When the Wake Forest Planning Board meets on Tuesday, Sept. 5, at 7:30 p.m. the board members will hold joint public hearings with the town commissioners and then discuss three items: a request to rezone 74.2 acres to light industrial use between Ligon Mill Road and the CSX rail line adjacent to the South Forest Business Park; a request to rezone 30.85 acres that straddle the county line to urban residential for a 78-lot subdivision that will be an extension of the Del Webb age-restricted subdivision in Traditions; and a request by Tops & Shanks LLC to increase the allowed uses for 10.88 acres along Capital Boulevard now owned by The Wright People.
Wake Forest attorney Keith Shackleford is requesting the rezoning to light industrial use for the 74.2 acres on behalf of Frederick Lewis III of Wilmington, who is the third-generation owner of the oddly-shaped land parcel. If rezoned, it will have road access on Ligon Mill Road and also a connection to Unicon Drive in the business park. The land along Ligon Mill is across the road from the entrance to the Margot’s Pond subdivision. The land is now zoned by Wake County for general residential, light industrial and rural holding.
DS Traditions of Phoenix, Arizona owns the 30.85 acres with frontage on North White Street on Franklin County, and the land is about equally divided between Franklin and Wake counties. DS Traditions also owns the 104 acres across Dunn Creek where Del Webb is building an age-restricted subdivision along Gilcrest Farm Road, a project planned for 452 homes on 164 acres.
Stewart Inc., a Durham engineering firm, is requesting the rezoning of the vacant land to conditional urban residential. There will be 78 single-family lots. Joe Puckett, the project manager for Stewart, said in a July 6 letter to the adjacent land owners that the first plan has been changed in response to their concerns in the June 13 neighborhood meeting. Those changes include a 20-foot buffer on the northern property line along with a 6-foot privacy fence on one part of that property line; a shift in the entrance street to the south, making it more than 50 feet away from the northern neighbor; and a condition that the road connection to Burchblind Drive in the Hunters Crossing subdivision to the south be delayed until all the homes on the south side of Dunn Creek are built (lots 55-78).
Some of the project’s paperwork are headed as the Wake Forest Goldston subdivision, but William and Louise Goldston sold the property earlier this year.
The 10.88 acres along Capital Boulevard owned by The Wright People was rezoned in 2005 to conditional use highway business but the uses were limited to general office, retail, flex space and restaurants. The applicant, Tops & Shanks LLC, which is connected to at least two other Raleigh LLC entities which share the same address and same manager, wants to amend the permit to include all the possible uses in a highway business district.
