Town board overrules planning board

Tuesday night, June 20, the Wake Forest Town Board ignored the Wake Forest Planning Board’s recommendations in two major developments in town and voted to approve the project at Burlington Mills Road and Ligon Mill Road where the planning board had split 3 to 3 twice before voting 4 to 2 to approve.
As Veronica Brown, head of the HOA in the Shearon Farms subdivision asked, why do the town commissioners ignore their planning board.
Both boards had wrestled with the three developments during marathon sessions. On May 9 the planning board heard the projects described, heard from a handful of residents, questioned the plans and planners and then discussed and voted before adjourning after five hours. Tuesday night’s town board meeting was over three hours, but a major part of it was hearing from the full audience who protested against the three projects with 60 people more in the town hall lobby.
First up Tuesday night was the Amavi project on Holding family land on Jenkins Road
at Capital Boulevard running down to Horse Creek, which is protected by the Falls Lake watershed rules. NCRT SFR Investments, the developer, and McAdams of Durham, the engineer, plan 211 rental houses (one-, two-, and three-bedrooms) with the land fronting on Capital zoned commercial. Some uses such as a gas station have been removed from the commercial uses.
The plan includes a reduced contact superstreet on Capital and additional turning lanes on Jenkins. Six people from Wake Forest Presbyterian Church, which is next door, led by Louis Engel and Bill Anders spoke in favor. Anders said the church had looked for a company that would develop the land compatibly and found it. They said they had a very good relationship with the developer.
Everyone else disagreed and pleaded with the commissioners not to approve because of traffic – one of the worst intersections in Wake Forest – and the additional stormwater rushing down the hill to the creek that is now slowed and reduced by the kudzu. Christine Ball asked the board to purchase the land and turn it into a park.
“This development doesn’t make sense,” one man said. The area has million-dollar homes next door and this “doesn’t reflect what Wake Forest should look like. It would stick out like a sore thumb, all rental with six houses per acre.”
Later the motion to approve Amavi was made by Commissioner Chad Sary, seconded by Commissioner Jim Dyer and carried 4 to 1 with Commissioner Adam Wright voting no.
Second was the plan called Burlington Mills Road Mixed Use, 9.55 acres at the intersection with Ligon Mill Road where the Kitchin Farms subdivision is next door and Richland Creek Community Church is across Ligon Mill Road. The plan is for 144 apartments in three-story apartments and 5,300 square feet of commercial fronting on Burlington. The land is owned by the Eunice Rogers heirs, and some of them spoke about their difficulties in finding a buyer who could develop the land. The Site Group is the engineering firm.
This was the case where the planning board split 3 to 3 twice, first to deny and then to approve. The final agreement came when one member made the motion to request the developer that two of the apartments would be designated affordable and to remove the gas station use from the commercial part. That drew a 4 to 2 vote for approval. (Only six of the seven members were present, leading to the deadlock. The first terms for two members end in December and there are currently two vacancies on the board which will be filled in August. Please see the article in this Gazette about how to apply for the board if you are interested.)
No speaker here complained about the plan; most of the objections were about the traffic and the roads, which are still two lanes when the usage calls for more.
Michael Ellington pointed out that from Ligon Mull Road a driver cannot see cars coming up the hill to the left. He also said the plan would have three-story apartment buildings next to two-story houses and that the water retention plan using sand filters “smell” and do not work in the winter.
A woman whose name was not available said she left home every day at 6:30 a.m. to avoid the traffic and had driven her daughter to high school every day even after the daughter had her license “because you are scared to death” something will happen with the traffic.
The town board had a split but still approved this plan 3 to 2 with Commissioner Nick Sliwinski joining Adam Wright in opposing it. Sary had again made the motion to approve with Dyer seconding it.
Two hours into the meeting most of the audience was still in their seats, and of course there were 60-some in the first-floor lobby.
The town board turned to the largest plan on the agenda, RZ-22-10, a rezoning request filed in the town’s planning department as the 10th request in 2022, last year, a project which never found its way to the Monthly Development Report issued by the planning department. And Commissioner Dyer said last night that the developer has been working with the town for three years.
After the public hearing at the planning board the developer submitted a revised plan (also not made available to the public) which did the following: “. . . clarifying proposed open space, park space, and street trees, and revised conditions which clarify required roadway improvements, including installing a signal at the Burlington Mills/Urial Drive intersection, improvements and right-of-way dedication on Burlington Mills Road to bring it into compliance with the Town’s requirements, and installation of a sidewalk and street trees on the east side of Urial Drive, and which require the owner to rent five units on the site at an affordable rate for a period of ten years. Attachment B and Exhibit 3 have been updated.”
Once again, though there were arguments against the project, most people argued against putting additional cars on overcrowded streets. One woman said the project should be denied because the North Carolina Department of Transportation no longer has funding to build the proposed Capital Boulevard freeway at this or two segments farther north.
The 16.87 acre parcel was purchased last year by GGP Wake Forest LLC with its office and headquarters in Annapolis, Md. Bateman Civil Survey Company are the engineers. The map and other information are available in the planning department’s interactive development map.
Most of the land will be home to 346 apartments in four three- and four-story buildings next to the townhouses in Shearon Farms subdivision. There will be no entrance from Capital Boulevard but the entrance will be on Urial Drive off of Burlington Mills Road. The separate three-acre commercial area will have access from Burlington Mills, where apparently tall office buildings are in the future.
“We need commercial,” Veronica Brown, the HOA head, said. “We are a commercial desert. All that business is going to Wakefield.” She said she was looking forward to something “. . . more walkable and more enjoyable” instead of the “huge monstrosities” of the apartment buildings.
Other speakers noted that the Shearon Farms subdivision needed a park and a playground and something for teenagers to do besides wait until 9 or 11 at night and randomly knock on front doors.
The denial vote for this project was unanimous by the planning board. The town board vote was 4 to 1 with Wright again voting no. Sary and Dyer swapped roles with Dyer making the motion and Sary seconding.
(The editor vaguely remembers seeing this project several years ago, maybe three, when it was denied by the planning board and maybe went away without a town board vote. The assumption was that it was dead.)
(Editor’s note: I missed 40 minutes of the town board meeting because our grandson, who is graduating from NC State this week and moving Saturday to DC to start a new job, came by to say good-by.)