending the rezoning be approved. The hearing will be legislative, meaning any interested person may provide information or opinion without being sworn.

The second hearing on Tuesday night will also be legislative and it could be short. The engineering firm of Bass, Nixon, and Kennedy is asking the conditional district zoning for the Lakestone subdivision on the north side of Wait Avenue, approved in February, be amended to add nine lots to the approved 58. Further investigation showed that “the hydrological feature shown on the original plans  . . . was not an intermittent or perennial stream and therefore does not require a 50-foot Neuse River Riparian Buffer.”

New planning board member Chad Juszczak will join Chairman Bob Hill, Grif Bond, Steve DeRosa, Dehaven Fields, Ed Gary, Chuck Moseley, Colleen Sharpe and Steve Stoller in hearing the request. Mayor Vivian Jones and the five town commissioners will also hear the request and will take action on it at their Aug. 18 meeting.

The planning board meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in the second floor meeting room in the Wake Forest Town Hall on Brooks Street.