Large increases in electric rates OKed

Neighbors opposed townhouse project and Harris Road plan
With no discussion, the Wake Forest five town commissioners voted Tuesday night to increase the residential Wake Forest Power rates by a total of 19.04 percent.
The increases will come in two stages – one at the beginning of April and one in September – with jumps of 9.47 percent in the spring and 9.57 percent in the fall.
The result is that the average customer who uses 935 kWh in each monthly billing and whose bill was about $126.77 in March will see the bill rise to $136.55 in April and $147.14 in September. Their annual bill will go from $1,522.42 to $1,765.71 after September.
“There was no other choice,” Commissioner Chad Sary said, given the wildly increased costs the town’s power agency has seen. He added that the service is top-notch by Wake Forest Power, and the last rate increase was three years ago.
Mayor Vivian Jones added that Duke Power is asking for an 18.9 percent increase in power rates.
The larger part of the hour work session was spent on public hearings about two proposed subdivisions. The Forestville Road Townhouse project calls for 61 townhouse lots on about eight acres adjacent to the Bridgeport subdivision and across from Heritage High School, and the owner, Robert Schaar, is requesting annexation.
A large pond takes up two to three acres and is connected to a second pond. Both have more than problematic dams and are not connected to a surface stream. Schaar is proposing to locate a sizable number of the townhouses on the lower pond site after it is drained.
“The town should not take this over,” Kenneth Christie said, adding that the existing dam for the lower pond is a “thirty-foot wall of dirt with trees growing on it. It is a dangerous dam.” A district engineer with the state Department of Environmental Quality has said it is the dam that concerns him the most because it could be breached on “a sunny day.”
Rather than annex the property, Christie said, and play Russian Roulette with hundreds of gallons of water, the town should let Wake County deal with the two ponds until they are drained.
Kimberly Glen, whose family was the first residents in Bridgeport, said they were not allowed to move in at first until someone confirmed the dam behind her house was safe. She showed pictures of her house with the dam less than 30 feet behind it, and if it ever is breached her house and several others would be flattened. (That is an editorial opinion that appears to be justified.)
Neighbor Heather Groves agreed the town should not annex the Schaar property because it would be too dense. She said the traffic on Forestville is so bad during rush hour that Bridgeport residents cannot leave the subdivision without long waits.
Doreen Anderson asked that the number of townhouses be cut back to 58 so that the buffers between neighborhoods could be increased.
Wanda Mukherjee said the town should not be supervising the draining of the ponds and suggested that the two ponds, which sometimes overflow, are fed by underground streams which would remain even if the pond area is filled with dirt and houses are built there.
Scheer, the owner, had been sitting in a front row seat and went to the podium last. He said he was never told the pond is on the state watch list because of its dam. “I share everybody’s concerns.”
He said that if the dam on the lower pond does give way it would take out his building and six to eight homes.
“We have a plan,” Scheer said, and he’s been working with DEQ about draining the pond.
The town board can and may act on this request for annexation and a request to rezone the land during a special called meeting of the town board on Thursday, March 23, at 6 p.m.
This meeting will also have the public hearing about the Joyner property, also called the former Wake Forest Country Club, on Capital Boulevard. A large crowd is expected.
Although Assistant Planning Director Jennifer Currin requested that a scheduled hearing about the delayed Harris Road subdivision be further delayed until April, because the hearing was on the agenda speakers were asked to present their opinions.
Angela DiPaolo said she had well over 3,200 signatures on a petition to deny approval of that subdivision across from E. Carroll Joyner Park. She spoke about the buffer zone required for the Devon Park subdivision to the west of the park, how the mature trees that made up a natural buffer had been removed and saplings planted in their place. “The buffer zone failed.”
DiPaolo then went on to examine the failings of the plan for the Harris Road subdivision and then to talk about the native flora and rich ecological areas on that land which a subdivision would destroy.
John-Henry Praught spoke about the congested roads around Harris Road.
The commissioners voted five to none to annex the Ligon Park subdivision of 10 lots on Ligon Mill Road. The plan will be approved administratively.
Lisa Hayes, the strategic performance manager, discussed the memorandum of understanding between the town and Triangle Real Estate Company, which has been chosen to purchase and develop the property the town has bought and is in the process of buying – the former Suntrust Bank building, its property and property along Brooks Street.
It is all part of a redevelopment scheme which will build about 110 residential (apartments) unit, about 13,500 square feet of retail space along Elm Avenue and Brooks, a public plaza at the corner of South White Street and Elm Avenue, parking deck on Brooks Street with 1.8 parking spaces for the apartment residents and at least 180 parking spaces for public use.
The commissioners unanimously approved the resolution.
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