After a two-month rest – no business for the Wake Forest Planning Board in August or September – the nine members of the planning board will face a two-item agenda when they meet Tuesday, Oct. 7, at 7:30 p.m. in town hall.
The first is a rezoning for 29.56 acres at 4113 Rogers Road to the urban residential conditional district requested by Epcon Communities of Cary that will be called Courtyards at Heritage Grove subdivision with 83 single-family lots. Iris Stout of Wake Forest is the owner.
The three parcels that make up the 29.56 acres abut Heritage on the west, Clearsprings subdivision to the north and a single-family residential lot to the east. Both the lot in private ownership and Clearsprings subdivision are in Wake County’s jurisdiction, and the Stout land is also. A petition for annexation into the Town of Wake Forest accompanied the rezoning request and will be acted on when the town commissioners consider the rezoning request later this month.
The public hearing Tuesday will be legislative, not a quasi-judicial hearing with sworn testimony. Anyone can speak for or against the rezoning Tuesday. Both the planning board and the town board members will hear the testimony.
The urban residential conditional zoning Epcon is seeking will allow more traditional neighborhood development with narrower streets that have sidewalks on both sides, an emphasis on walkability, and homes with front porches that are closer to the street and sidewalk than in other subdivisions. The Wake Forest Planning Department’s staff analysis says it will be marketed as an active adult community for residents 55 or older.
The proposed master plan shows the 83 lots are rectangular except for a few that have rounded corners. Along with the access on Rogers Road, there will be future connections to two streets in Heritage, Vann Dowda Place and Grason Crockett Drive, but they will not open until there are certificates of occupancy for 63 homes (80 percent). There is also a stub for a future connection to Freeman House Lane in the Majestic Oaks subdivision when/if the intervening property is developed.
The second hearing will be a request filed by Wake Forest Baptist Church to rezone 1.8 acres at 113 Front Street from its institutional campus district to general residential district because the church has purchased the land from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and is constructing a fellowship and education building. Churches are allowed in all residential districts; by rezoning, the new building will match the adjoining church and earlier education building.
The planning board members can vote to either recommend or not recommend the requests to the town commissioners, who will then consider the matter during their regular meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 21, at 7 p.m.
At the bottom of the agenda, the planning department listed three projects that will require quasi-judicial hearings in the future: the amendment to Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary’s master plan for the campus, phase three of the master plan for St. Ives subdivision, and phase three for the master plan for Reynolds Mill subdivision.
