The Wake Forest Town Board breezed through a 40-minute meeting Tuesday night, approving two subdivisions, a waiver for beer on the street for the Irish Music Festival on Taylor Street Sept. 23, the update for the capital improvements plan, parking changes on Grandmark Avenue and a construction manager at risk for the Joyner Park community center.
The staircase will lead from the back of the building at 153 South White Street, formerly the Family Barbershop but known as Bobby Perry’s. The new owners, Amy and Brian Burkhardt, plan to turn the shop into a wine lounge and yoga studio (Unwined on White) with a rooftop wine lounge where there could also be yoga classes in good weather (Unwined Upstairs).
The Burkhardts requested an easement for the town-owned space between the back of the building and the public parking lot, an area about 25 feet by 7 feet, but the town instead approved an encroachment for that area. Attorney Eric Vernon said an encroachment is revocable while an easement is perpetual. “This (the encroachment) gives the town a chance to reconsider” if there is a change in ownership or circumstances.
There was no discussion about the contract with the independent Wake Forest Fire Department which is for five years with the option to renew for two more five-year periods. The town pays the department a set amount – currently 11 cents of the 52-cent property tax – and also “trues up” the amount at the end of each year to account for the growth in the tax base during the year. The payments are made quarterly – July 31, October 31, January 31 and April 30. The only change in the contract was to add a clause about the disbursement of the fire department’s assets and equipment to the town in the event the department is liquidated or dissolved.
The only speakers during the public hearing about the capital improvements plan were Deanna Welker and Christopher Hamblet, both members of the greenway advisory board, who said the community is really anxious for the connectors in the system to be completed. Welker said that on National Night Out she met several people new to Wake Forest who are “excited to be able to use the greenways the way they did back in whatever place they came from.” The greenways are, she said, “providing a way for people to move by other ways than using a car.”
The two subdivisions are the Bridgeport project, 140 homes on 48.44 acres on Forestville Road, and the Reserve at Richland Creek, 160 homes in Franklin County connected to Wake Forest through Haltwhistle Street in the Olde Mill Stream subdivision. The planning board had unanimously recommended approval and the town board was also unanimous in approving both subdivisions with rezoning and annexation.
