Proposals for a new charter school and a large addition to the Traditions subdivision will greet members of the Wake Forest Planning Board at their first 2016 meeting on Tuesday, Jan. 5.
The school, the Envision Science Academy, currently housed in North Raleigh, wants its permanent home to be in Traditions in the northwest corner where Royal Mill Avenue meets Traditions Grande Boulevard. The nonprofit school wants to build on 6.96 acres owned by Wake Forest Reservoir Properties LLC where Andy Ammons is the manager. The master plan calls for a large part of the tract to be used for school drop-off and pick-up so that all the traffic stacking is on the property. The school has a STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics) curriculum.
The town commissioners will sit in on the public hearing and the next one. Because it is only a master plan, this will be a quasi-judicial hearing with sworn testimony.
The subdivision will be almost next door but will cover 128 acres – also owned by Wake Forest Reservoir Properties – where Royal Mill Avenue meets Gilcrest Farm Road. The applicant is the John R. McAdams Company which wants to provide 389 single-family lots.
The summary prepared by Assistant Planning Director Chad Sary says: “The request is to rezone an undeveloped portion of the Traditions Subdivision to UR (CD) – conditional use urban residential – and to amend the previously approved master plan (2008) for the area.” That plan called for 193 single-family lots and 119 townhouses or apartments, and Sary wrote that the proposed plan for only single-family lots increased the density slightly at the same time there is an increase in the open space.
Because the master plan request is associated with a rezoning request, the public hearing will be legislative with all interested parties able to speak without being sworn.
The planning board meeting begins at 7:30 p.m. in the second-floor meeting room in town hall. The town commissioners will hold a work session at 5:30 p.m. that same night.
