On June 27 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, 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.”
The Radford Glen rezoning and master plan was one of only three items on the Wake Forest Planning Board’s agenda Tuesday night. The request to withdraw was approved unanimously.
The board also unanimously recommended rezoning 2.96 acres next to the 7 acres occupied by Envision Academy at the intersection of Traditions Grande Boulevard and Oak Grove Church Road. The rezoning was necessary because it had been annexed along with the 7 acres but not rezoned.
The planning board also approved several amendments to the Unified Development Ordinance but, after discussion recommended the requirement for design review for multi-family developments be lowered from 250 units to 125.
The Radford Glen request was, like its antecedents, a tale of changes. 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 By the time the plan was officially withdrawn it had become 177 lots on 46.97 acres.
Mackie has been trying to develop a residential subdivision on the land he and other family members own lying between 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 would be untouched. Both times it 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. Sine 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.”
The Wake Forest Gazette will keep readers abreast of the next install of this saga.
(The Wake Forest Gazette editor was unable to attend the planning board meeting Tuesday. Mayor Vivian Jones and Jennifer Currin, the development services manager, generously provided information about the meeting.)
