Greenway Village, an apartment complex tucked in beside Smith Creek on South Franklin Street abutting Sheetz, will be on the agenda for the Thursday, Nov. 7, meeting of the Wake Forest Planning Board. The date was shifted because of Tuesday’s election.
The Greenway plan calls for three connected four- and five-story buildings holding 36 apartments each – 108 units – plus a community center. And, if the Unified Development Ordinance is amended, two four-story buildings with 48 units each would be added for a total of 204 apartment units. All of that information is from the plans submitted by the developer, Site Collaborative, a part of the Active Developments Map provided by the Wake Forest Planning Department.
However, the August 2019 Monthly Development Report, the most recent on the town’s website, says there will be 188 units and a 7,600-square-foot recreation center on 10.08 acres.
Jennifer Currin, the development services manager, said in an email Tuesday that no floodplain amendments have been approved this year that would affect Greenway Village. “With all of the recent state legislation changes and best practice updates, the Town began working with Duncklee & Dunham to review UDO Chapter 12, Erosion, Flood, Stormwater & Watershed Standards, to determine if any amendments were necessary. The Town is currently in the review process and no finalized draft has been completed. If any changes to Chapter 12 are proposed, a public hearing will be held on the proposed text amendments.”
The Wake Forest Planning Department has not yet posted the agenda for the Nov. 7 planning board meeting so the Wake Forest Gazette is unable to say how many apartments are now in the plan. Currin said the submittal for the rezoning request was in the May 6, 2019 submittal cycle.
The agenda will call for a public hearing about the rezoning and the plan.
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The Marshall Village request from May is back, in which the town commissioners turned down a request to rezone the 18.77 acres for conditional use highway business although they approved an annexation petition for the property. At the public hearing in May, owner David Wilson said he was trying to have it rezoned so he can sell it and that he would not build self-storage there. He owns Capital City Stow-N-Go in Raleigh.
At the May 21 meeting of the town board, Commissioner Brian Pate said the property is “very important to me,” the first part of Wake Forest people driving north on Capital Boulevard see. Also, “I am not a fan of all the storage buildings that have appeared.” Pate also noted that the 12 or so rental houses there are affordable housing, “One of the few places where people can rent.”
The new petition filed by Wilson for rezoning would apply for 9.164 acres, not the entire tract originally requested, and two of the four parcels have five or six homes, probably rented, on them while two are vacant.
Wilson is asking for a number of permitted uses in the conditional use highway business zoning district but also states that: “Prohibited Uses shall include all Open or Outdoor Display Sales and/or Storage.” That apparently rules out auto sales and self-storage.
It also seems to mean that most of the small white rental houses will remain. Wilson said at the public hearing he initially meant to remove the houses but then began learning about the families and repairing the houses. He also said he would give the renters a lot of notice, a year or so, before they would have to move.
However, Currin said in an email, “Staff did inform the applicant that the UDO doesn’t allow most residential uses in the Highway Business zoning district, including multifamily.”
Again there will be a regular public hearing with the public able to voice their views.
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As of Tuesday, the Tryon corporation has not submitted a request for a new public hearing about the Averette Road rezoning. Currin said Tryon has 45 days to request the hearing from Oct. 1, meaning the deadline of Nov. 15.
