Tuesday’s joint planning board meeting with the town board and planning board was long – starting at 5:30 p.m. and ending after 11 because the agenda included five quasi-judicial hearings which meant each took at least an hour, usually more. It was a relief to hear that a sixth had been moved to the May meeting.
For those who watched on Channel 10, it was very frustrating because every time the video operators tried to show the big screen in the town hall meeting room where staff and others were showing and describing maps and drawings, the home TV screen went black. Despite several efforts, home viewers never saw what the people at the hearing saw.
The most interesting hearing was an amendment of the large Grove 98 planned unit development for the section on the north side of the N.C. 98 Bypass across from the almost-complete Wegmans grocery. The Stiles Corporation asked for approval to add 25.7 acres to the current 77.09 acres. That addition will allow Stiles to increase the planned dwelling units from 560 to 675, increase the square footage of commercial space and also build a roundabout on Ligon Mill Road, which will be built as four lanes with a median with sidewalks or trails on both sides and street trees. Ligon Mill will not be built during the PUD construction, and it is planned as a two-lane street. Grading will allow for that future construction.
The 25 acres are almost entirely streams and floodplains, and attorney Jennifer Ashton with Longleaf Law Partners and others explained including that land in the PUD makes the project more walkable with compact residential areas close to commercial areas.
The PUD plan does not call for an extension of an interior road to the subdivision to the east, Richland Ridge, because Ashton and others said the extension would requiring grading and asphalt at one of the lowest points in that area as well as a sewer extension. “To the north of the site are significant wetlands,” Ashton said. If the road connection were made, commercial and other traffic would use it to get from Richland Ridge to South Main Street, disturbing a residential neighborhood.
Instead the plan by Stiles calls for a greenway trail for pedestrians to be the connection to Richland Ridge. Commissioner Liz Simpers, who lives there, said her neighbors were happy with the walking trail instead of the road.
After that normal hearing, there were two quasi-judicial hearings about the major site master plan and the major master subdivision plan for Grove 98 during which experts testified about parts of the plans but Kevin Ammons and Jordan Peterson, both engineers, told the combined boards how they planned the PUD given the streams, the differences in topography and other challenges.
Those two hearings were followed by the same quasi-judicial hearings for the major site master plan and major master subdivision for Hawthorne at Traditions – which only had a subdivision hearing because Montecito Street in Del Webb at Traditions had to be extended through its 12 acres.
Finally, the last quasi-judicial hearing of the night was for a major master subdivision for a 12-townhouse project on 2 acres on the east side of Franklin Street. The property is very narrow with a steep slope to a stream. Planning board member Colleen Sharpe asked how they could grade that land without disturbing the stream buffer and the stream.
In the end the nine planning board members approved all the requests, usually unanimously, but denied on a five to four vote the request by NV5 for approval of the major site master plan for Hawthorne at Traditions while approving the subdivision for the same.
The planning board votes are recommendations, but the town board cannot consider those votes in quasi-judicial cases so must come to its conclusions and votes independently. They will be taken up at the town board’s regular meeting on April 20.
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4 Responses
This board is just out of control. Thanks for ruining Wake Forest forever with all these new developments left and right.
I agree with Brian. Ive lived here since 1996 and I have seen our nice little town become clear cut. Wake Forest has overbuilt based on the infrastructure. As soon as you cross over into Raleigh at Wakefield, the streets open up, there is more green space and it just looks like it was well planned. Wake Forest is overbuilt and there appears to be no end game. Let’s elect some more conservative people to this board!
I would also like to remind the Commission that a traffic survey cited was performed this past year, when everyone was in lock down due to Covid-19. The results appear to be faulty.
When the issue of the subdivision for Hawthorne Apts. and the the nursing home at Traditions first came up at a quasi-judicial hearing, the planning board voted against it with a 7-1 vote. One of the major issues was extending Mendocino St. to allow cut through traffic from both the nursing home and the apartments to go through Del Webb.
At a subsequent hearing, the attorney for Grove 98 stated an awareness of the prohibition of cut through traffic through a residential development. However, the Board of Commissioners, when considering the site plan/subdivision for Hawthorne Apts. and the nursing home at Traditions were told by one of the commissioners that this was just a simple subdivision. It was not and there had been much citizen comment and opposition to the road extension but it was approved by the commission without even a second to the motion after being rejected by the planning commission’s 7-1 vote.
I have lived in Wake Forest for two years after living in Raleigh for 15 years. I am very disappointed in the Wake Forest government and planning commission for what appears to be unequal governance on the plans coming before them.