Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good evening. I now call this meeting to order. Welcome to our presenters, participants, staff, and members of the community. Thank you for coming this evening and participating in this very important process. Tonight, the first item on the agenda is to adopt the agenda. Do we have a motion?

I move to adopt the agenda.

Motion by Ms. Shepherd. Second second by mr. Moore those in favor aye and raise your hand aye motion carries six to zero The second item is the approval of minutes from meetings on July 14th as well as August 11th. Do we have a motion?

I Have a motion to accept the minutes from from our last two meetings motion to accept the minutes by mr. Moore second second

Second by Mr. Thomas. Those in favor, aye, and raise your hand. Aye. Motion carries 6 to 0. With that, the next item on the agenda is new business with public comment. This is consideration of legislative case RZ 24-03, Franklin Street Towns Common Area. I welcome Mr. Richards to the stage.

Thank you, Chair Davis, members of the planning board. Give me one minute, and I will pull up my presentation. Let's see. I forget the keyboard shortcut. All right. Well, I'll present it like this. You all can see it. I apologize. It's been some time since I've been before you, but it is good to be here tonight. The case that I'm presenting is RZ2403, Franklin Street Town's common area, proposed rezoning to a conditional district, the sole condition being development must occur in accordance with the proposed master plan. As far as application information, the owner and applicant is Franklin Street Towns, LLC. Oh, yes, thank you. I guess we need some help for presentation mode. The PIN is 1840571129, 4.81 acres. Thank you. It is in the town's corporate limits. Current zoning is residential mixed use. The proposed zoning would be residential mixed use conditional district. Again, the sole condition being the applicability of the master plan to future development. Current use is common area in a mostly built out townhome development. And the proposed use would be common area in the townhouse development. The applicant's request is review and approval of the conditional zoning request with the associated master plan. First, I'll talk about current uses and zoning. And you have maps in my staff report. Current land uses, the site, as I mentioned earlier, you can see it outlined in yellow. So this includes all of the common area in this townhome development. It does not include the subdivided out townhome portion, which is zoned RMX. So around the site, you have open space to the north. On the west and south, you have open space associated with the adjacent developments. And then, of course, opposite on the west side of South Franklin Street, you have commercial development on the corner, and then single-family residential development extending up, fronting on Old Magnolia Lane. Current zoning, the townhome development and the crosshatch and also the townhome lots zoned RMX. Surrounding land, you have RMX. Where's my pointer? Up to the north here, these two are zoned conditional use RMX, dating from 1995 and 1996 rezonings. And then down across Dr. Calvin-Jones Highway, you have conditional use neighborhood mixed use as a part of a TND. That's, of course, a holding village development. And then you have open space. on the east, and then the adjacent neighborhoods are conditionally used GR3. As far as community plan direction, the It's a little bit convoluted to get here. The land use plan has this designated as downtown. So then you have to go to the downtown area plan, which has this designated as downtown edge. And then you come to find out that it is mixed residential portion in the downtown edge portion. What does that mean? Well, the direction for the downtown edge is higher density residential development to provide attractive, diverse, and equitable housing options. And specifically with the mixed residential portion, what would be relevant to this request is that existing single family attached homes should be maintained. There's also direction about providing fronting on the street and alley loading for residential development mixed throughout the downtown area plan portion of the community plan. As far as the approved master plan and CDs, those are included as exhibits. I'm sorry, as attachments. The proposed master plan is an exhibit. The approved master plan is an attachment. This is a site plan from the approved master plan showing the yet to be developed amenity area. That's this portion here on the corner. So you can see that includes a club and pool facilities. Vehicle parking here, bicycle parking here, a bench over near South Franklin Street frontage. As far as the landscaping that was approved in this master plan, you have these lace bark elms along the drive, supplemental English oak here. and then shrubs along the front of the clubhouse and along this drive in the bench area. The subsequently approved construction plans include a little clearer detail about the proposed landscape or approved landscaping I should say. So again, lace bark elms along the drive. This oak is still shown here and then you have dwarf Japanese hollies kind of scattered along the street frontage or the drive frontage here and a cluster of different shrubs along the entry to the clubhouse. That brings us up to the proposed master plan. And I'll show you both site plan excerpt and landscape plan excerpt. So the site plan shows in the amenity area the proposed park space as a part of this development. So that would include prefabricated playground structure situated in this area on a 24 by 34 foot fall zone, benches on these two sides, And then a 16 foot by 12 foot concrete pad with a 10 by 10 footprint prefabricated pavilion. Within that pavilion would be a Picnic table there would be trash and recycling Located here a bicycle rack located here New parking spaces at two additional parking spaces next to the bike rack here And as far as landscaping So this would be a lace bark on here and here and These would be maples. And then apparently this was a maple that was planted. And then you have an existing landscape bed with hollies, crepe myrtles, and other plants, an existing stone wall as well along the front. And then shrubs providing screening for the parking spaces. And two bicycle racks. I believe that is everything I wanted to show you on that plan. So the staff recommendation is that the Planning Board make a recommendation to the Board of Commissioners, as required by the UDO and general statutes, as to whether to approve or deny the requested rezoning and provide a comment on the proposed rezoning's consistency with the comprehensive plan. And with that, I conclude my presentation. Happy to answer questions now or later.

I'm sure you'll have both. Okay. Really the main question that I had is, you know, as you mentioned, it's just a shift to a conditional district with one condition. Would a master plan that's already in place, would that still apply without this condition or are we talking about, you know, same horse, different color kind of situation? So your question goes to... What's the purpose of, yeah, like why do we have to put one condition in? What's the purpose of making that one change? My understanding, and I could be wrong, is that there's already a master plan in place. Wouldn't the developer slash applicant still have to hold to that, which is largely unchanged except for what appears to be a shift from a pool to a playground?

With regard to this particular parcel?

Yeah.

they would develop the remaining portion under this master plan of the common area. It's a little bit of an unusual situation in that the development is mostly built out. Really, the remaining portion, and the developers here can speak to this as well, is this last remaining stick of townhomes and then this amenity area. So this is a process whereby the Board of Commissioners ultimately may approve a different configuration, a different design for that amenity area from what is currently approved.

Got it. So then, therefore, the condition would be ideal in the applicant's eyes in order to allow for this change to occur. I'm just trying to read through, you know, if the condition is, you know, we must abide by the master plan that we have. Like, I'm just trying to

Right. Yeah, so it would be the new master plan, right? Got it. Right. So it's one of the alternatives that Chapter 15 of the UDO gives for a conditional rezoning. The other alternative being simply restricting the uses that are allowed. This alternative is a master plan alternative. Thank you. Yeah, you bet.

Why do we have to change it from an RMX to an RMX CD if it's just relatively just a master plan change?

Right. Well, so the current master plan was approved by the Board of Commissioners under a different procedure that we no longer have in our UDO. In order to approve a new master plan, the applicant is required to go through a procedure whereby the Board of Commissioners would approve a new master plan. Our UDO currently has conditional rezoning as the procedure whereby the Board of Commissioners would approve a master plan in conjunction with the rezoning. Hope that answers your question. Okay.

Yeah Don't go too far, okay Thank you Now proceed at this time to hear from the applicant for the project if present

Good evening, planning board members. My name is Madeline Williams. I'm a land use attorney with the law firm of Ward and Smith, and I'm here tonight on behalf of the applicant, Franklin Street Towns, LLC. So Chairman Davis, to your question, the purpose of our request tonight is very narrowly tailored. It is specific just to the change on the master site plan. So as we go through the presentation, I'll focus on that. To the extent there's questions or you feel free, please feel free to interrupt me with any questions as we go through. So with this request, the underlying zoning will remain the same. It is currently zoned RMX. It would stay RMX. Our request tonight is for this to be a conditional district, which allows you to tie this rezoning to the specific site plan through a condition. And that is the single condition that we're requesting tonight is that what you approve tonight is specific to this site plan, requiring the developer to build what is on that site plan. We are not asking for any additional lots beyond what has already been approved. The current unit count that has been approved is 61 lots. That's remaining the same. 11 buildings of townhomes, that's remaining the same. Currently, 55 of those 61 townhomes have already been constructed. So the remaining building, that 11th building, those are where those final townhomes would go. Our request tonight, again narrowly tailored, is just about this new common area amenity. So what was previously approved under that prior plan was a pool house and a clubhouse. That is a carryover from an original plan where this was submitted to be apartments, then transitioned to townhomes, and that was a carryover from that. What we're proposing tonight, though, as the new common area amenity would be that space that Mr. Richards, and thank you, Mr. Richards, for your presentation, showed on his screen, which we'll zoom in on a little bit. It will have a playground area, a gathering space pavilion with benches and bike racks, and then green space around it. So the subject site, what we're talking about, if you're looking at your screen, is this area that you'll see at the northern portion of the property with that final block of townhomes being that red empty block that you see. And then to the left of that block on your screen would be where this common area amenity would be placed. So this is the same location that the previous amenity was placed. We're just switching out the use and what would actually be constructed there. Location, again, don't want to reiterate everything that Mr. Richards said, but again, we're not requesting a change in zoning. That would stay the same at RMX. Current use is townhomes, not requesting a change in the use of the townhomes, only requesting a change in how the common area amenity is constructed. Here's the site plan on the bottom left of the screen, giving this for the full context. Everything essentially on the left side of your screen, with the exception of that final block of townhomes and the common area, has been constructed. So all we're talking about really is what's on the left side of the site plan today and what we're requesting that you recommend approval to change. So this is a zoomed in of that same area. This is what Mr. Richards just showed as well. On the upper portion of the common area amenity on the screen, that is where the playground would be located, as well as the pavilion more towards the south with the trash, recycling, and the bicycle racks. This is the open space plan. So again, looking at that common area amenity, this new plan will allow for greater open space, less impervious surface than what was under the previously approved plan, and allow for an amenity that can be used year round by residents of the townhome community as opposed to the previously approved pool, which is limited in season, more impervious surface, and less open space. Speaking on just the UDO requirements for open space and the park space requirements, in this area your UDO would require approximately 20,000 square feet of open space and park space combined. What we're proposing here under this new common area amenity would significantly exceed what's required. And for this amenity change, Let me go back to the site plan. For this amenity change, just to understand some of the background here, that previously approved pool, as time went on with the development, developer came to realize that that use for this particular area, as well as the upkeep cost, insurance cost for the HOA, is not really feasible for this type of development. Also, if you've driven by the space, the area where this would be located, in my layman's terms, it would be a very small pool. not one that you would typically see in a townhome development because of the size that you'd be restricted to. So following that conversation with the developer, developer met with the community members and discussed alternatives, looking at different park models. They had two different community meetings about that, which resulted in the plan that's before you today. The first discussion was about more of a community garden concept. then also maybe a dog park area. But feedback that was received from the residents was long-term, the upkeep of a community garden, whether people are interested in that or not, may not be as desirable as a playground amenity and a gathering space. So again, no changes on the lots, the street configuration. We have added two additional parking spaces as well as those bike racks that are on the site plan in the common area. These are private streets. All the townhomes are two-story and three-story. This final block would be two-story townhomes. Again, not requesting an increase in density or any additional units. Mr. Richards touched on this. So just to put a bow on that, the existing vegetation would remain. We have proposed some additional items that would be included, such as those additional maples. In this final phase, once approved, this would include some buffer plantings along the stormwater pond that's in the rear of the site. But the existing foundation plantings and the existing street trees along South Franklin Street would all remain. So the proposed change for this common area amenity we find is consistent with the town's comprehensive plans as well as Section 7 of the UDO with the different park requirements. The transition to the playground, the covered pavilion and gathering space promotes a more sustainable community-oriented common area that can be used more year-round by the residents. This, which is also consistent with your comprehensive plan, is less impervious space, additional landscaping and green space, and again, a more flexible amenity for the residents in this community. So bringing it back to where we started, very narrow request, just asking for a change in the common area amenity use to allow for this playground, the pavilion area, and the gathering space. It exceeds and complies with all of the UDA requirements for open space and park space, and the water, sewer, and drainage infrastructure that's already in place will continue to serve the development. No change is there either. For these reasons, we respectfully request that this planning board provide a recommendation of approval to the Board of Commissioners. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have.

Thank you, Ms. Williams. Any questions for the applicant?

Had one I was just looking at can you go back a couple slides? Sure. I just had a question one keep going On this on back one go back. Yeah right there I just I saw on the other diagrams that we had that there is a about a 10 15-foot drop on that Norwesterly on the right side. Is there any any other fencing or you talked about? Shrubbage going in is there anything going on that backside due to that drop?

That's there you talked about right here. Okay So on this plan no and but any requirements from the UDO for any type of buffering or anything? we would be subject to that even outside of this conditional rezoning request and

Any other questions? We may have further questions in a bit. Thank you for your time. We'll call you up if we need you.

Thank you. Much appreciated.

We will now move to the public comments portion of the meeting. Sometimes I lose my ability to speak. We do have two people who have signed up to speak on this project, and we will call them in the order that they signed up. As a reminder to those with public comments, please speak into the microphone, state your name and address. You are presenting your position to the Planning Board, but we will not be asking any questions. We're here to listen and take into consideration. When we go into discussion, some of what you shared, it may come up during our discussion phase. There is a timer right here to the side for three minutes. At the end of that timer, your time is up, and we will respectfully ask you to complete your statement, your sentence, and thank you for your time. So with that in mind, first to speak is Vanessa Johnson.

Good evening. I've been a resident of Franklin. Well, my name's Vanessa Johnson. Name and address, yeah. And I live at 849 South Franklin Street. And I've been a resident there for almost four years. And I guess my question or my thing is that that piece of property, nothing has been done with it. And it's been years that these townhouses have been in the process of being built. And I know COVID came and that delayed things. But it just is an eyesore. And it's embarrassing to be part of the downtown community. And a lot of people come in front of our houses every day, and they see that property. And it's not been taken care of. And we just really would like it to be done, and done in a timely fashion so that it looks nice and that it's not an embarrassment. to live there and to the town. We just want it to be done and not promises that haven't been kept. And that's all that I wanted to say is that I just would like it done and my neighbors would like it done. Not in another five, 10 years, not even another two years. We just would like to see it done and have it look nice so that we're proud of where we live. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Johnson. And the other member of the public signed up to speak is Paul Johnson.

Yes. PAUL JOHNSON, I live at 849 South Franklin. And I agree with my wife. Don't hear that every day. No, we're really looking for expediency here. As quickly as we can get this process done, as my wife said, we've been waiting four years, staring at an empty lot that's in disrepair and really is is not living up to the standards of Wake Forest that we moved into. So the more you all can do to get it to the next stage and then follow on from there, we'd really appreciate it. I'd also just like to point out, it seems to be Somewhat of a, you know, maybe a lessons learned here for the planning of these developments of having a piece of it unfinished for this long. There should be some regulation or something, some planning mechanism that you all can push to make sure developers get their developments done without this happening. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. Johnson.

At this time, I do open up to any other members of the public which would like to provide comment on this matter.

Watkins, 407 Bell Mellon Court. I actually thought tonight was a joke. And the planning department was playing a joke on me. I did not realize that this was actually real. But I do have questions, because I feel like a lot of the folks over here are residents.

By a show of hands, can you show me how many folks would prefer a swimming pool over a playground? And how many folks prefer the playground? OK. Can you guys shake your heads and tell me whether or not the town houses out there were advertised as having a pool before you guys bought your place? It was. We're saying yes and no.

Please focus on the microphone. You're speaking to the board.

I'm sorry. It seems like to me this was a quasi-judicial hearing. The residents weren't able to weigh in on this plan, and the developer pretty much agreed to it. In my opinion, the developer should be fined. I don't know the legal cases of all that. I'm not an attorney. But in my opinion, the developer should be fine. And whatever these folks want, they should be able to get it, and they should get it in a timely manner. But that's just my opinion. I don't live there.

Thank you, Ms. Watkins. Any other member of the public wish to speak?

Hi, my name is Sarah Lind. I live in Wake Forest.

We do need your address.

I live in the community on South Franklin Street. We, as a community, met several times. We agree with the developer on this plan, and we really just want to proceed forward. I would like you to disregard the previous comments. This is not a point of contention with the community. We just really want to proceed forward and go forward with this. Thank you, and I appreciate that.

Thank you for your time. At this time, public comment is now closed. Having heard from the public, applicant and staff, does the board have any additional questions for either the staff or the applicant?

I just had one question for staff, just because this property was brought up in the Board of Adjustments meeting.

Let's let him get to the stand first.

was brought up in the Board of Adjustments meeting just trying to get clarity of if our vote has any impact of what they decided on last month just so we have clarity for us moving forward.

You're asking about the relationship between the Board of Adjustment hearing and this decision?

Yeah, just to make sure that what we're moving forward with has no impact on what they decided because I didn't see any comments or notes from the meeting that happened last month.

Right. Your decision would have relevance on the ultimate approval or disapproval. At least it would inform the commissioner's decision ultimately whether to approve or disapprove this new master plan as a part of the conditional rezoning. And that is connected to the notice of violation issue, which was discussed at that meeting. However, that meeting should not be relevant to your decision as to whether to recommend approval or not.

Thank you for the clarity. I have a general question. Generally speaking, right, an applicant will propose a master plan to us here at the planning board. The next phase, we make a recommendation. It goes to the board of commissioners. But then after that, there are multiple steps that a developer or the applicant, assuming it's approved by the board of commissioners. must go through in order to put shovels in the dirt, right? Can you give an extremely, like, 10,000 or 15,000 foot view of what some of those phases are and what's a ballpark amount of time that that typically takes?

Sure. Obviously it would be different in this case compared to a situation where you're starting from scratch and, you know, In this case, the applicant would submit, well, there's a number of things that need to happen for the last townhome, I call it STIC, the last townhome building to be constructed and then for this amenity area to be constructed. We would need to have construction plans submitted for this amenity area. Once the construction plans are approved, then we could proceed with a pre-construction conference. We probably wouldn't even need a pre-construction conference in this case, because I don't believe that there would be. It would depend on what erosion sedimentation control measures would be required. All that would be ironed out at the construction plan review phase. But basically, that would be the next step in the development process, would be submittal of construction plans, which would have the more detailed

Stormwater grading etc. So site survey construction permits construction plans There's an awful lot more work that has to be done after This part of the process is complete and it's it can take a little bit of time on average although this one's probably faster because of the scope and

Yeah, there are more steps that would need to happen before anyone saw, you know, concrete forms being put in place for, you know, pavilion and all that. But, yeah, I mean, this would be an important step to queue all that up. Thank you. Yeah.

Patrick, the application that was submitted with NARPAC, it still talks about the community garden. Is that a meaningful inconsistency? The application that was put in our packet for review still talks about the change being from the pool and pavilion to a community garden Does that matter?

Let's pull it up look at it Make sure I'm looking at the same thing you're talking about so attachment B is

Yeah, on page, I think, four and five or three and four.

Three.

Yeah, right there. It talks about changing it to a community garden.

Ah, okay. Site plan. And this... If you look in the UDO, the park space portion of the UDO has, I believe, four different types, one of which is community garden.

Yeah, but I think to answer Adam's question specifically, the master plan would be the condition and what they have to meet. So whatever is shown as amenity on the master plan would be tied to this. And the application is just there for reference to show when it was submitted and applicant contact information. But they'd be held to the amenity shown on the master plan if this rezoning was approved.

OK, that answers my question. Thank you very much.

Yeah. OK. Any other questions for Mr. Richards or Ms. Williams?

I have a question. Go ahead. I understand we're talking about the common space, so I'm wondering why that last building wasn't built already. Is it tied to the common space in some way?

Yes, it does get somewhat complex. This has to do with the violation that we spoke about earlier. So the applicant would like to build that. However, staff has held that up. So the UDO has certain enforcement mechanisms. One of those allows staff to stop further consideration of development of applications for it. basically approving development permits until a violation is cured. That's one of the enforcement mechanisms. So that came into play on this project, specifically with regard to developing the last townhome building because of the violation, which centered on this amenity area and that it hadn't been constructed.

Thank you for clarifying that.

Yeah. Sorry, it is a little bit long story. Any other questions? I'm happy to answer.

Thank you very much. You're welcome. And last call on questions for Ms. Williams. I don't think you're even going to take the hot stand, let alone the hot seat. I won't object. So at this time, we can have debate, discussion, or a motion. What is the pleasure of the board? mean I'll share my opinion I it's such a narrow situation it's pretty obvious that it's in line to me with what the closest residents what their desire is it appears to be generally consistent with the downtown plan And it's really just finish it up and finish with the town. I think the only thing that really kind of came to mind was comments about a so-called eyesore, I'm guessing. It was the kudzu that you see from the street, but I'm not even sure that that's part of this plot. It looks to be adjacent to the plot for these townhomes. Maybe that is one question that I actually would have come to think of it. Yeah, and I'll describe it visually. As you turn off of 98 and head up Franklin towards Town Hall, there's Kudzu there on the right. I'm guessing it's not part of this plot. You can feel free to, yeah. Yes, you may approach the bench.

Thank you, Chairman Davis. Yes, just confirmed that is not part of our property. It is separate. But, of course, any landscaping on the site that's required by the UDO would still be required for us. The eyesore area or the area that is undeveloped, a recommendation of approval here and ultimate approval by the Board of Commissioners would allow us to develop that entire area that's currently not developed. So that would be the amenity and then that block of townhomes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So this addresses any concerns I have.

I'll make a motion to recommend approval with the statement of consistency with the comprehensive plan.

Motion by Mr. Redler to approve.

I'll second that.

Second by Miss Shepherd those in favor raise your hand and say aye aye Opposed motion carries six to zero. Thank you very much to the applicant. Thank you very much the public for your participation this evening With that in mind We now move on to staff comments No comments this evening. No comments this evening. Do we have a motion to adjourn? Move to adjourn motion to adjourn by Miss Shepherd. I Second second by mr. Moore those in favor aye Opposed motion carries. Good evening. This meeting is adjourned