Another family farm, another subdivision. True, it has been years since Thurman Kitchin Jr. or his father farmed along Burlington Mills Road, and true, the family has sold off a large chunk of the farm since 1980 or so for the South Forest Industrial Park, but farms like the Kitchin farm were the backbone of the Wake Forest area for years.
On Nov. 23 the Wake Forest Planning Department’s Technical Review Committee met and reviewed the plans for a 257-lot subdivision on the 163.15 acres of the Kitchin farm which has frontage on Burlington Mills and Ligon Mills roads. It will be a single-family house subdivision, and the applicant, Mulkey Engineeers & Associates are asking for approval of the master plan along with rezoning the land from RD to conditional use general residential 5 and 10. That means there will be a legislative public hearing with input from all interested parties without sworn testimony.
The family may have sold the land or not, because the new owner, as of this year, is listed as TDK Farm (Thurman D. Kitchin?) and the only names on the papers for incorporation as a limited liability corporation are two lawyers in the Warren & Shackleford firm in Wake Forest, James Warren and Christopher G. Klingman. Like the Forbes family, the Kitchins may have chosen to control the land rather than sell it.
The Technical Review Committee also looked at a plan for an amenities center in the new subdivision, Holding Village, on South Franklin Street and a plan for a fuel kiosk at the Harris-Teeter on Capital Boulevard and Harris Road.
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Drivers on Rogers Road will get a foretaste of what to expect this coming spring and summer on Saturday, Dec. 19, when the state Department of Transportation will have crews at the bridge over Smith Creek milling the existing asphalt and laying new asphalt on the bridge deck. Traffic will be one lane only between 7 a.m. and 2 p.m.
DOT has repaired potholes in the deck several times recently it was reported – the editor must have totally missed those in her trips on Rogers several times a week – and said the new asphalt will “offer a more efficient way to keep the bridge surface viable until the bridge replacement project begins” in May.
The Rogers Road Bridge is considered functionally obsolete. The bridge remains safe but requires constant and costly repairs. Construction will begin in May 2016 to replace the two-lane structure with a five-lane bridge that includes sidewalks and a pedestrian underpass. The new bridge is expected to be open in the fall of 2016.
For more information, contact NCDOT Communications Supervisor Steve Abbott at 919-707-2660 or swabbott@ncdot.gov.
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If you were not in downtown Wake Forest for the Christmas Parade on Saturday, Dec. 12, or were in the parade and want to see the rest of it, you can watch it on the town’s Channel 10 at 7 a.m. and 1 and 6 p.m. or any time at www.wakeforestnc.gov/wake-forest-christmas-parade.aspx.
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The Wake Forest Town Hall and other administrative offices will be closed Wednesday through Friday, Dec. 23-25, for the Christmas holiday. Police, fire and EMS services will be fully staffed and available.
The bus service, both the Wake Forest-Raleigh Express and the Wake Forest Loop, will not operate Friday, Dec. 25, and only the Loop bus will be in service Dec. 24 but will close at 7 p.m.
Garbage and recycling will be collected on the normal days through Thursday, Dec. 24, and the Friday collection will be on Saturday, Dec. 26.
For more information about yard waste, Christmas tree recycling and leaf collection, go to www.wakeforestnc.gov/holiday-schedule.aspx.
