Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. My name is Jason Grubbs. I'm the chair of the City-County Planning Board. Welcome to the August 13th meeting of the Planning Board. At this time, would you please stand and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance?

We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all,

Today's meeting is being broadcast live by Winston-Salem TV Digital Media and will be rebroadcast at 10 o'clock Friday morning and again at 4 o'clock Sunday afternoon. Additionally, an on-demand recording will be available on the City of Winston-Salem's YouTube channel. Before we begin this afternoon, I'd like to recognize Winston-Salem City Council Member Sipio, who's joined us today. Thank you for being here. Our first order of business today will be the consent agenda containing items for which the petitioner is requesting withdrawal or continuance or items for which the planning staff has recommended approval and no one has signed up to speak in opposition. For our public hearings today, each side will have a total of 12 minutes. There is no rebuttal period. Once the public hearing is closed and the board goes into work session, no one is permitted to speak unless the planning board asks them a question. The items under Section B of our agenda will require final action by the elected body, either the Winston-Salem City Council or the Forsyth County Board of Commissioners. As such, votes taken today are recommendations which are considered by the elected body during their review of the requests. For general use rezoning requests, the planning board must consider the full range of uses allowed in the zoning district being requested. The petitioner may not refer to a specific intended use for the property. For special use district zoning requests, the petitioner must identify the intended use or uses of the site and give specific details on how the site will be developed. If you're addressing the board today, please, before you begin your comments, give us your name, address, and zip code for the record. Additionally, and this reminder applies to both staff and board members, as well as speakers from the floor, to ensure that our digital media systems properly capture your remarks, please make sure you're speaking directly into your microphone. The first item on the consent agenda is the approval of the minutes of the July 9th and July 23rd, 2026 meetings. Is there a motion? Move approval. Motion by Mr. Lamb, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, sign of aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That's unanimous. I'm now going to call on Mr. Brian Wilson to take us through the consent agenda.

Mic check, there we go. So again, item B1, that's W3695, that's being automatically continued to your September 10th meeting. Our next item is D2, that's PBR 2026-12. This is the SOAR Academy and Tutoring. They had originally requested an automatic continuous year September meeting. They have since requested a withdrawal. That is in with the eight day period for the planning board, to require the planning board to vote on that withdrawal request. So unless you have any questions, I'll just leave it to you to vote on that.

Any questions for staff? Is there a motion as to the request to withdraw?

So moved to request to withdraw W3696.

All right. Second. All right. Any discussion? All in favor, sign of aye. Aye. Any opposed?

All right, and our next item is B2, that's case W3696. The petitioner is Thomas D. Skinner, Pamela Skinner, and 1118 North Trade, LLC. They're requesting to rezone a dual zone GI and LI property to pedestrian business limited use. It's a 7.06 acre site located on the north and south sides of West 12th Street between North Trade Street and West Northwest Boulevard. Most people might commonly call this a part of Industry Hill. You can see the, throw my pointer here. See the site is bounded by LI zoning to the south, that's remnant LI zoning. Further to the south there's a mixture of pedestrian business and entertainment district zoning. And then again across the railroad tracks there, there's additional remnant legacy LI zoning there. And then another mixture of commercial and residential land uses. And this is the aerial of the property. You can see that it does contain some existing industrial buildings on the site. And then there's the existing LI zoning there. And then further to the south, you can see the Artroyo Apartments. And this is a part of the north central Winston-Salem area plan update. And it did recognize the existing industrial zoning for the site. However, it is in a special land use consideration area that recognized the potential for adaptive reuse of these structures and redevelopment of this legacy industrial site. Therefore, this request is consistent with the area plan recommendation, especially in consideration with the redevelopment that's already been undergoing for the last, approximately the last 10 years. And staff does recommend approval of this request. Be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Any questions for staff?

All right. Go ahead. Okay. I move that the planning board.

Mr. Chairman. Yeah, if you could just ask if there's anyone here in opposition.

No one signed up to speak in opposition to this request. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? All right, seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed.

I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

Second. Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify.

Aye.

Any opposed?

I move that planning board recommend approval of W3696. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous as well.

All right, Mr. Chairman, we'll move on to our next case. That's item B3, and that's case W3697. Petitioner is Brookberry Farm, LLC. This is the Rosewind Townhome site plan in your agenda packet. Requesting to rezone a site that's, again, dual zone, MUS and RS9 to MUS. It's a 1.82-acre site located at the northwest intersection of Rosewind Lane and Red Tail Lane. Again, the eastern part of this site is already zoned MUS and was a part of the original Brookbury rezoning from 2003. The western side of this development is currently zoned RS9. You can see the remainder of Brookbury to the north and east, and I'll show that a little more definitively in the aerial. And then there is single-family zoning directly to the west and a mixture of single-family and commercial land uses to the south of the site. And again, here is the aerial. You can see Brookbury is substantially developed since the original area plan recommendation. This is a remainder for that case that was just voted, or automatically continued to next month. And you can see that this map does show the flood zone, significant amount of flood zone in this property. However, the developer has already submitted a floodplain revision map to FEMA. So that's already been submitted and then they'll submit the rest of their requirements with our erosion control staff as a part of the permitting process. And this is the area plan recommendation. It did recommend intermediate density residential on the eastern half and then recognize the existing zoning on the western portion of the site. So from a density perspective, this is density neutral from the single family zoning and meets the intent of the area plan from the eastern side of the MUS zoning. And here is the proposed site plan. You can see they're proposing 12 total buildings, or excuse me, 12 total units in four separate buildings. They're gonna be accessing off of these private drives here. Relatively low rotating wall, I think max height is five feet. And then one potential stormwater device located here. And these are the proposed elevations. You can see these are garage-style townhomes. The site plan does meet all UDO requirements, and staff did find that this was consistent with both the comprehensive plan and the area plan recommendations. So we do recommend approval. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

Questions for staff? That's good. All right. No one signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, we'll declare the public hearing closed. What's the pleasure of the board?

I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

Second. Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussions? All in favor, signify.

Aye.

Any opposed? That's unanimous.

I move that the Planning Board recommend approval of W3697. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous as well.

Okay, moving on to item... B4, that's case W3698. This is 360 Vision Builds, LLC. This is the Old Walkertown Road townhome project. And the site is 1.42 acres located at the northeast intersection of Old Walkertown Road and Lane Street. You can see here the site is primarily surrounded by RS-9 zoning to the north and east. This is the railroad right-of-way to the south across the Walkertown Road, so it's pretty distinct from this single-family neighborhood just to the south. And then this is the Ogburn Station Activity Center here to the west that zone general use PB. And there's the site highlighted in yellow. Again, you can see the gas station and Ogburn Station activity center there, and then the existing right-of-way there, the single-family homes bordering the site. The site does have an existing tree stand generally on the north and eastern perimeter as well. And this is the currently adopted Northeast Suburban Area Plan update. It recognized the existing zoning, single family residential at a density of zero to eight dwelling units per acre. However, as you're highly aware, the post 42045 North Suburban Area Plan draft recommends low intensity commercial or office uses for that property. That's in recognition that the site could serve as a good transition between the higher intensity allowed uses and Ogburn Station activity center and then the single family homes to the north and east of the site. And this is the proposed site plan. Just to highlight again, this is three buildings and a total of 11 units. They are proposing one stormwater device that's just above the threshold for built upon area and the total acreage is just above that, so they've got a proposed stormwater device. And again, they could go back and resubmit for a potential no average impact, but it just depends on what's gonna happen once they do their ALTA survey and all that good stuff. They are showing all required street yard and buffer yard perimeter plantings, all required parking areas, and they do meet all the growth management area two requirements. This does meet the intent and purpose of the existing adopted area plan as well as the general recommendations of the draft area plan and of course the recommendations of 42045 to have a mixture of housing and the serviceable land area. Therefore staff does recommend approval of this request and the site plan does meet UDO requirements.

Questions for staff? No one signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed. What's the pleasure of the board?

I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

Second. Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, sign of aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That's unanimous.

I move that the planning board recommend approval of W3698. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed?

All right, moving on to our next item. That's item B5, case W3699. The petitioner is A. Ralph Davis, Marital Trust, Gary T. and Jane Angel. This is the Universal Pecan site plan. Request to rezone an RS9 zone site to RM12S. The 35.27 acre site located on the east and west sides of Pecan Lane, south of Solomon Drive. And again, this is the entire tract. They're only proposing to rezone a portion of that, so this will be a remainder. So it's not under consideration today for zoning action. They are proposing to assemble additional property on the east side of Pecan Lane here. You can see the property is surrounded by RS-9 zoning to the north and west and also to the south. And then this RM-18S has existing apartments and the GBS that's further into the activity center here further to the east. And I'll show that on the aerial. Again, the site itself is largely undeveloped. There's a couple of houses and a couple of locations here. There's a community scale church to the south. And there is Fiddler's Creek bisecting the larger tract. They're proposing to remain on the south side of that. And then they're assembling this additional property along the east side to get five additional buildings. You can see the already constructed apartments and then further to the east, that commercial development there. And this is the Southeast Forsyth County Area Plan Update, Laney's Recommendation Map. It does recommend... Low density attached residential at a density of zero to eight dwelling units per acre. They are proposing a slightly higher density at 9.5 units per acre. However, that's generally consistent with the recommendation and the intent of the area plan to concentrate housing in the serviceable land area and especially near activity centers where they have access to services and transportation. And this is the proposed site plan. You can see it has a total of 25 buildings on the west side, five buildings on the east side of the site, and then all internal streets are proposed to be private. So a lot of these access will have 90-degree parking on the inside to kind of also regulate traffic. And it's also a pretty geographically tight site, so they're trying to use that as dual use. Again, the east side is showing five structures here. They'll separately manage stormwater on either side of the site. They are proposing this clubhouse and pool area in the southeastern section so the people on the east side of Pecan can enjoy that amenity. And then they are showing the required 40-foot greenway easement on this side of Fiddler's Creek. So if there's ever funding to get that greenway through there, that will be there. Is there anything else I need to highlight? They are retaining a fair amount of area and common open space. It's really encumbered by a lot of flood zone and stream areas. So there's minimizing the stream crossing right here. And they are showing all required buffering against the two single-family homes proposed to remain on the western portion of the site. Just to very briefly go over this, they did submit a required traffic impact analysis that was submitted to both DOTs since Union Crossroad is an NCDOT maintained road. And the determination was that they need to restripe this part of Solomon Drive that's to the east of the site. They're gonna restripe that so they have a dedicated left turn and through lane to kind of manage that additional trip generation for the project. And these are some proposed elevations. They have several different building types in here. And again, staff found that the request is consistent with the area plan recommendation and the general recommendations of 42045. Site plan does meet all UDO requirements and recommends approval of this request. I'd be happy to answer any questions.

Questions for staff. No one signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is there anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed. Is there a motion?

I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, sign of aye.

Aye.

Thank you. Any opposed? That's unanimous.

I move that the planning board recommend approval of W3699. Second.

Motion by Mr. Fairview, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous as well.

All right, we'll move on to our next item, B6. That's case W3700. This is petitioner Randall S. Burnett. And this is the new Greensboro Road Apartments I'm requesting to resume from RS9 to RM8S. This is a 31.82-acre site located on the north and south sides of New Greensboro Road, west of Forest and Old Circle. This is Salem Lake right here, and this is Salem Parkway right here to the north of the site. This is a portion, so this area I'm kind of outlining here will remain RS-9. The remainder of the RS-9 property to the south is already within the Salem Lake Park, and then you have some RM-18 zoning further to the east of this site. And this is the aerial. The property is largely undeveloped. It does contain some existing single-family homes. Again, the Whitted area is the part of Salem Park. This part is not a part of the request, this Whitted area here. And then this southern part, I'll go over that again, but that's proposed to remain undeveloped. This is the Southeast Suburban Area Plan land use recommendation map. It recognizes the existing zoning. So it does recommend single family residential, the density of zero to eight dwelling units per acre. Again, this does meet the density aspect of the area plan recommendation. And this is actually in the reservoir protection area of Salem Lake, so it is very much a, used to be called the critical area because it is a water supply watershed. It's within that one mile buffer around Salem Lake. The petitioner is concentrating the amount of built upon area, and this is kind of leaving as much available space to remain open to allow rainwater and everything else to naturally flow through the site as possible. So again, I'll show this overall plan. The southern areas remain, proposed to remain as common open space and undeveloped. And then there's quite a bit of recreation area in the site. Again, proposed to remain undeveloped here and then behind this building here. And they are proposing one stormwater management device. Generally speaking, in the reservoir protection area, you're only allowed to go up to 12% built upon area. With stormwater management, you can go up to 30%. And I believe this is somewhere right around 25% built upon area. So they've got some room for a fiddle factor. The site plan does meet all UDO requirements. And I'm just going to go into a little bit more zoomed in to give you more context. This is kind of the common meeting area for this, the clubhouse. And then you've got this nice recreation area here. And then it does show all the required thoroughfare and other buffering street yard requirements. And last thing, I'll show you the proposed elevations for this. So again, as I mentioned, the site plan does meet all UDO requirements. Staff does recommend approval of this rezoning request. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Questions for staff.

Is any additional filtration required for that dog park area since it is next to Salem?

That's a great question that I don't have a good answer to, but my suspicion is probably not because it's really more of an open space programming requirement. It's not really an infrastructure situation, so I wouldn't imagine that there's any filtration. However, as you might imagine, there's lots of folks who walk their dogs around Salem Lake all the time. So, yeah.

No one signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed. What's the pleasure of the board?

I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan.

Motion by Mr. Fairby. Second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed?

That's unanimous. I move that the Planning Board recommend approval of W3700. Second.

Motion by Mr. Fairvey, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous as well.

All right, and item B7 will be a public hearing item, so we'll move on from that. And now we'll move on to B8. This is our first counting case that we'll be hearing on the consent agenda. So this is F1673. Petitioner's Traco Investments. This is the Camp Halladay site plan requesting to rezone an HBL zone site to HBS for special use. It's a one acre site located on the east side of Peters Creek Parkway, south of Hartman Plaza Drive. And as you can see here, this is right here at the Davidson County line. The site is bounded by existing commercial land use to the north, that's a daycare center, and then you have apartments to the east in the RM18S with some, I believe a gas station here and some other existing commercial uses up and down the corridor and moving, going on into Davidson County, as you can see by this aerial. So again, it's an already developed site. It contains an existing church. And this is the South Suburban Area Plan update and it does recommend commercial land uses for the site. It's also within the Oliver's Crossing Activity Center. And here's the proposed site plan, again proposing to reuse the existing church building. They're going to expand and formalize some parking areas for that church and then utilize the existing driveways off of Peters Creek Parkway. and then the addition of an outdoor play area for the proposed kennel indoor use. The site plan does meet all UDO requirements and the zoning request does match the area plan recommendation and the general recommendations of the comprehensive plan. Therefore, staff does recommend approval and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Questions for staff? No one signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing to close. What's the pleasure of the board?

I move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second.

Motion by Mr. Fabry. Second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor signify.

Aye.

Any opposed? That's unanimous.

I move that the Planning Board recommend approval of F-1673. Second.

Motion by Mr. Ferry, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor signify.

Aye.

Any opposed? That's unanimous as well.

All right, now we'll move on to the next section of your agenda. So moving on to preliminary subdivisions. This is item C1, major subdivision 2026041. This is the Magnolia Woods subdivision up near the Guilford County line near Belize Lake. Again, it's a 23 lot major subdivision in an agricultural zoning district. The site total is 34.74 acres. Only 31.38 acres is in Forsyth County. This is on the south side of Mount Carmel Road, east of East Shore. See the site is bordered by almost exclusively AEG zoning. There is some RS-40 zoning further to the southwest. And this is the proposed site plan. It's got one new public street accessing the site. And I will show you, that's the part in Guilford County right there. So the lot access kinda starts off in Guilford and then immediately transfers over to Forsyth County. And then it's got one cul-de-sac street and then another offshoot cul-de-sac street to kinda utilize the irregular shape of the tract for those additional lots. Something you may have noticed in the prescriptive conditions, there are some gravestones that have not yet been identified by an archeologist, so there's some language in there stating that they need to submit something to the state archeology office to verify whether those are actual grave sites or not, or if they're just some gravestones that someone left there. So there's some language related to that. And there's also some language about potential for the need for additional fire control measures. These are all going to be well and septic lots. So they've kind of having a more robust fire safety aspect because this is in a rural area without access to public water. So that may be an additional requirement. Otherwise, this does meet all UDO requirements. Staff recommends approval. Be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for staff?

All right.

What's the pleasure of the board?

I move that the Planning Board approve Subdivision 2026041. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, sign them aye. Aye. Any opposed? Question in.

All right, now we're on to our next subdivision. That's item C-2. That's 20-26-096. This is the North Grove subdivision. It's a 12-lot major subdivision in an RS-40 zoning district, although this is in growth management area three. This is a 13.67-acre site located on the southwest side of Harper Road, south of Cyrus Ferry Road, and north of Ashgrove Lane. This is really right next to Louisville corporate limits. And you can see the site is bounded by a mixture of RS-40, RS-30, and RS-20 zoning. It's a large lot subdivision. And this is the proposed site plan. Again, it's one access road. There's limited availability or need for additional interconnectivity here, so that's the reason they're showing that one cul-de-sac street. It is going to be... curb and gutter here, just because the requirement in GMA 3 is to have sidewalk on one side of the street, so they're showing that. Showing the mail kiosk location, entrance sign, does meet all other UDO requirements for the site plan, and staff recommends approval.

Questions for staff?

I move that the planning board approve subdivision 2026-096. Second. Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino.

Any discussion? Second.

I've got just a comment for consideration for the developer. I don't know if he's here, but if the sidewalk would be pushed a little bit further away from the street, it would be nice. It's just not a requirement, but a suggestion. A little bit more pleasant to walk on.

All right. Any other discussion? All right. There's a motion and a second. All in favor, sign by. Aye. Any opposed? Thank you. That's the end of this.

All right, moving on to the next section of the agenda. These are your planning board reviews. So item D1, that's PBR 2026-05. This is the Valmont Hills PRD. You may have noticed in other site iterations, it was proposed as a 222 lots. This has actually been pushed down to 211 lots. They had some site redesign, including some reconfiguration of the proposed active open space locations as well as stormwater management devices. It's a very large and complicated site, so as you might imagine, there's a lot of fine tuning as they kind of get this ready to go. Again, it's a 102.85 acre site located at the western terminus of Mountain View Road and at the northern terminus of Sun Creek Drive. This is, of course, Muddy Creek right here, and Meadowlarks Elementary School is just on the other side of the creek there. And this is the proposed site plan. The plan does show really excellent internal street connectivity. These are all proposed public streets. The developer has worked extensively with staff to locate active open spaces in prominent locations with a minimum of grade challenges, and this is a pretty challenging site from a grade perspective. showing multiple stormwater devices on the site, and then worked with staff to provide a good pedestrian connection further north for the potential of a future greenway connection further to north for that existing greenway connection there. Just zooming in a little bit on this plan, working with Winston-Salem DOT and engineering staff did ask for a right-of-way here. Again, not to be constructed further than what's shown here, but a future right-of-way for a potential stream crossing in the future if that were ever to be funded. So you'll see some language related to that, some of the conditions. Otherwise, the site plan does meet all UDO requirements and staff recommends approval. Be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

Any questions for staff? Is there a motion?

I move that the Planning Board approve PBR 202605.

Second. Motion by Mr. Fairby, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed? Announce. Announce.

All right, now moving on to item D3, that's PBR 2026-13. This is Woodland Crossing. It's a 60 lot PRD in an RS9 zoning district. It's 30.88 acres located on the north side of Romara Drive and west of Romara Court. You can see 40 right there. And this is the proposed site plan. Again, there's limited availability for connecting to existing streets. It's really bounded quite substantially by the creek here and the existing development pattern. However, the developer and the engineer both worked with staff to provide some appropriate stub locations. So if this ever develops out in the future, we can get some really needed interconnectivity here. They show active open spaces at prominent locations. and good internal street design and lot layout. The plan does meet all EDO requirements and staff recommends approval of this request.

Questions for staff? Is there a motion?

I move that the planning board approve PBR 2026-13.

Second. Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion?

I meant to mention on the last one, but it'd be nice to see the sidewalks a little bit farther from the street curb, if possible.

I will mention on this one, this one's city streets, so the city will pick up maintenance of these sidewalks, so I think it has to be in the right of way for them to pick up maintenance. But certainly duly noted.

Any other discussion? There's a motion and a second. All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed? Let's see now.

All right, now moving on to item D4, that's PBR 2026-14. This is Haines Lake Phase 4. It's a 43 lot PRD and RS9 zoning. It is in the county. It's a 71.81 acre site located at the northern terminus of Mount Salem Road and the western terminus of Cinnamon Hill Drive. This was actually an already approved phase of Haynes Lake. However, I'm going to show you in this site plan. This crossing right here was very prohibitive just from an environmental feature standpoint. There's some designated wetlands back here. It would have been a lot of engineering to get this crossing. So they have actually come back and are requesting to instead provide a pedestrian connection only. And then they're gonna, again, I'll show you in a cross section in a moment, that there will be a separate pylon bridge to get an aerial crossing for sewer here. So that's kind of the basis of the coming back for this new request. Again, the site is very disconnected from pretty much all the other parcels around it, especially in consideration of the lake. I'm going to kind of zoom out a little bit. This is the entire site plan. You can see all of Haines Lake here and then a remainder area back here. So there's actually quite a bit of preservation of open space and then the PRD would be right here. There's just not a really good, a lot of opportunities for additional interconnectivity. So that's why you're seeing this one long cul-de-sac street here. So there's really a firm basis here for not requiring interconnectivity. Going back to the site plan, they do show the required active open space. So it will stand on its own as its own PRD, again, but the assumption that they'll be able to connect into the rest of the Haines Lake development through that pedestrian bridge. And this is just a cross section of that pedestrian path and then that separate area crossing for the sewer there. The site plan does meet all UDO use specific requirements and staff recommends approval. Be happy to answer any questions you might have.

I'M NOT SEEING A REQUIREMENT LIKE THIS BEFORE. AT LEAST I DON'T REMEMBER IT. I know there's not a question there.

They volunteered this. And again, I think it has to do with the fact that it's all one project and they need to be able to get folks to their amenities as part of the package. And the fact that I think they have to provide the sewer in order to make these lots feasible anyway. So again, this wasn't a... We didn't require this. This was volunteered.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Just... The access is coming. It was hard to look at, to read. And I know you just described it, but, um, so that's the walk access.

Correct. That's an existing public. Well, I can't believe that this is plotted and constructed yet, but this is where the access will be off of a public street of that last phase of Haynes Lake. And then it will snake all the way through here to this development.

And then on that south end connects to...

It also connects to an existing public street. Public street. Yes, sir.

Mr. Fagerby, just to give you a little more context, I believe Mount Salem Drive eventually goes over to Olivet Church Road on the west, and the Salem View Road connects back through a series of other roads to Wessex Road, which gets you out to Spicewood on the east. So it does have access via several existing subdivisions that it's kind of being built adjacent to those major thoroughfares. You're worried they won't bring a barge in there

So are aerial crossings allowed? I thought that wasn't allowed for sewer.

It's not generally allowed, but this was something that was specifically allowed based on the engineering design that they submitted with some additional profiles to utilities. So I guess for lack of a better phrase here, the proof's in the pudding when they submit for their as belts and everything else and what they submit.

And that's just below the grade of the pedestrian bridge?

Correct, but it is, they did require it to be separated from the predestined bridge so it could be separately maintained. Any ongoing maintenance isn't going to impact the bridge and kind of make that a situation that the Utilities Commission would have to work out. Interesting walk.

Other questions for staff? Is there a motion?

I move that the planning board approve PBR 2026-14. Second.

Motion by Mr. Fairby, second by Mr. Patino. I'll just say, I mean, as we continue to struggle with trying to find places to put houses, kudos to the developer for taking some risk at trying to make something work. I think we need more of that. Any other discussion? All in favor, signify. Aye. Aye.

Mr. Chairman, we'll now go back to case B7 for a public hearing, and we'll hear from Rory Howard first.

All right, before we do that, Councilmember Joyner snuck in on me over there behind the wall, but thank you for being here. And I'll just also remind folks as they come up to speak during our public hearings, please make sure you give us your name, address, and zip code for the record. And with that, Mr. Howard, tell us what we need to know.

All right, good evening, everyone. Just give me a quick sec to get oriented here. All right, so this is case F1672. The petitioner is William Penn Crimm, attempting to rezone a 3.26 acre site located on the northwest side of Crimm Road, west of Blues Creek Road. The petitioner is requesting a special use limited rezoning from agricultural to a limited industrial limited use, specifically to add the uses of building contractors general, building contractors heavy, warehousing, and while still maintaining the already allowed use in the AG zoning district of agricultural production crops. So as you can see here, the property is located in the northeast portion of the county in the Belize Creek area, located in GMA5 rural area. Looking at the location map here, you'll see that the subject property is surrounded by single family homes, agricultural land, undeveloped land, overall with a low intensity rural character. I will also point out that Crim Road is a local street. If we look at the subject property right now, we can see that it is currently mostly graded with a currently unpermitted general contractor's use that is attempting to come into compliance through this rezoning. Looking at the area plan, we do not have parcel-specific recommendations for this area of the county, but the area is largely large lot residential and agricultural in nature. To go to the photos, here's a picture looking northwestern Crimroad towards the subject property. Looking north into the subject property from Crimm Road, you can see the existing building and the graded site that is located in front of the current business. Here's a picture looking south on the subject property across Crimm Road. Picture looking east along Crimm Road, subject property is to the left. And finally looking west along Crimm Road, the subject property is to the right. So in summary, the intensity of the request could result in significant visual, auditory, and other offsite impacts to nearby residents. Issues such as noise, trucks, large trucks, et cetera, that would be incompatible with the surrounding rural landscape. Moreover, the request is inconsistent with the recommendations of 42045 to protect neighborhoods from inappropriate non-residential encroachment. This proposed rezoning would bring a high intensity commercial use into a residential area along the local street. And finally, the proposal is inconsistent with the Northeast Rural Policy Area goal of locating commercial and industrial land uses in suitable locations as this proposed higher intensity commercial use is not centrally located in a beneficial place for the surrounding rural community. In saying, therefore, zoning recommends denial, and I'm happy to take any questions you may have at this time. Questions for staff, Mr. Lane.

The structure itself would be allowed in ag, right? It's just the use that we're talking about.

So Mr. Lamb, there is obviously the AG exemption in the statute. However, the structure would have to be used for farm related purposes. Yeah. So unfortunately, since the structure has not been properly permitted and they're doing a heavy contracting business, that's one of the issues. Right, thanks.

And the building is non-conforming, which you all mentioned in the report and you mentioned. So how did they get to this point to now seek rezoning? What are they changing?

Well, this was an enforcement action that came in through our zoning enforcement staff. And obviously when we dug a little deeper, we found out no permits had been issued on the property. So this is their avenue to, should this be approved to correct the violation.

Okay, thank you.

What non-residential, non-agricultural uses are allowed in ag? I mean, what's the next closest thing to this that would be allowed?

So I've got the permitted use table up here. I'll just read a few of them. So there's things like, well, these are agriculture, tourism, child daycare, church or religious institution, police or fire station, public recreational facility. Then there's uses allowed with a planning board. library, again, none of these are really practical, private school, then there's issues or uses allowed with a permit from the Board of Adjustment like a campground, a habilitation facility, nursing care institution, riding stable, shooting range, so there's not a lot of uses that could really make use of this structure. Special events center.

Yeah, that's a good one. All right, thank you. Any other questions for staff?

So a farmer that's farming out there but builds this structure and actually builds some houses on the side, they'd probably get away with that. Correct, if he's actually farming out there. Okay, all right.

Have there been any comments with applicant on like conditional uses? So I guess based on the uses you just went through, it doesn't really matter. But I was just wondering if there's been any conversation to try to make it a little more palatable.

My understanding, and I know the applicant or their representative will be speaking later, but my understanding is that they've been doing the contracting business out here for quite some time and hence the investment they made in this building. And I don't think they really have considered a lot of other alternatives.

I want to go back to my question for a minute about other uses, and obviously there aren't any that you rattled off, Mr. Erickson, that sound particularly practical. But let's say you were to put a shooting range, special events center, riding stable there. Are there buffer yard requirements in ag when they adjoin other uses?

A lot of those, Mr. Chair, do have use-specific standards, like the special event center. There's also unique parking requirements, at least until January 1st of 2027, for a lot of those uses. For things like the shooting range, you're going to have the backstops and the distance requirements if you're doing rifle shooting or a variety of other things. So the short answer is, without knowing with a little more specificity what some palatable options would be. It's hard to kind of give any further information.

Other questions for staff?

I guess I struggle with this a little bit in terms of if they were farming the field next to them and using the equipment for that, it would be okay. But is there no agricultural activity in the area related to this at all?

Rory, is there any activity related to this from an agricultural perspective? In other words, does the property owner?

We would probably, I mean, again, I don't want Rory to answer that because I don't think that we know. I mean, we can ask the petitioner that. I mean, you know, the thing about it is, again, I think through the enforcement part of this, you know, there were some questions asked and some answers given that kind of led us to where we are. And I don't think there's any question that they are operating a heavy, a building contractor heavy operation of whether or not they have some things that would qualify under the ag exemption for farming. I think that's a question for another day. But I mean, it's not lost on us. That, you know, you can do a lot of things in farming under an ag exemption, and a lot of it has the same type of impacts and those kind of things. But in this context, I don't think there's a question whether or not they are operating a heavy, general contractor heavy operation program. So, you know, again, but I think probably ask that question to the petitioner or the representative whenever they get up here and they might be able to fill in whether or not they do have any type of an ag focus on the remainder of their property.

Okay, thank you.

All right. Any other questions for staff before we hear from the petitioner? All right, we'll open the public hearing on this matter. Signed up to speak in support. I've got Blake Crimm. If you'd come up and give us your name, address, and zip code for the record. Proponents have a total of 12 minutes.

My name is Blake Crimm, 4805 Brinkley Road, Blues Creek, North Carolina. Zip code 27009. So I'm here on behalf of rezoning the 3.26 acres on Crim Road. I currently operate the construction building contractor business that is housed on that property right now. This business has operated on the property since 1994, give or take a little time there, by my father who got out of it through a short period during the recession of 08. Since then, I have taken over and decided I wanted to pursue in contracting. And I also am an advocate farmer, so I farm personally, I tend the land. I'm a row crop farmer, I farm roughly 125 acres of soybeans. I raise beef cattle, I've raised my own hay, a little bit of everything. I just cannot feed my family, support the habit. solely off the income of farming. That's whenever I pursued into the building side of things. Since then, our business is a small family operated. We employ 15 individuals. Out of the location we see daily, I've had three individuals, including my mother and I, and one more that would potentially be our daily commuters to this property if things was to move forward. Within all of this, I operate large trucks, dump trucks for the company. They are commercially tagged. So that is what has led to the light industrial request here. I also, out of that property, I house my farm equipment. I have combine inside the building right now. So the building has all intentions of being used for ag, but also sharing with the building side of it as well. The property will always be agriculture. The entire partial that is 55 plus acres will always be left in AG as long as I'm around because I will always farm. That's where my passion's at. That's why I do it. I mean, it's not sure, ain't for the money. I can promise you guys that. That's why we have proposed three acres instead of the entire 55 is because we wanna keep this as minimal as possible. In the process of submitting this request, I have reached out to numerous adjacent landowners who are in support of this movement. I have got a list here that I would be happy to share with you all if you would like. I printed off hard copies so that way you could have them in hand. But I did reach out and have a very good support side for this movement. I don't want to be... a nuisance to any of our neighbors. I'm not here to cause harm. I'm not here to cause any trouble. I don't want any conflict with adjacent neighbors. I just want to solely operate a small family, operate in business off of this farm that has been in the family for numerous generations, as well as continuing to operate the farm at the same time. I understand that this is a rural area and it's not a long-term industrial proposed area. However, there are numerous commercial businesses in the area that do operate. So we would not be the first commercial business in this territory. There are a few more that are within a half to one mile, some a little bit further. There's a local Dollar General up on the corner. We've put a lot of thought into the traffic that we put on this small rural road. By operating three daily individuals that would be housed into this building for the building commercial side of things, it would still maintain a low traffic count. We do have the heavy trucks that would be leaving daily. We operate roughly 7.30 to 5. We try to be mindful of our neighbors. We're not going to be coming in late at night operating backup alarms and those kind of things. There has not been a buffer zone proposed on the site plan as I have since put into consideration putting in a buffer zone for a landscape buffer or whatever could be reached in an agreement if this was to move forward. So we would be looking to put in a type four buffer zone if required or go above and beyond if that would if that would be required. Again, this is not a spot zone, so I don't want it to come up or be thought of that this is being requested if passed for future growth. There's kind of a growth period to where in the business I can sustain out of this small agriculture building. And I have no intentions of ever growing this to a large, heavy trafficked area. operation to where it is, you're talking double digits of vehicles, heavy traffic, heavy equipment, that kind of stuff. If it ever was to reach that point, we would obviously look at going to other areas to where it can handle a large-scale company. But with that being said, there's no intentions of that here. It is just a young individual who is operating a business but also operating a family farm and has all the long-term goals of keeping this operation going. With that being said, like I say, we're open to discussions, we're open to work with everyone around, with the board and however we can because the building can be brought to commercial code if required. It has solely been used as a storage shed for equipment and I've worked on heavy trucks and rain events and harsh weather. But everything around there can be brought up to commercial standard as required. With that being said, open to any questions that I can answer for you all.

I have a question. You mentioned your farming and soybeans. They're on this property, but the larger piece of land, is that what you were saying?

They are, and also next door on some adjacent neighbor's farm, adjacent landowner's property as well.

Okay.

And that would be on Crim Road. The other farm property is on Crim Road.

Okay.

How many had a beef cattle?

Well, I had nearly 100. And last October, my hay barn caught fire, burned up. I lost every bit of hay. I lost a machine in it and everything. So it was late October, and I sold every one of them. And that's what got me into the row crops this year. And it saved from purchasing hay all winter long.

That's a way to find the bright side, I guess, on that. So I guess I'm hearing you say that potentially you would be open to some kind of modification of whatever site plan you come up with to try to buffer some of the impact, at least in terms of how the site's laid out, how it may impact other adjacent properties. Yes, sir. What about... Can we impose use conditions or time limits?

I guess not, probably. You can. It's just one of those things, time limits and, you know, operational times and those kind of things become difficult to enforce because if they're, again, if an emergency comes up and, you know, there's a reason why they get called out at night, I mean, and, you know, again, we have to see it happen in order to enforce against it. Generally speaking, we don't work those hours. It's not impossible, but generally speaking, we try to avoid conditions of approval related to things that are difficult to enforce. Again, keep in mind, this is an L and not an S. If they wanted to create... you know, use conditions related to increased buffering, you know, those kind of things. If they wanted to propose a fence, I mean, you know, things that are tangible and that we can see and that we can measure, you know, things like that. But hours of operation, those kind of things become more difficult to do.

Not impossible, but... Is there anything in the rules that talks about percentage of time of a particular use? Like if it's 80% ag, and again, that would sort of be unenforceable, I guess, unless you set up...

Yeah, I mean, again, because what the percentage is today may not be what the percentage is next week or next month. I mean, it may be different in the winter than it is in the summer. I mean, obviously, construction is seasonal. It's just that would be one of those things that would be difficult to do.

A lot of times, there's language about primary use. So if you... I'm just trying to figure out... What's primary, right? Primary use versus...

You know, again, but in this context, I mean, you have provisions in the ordinance related to... Obviously, you have ag and ag exemption, those kind of things. You have some ability to do some... And again, I don't know whether his house is on this property, Jason's property, et cetera. There are some things in there related to home occupation, but there are limits on the number of vehicles, the amount of outdoor storage, things that the site, as it's currently developed, wouldn't be able to meet. So, you know, there's not really any way. I mean, I appreciate the fall. I don't think there's a way to thread the needle that way either.

Any other questions for Mr. Crown? How much time is left? Five minutes remaining. Five minutes remaining. Is anyone else here to speak in support of this item? All right. Thank you, Mr. Crenham. Thank you. If there's not, then we'll shift to the opposition, who will also have 12 minutes to divide up however you'd like. I'll sign up first. I've got Chris Crump. If you'd come up and give us your name, address, and zip code for the record, please.

Chris Crump, 8096 Blues Creek Road, 27009. I live in adjacent to this property. Been watching growth since 2024, trees being cut down. I've run an agritourism farm on 48 acres called Dogwood Farms. I've been woken up at five after five, trucks running, backup alarms, beeping. And I would love if I had more than 12 minutes, I would love to show you all the videos that I have from walking through my bedroom to the front door, video and track hose slamming in the back of a dump truck. It's ridiculous. I don't know what world he's living in, but it's not reality. There's three names on the list that he's turned in that has requested to be taken off because they aren't for this. One wanted to be neutral, two said they weren't for it. Rory should have those emails from today. I just saw the list two hours ago. I'm not for it. I appreciate the board. doing the plan of the 20, 42, 45, whatever. When I bought my farm in 2003, this wasn't going on. I cleared out all that land myself. This land wasn't handed down to me. I'm still paying farm credit for it every month. That's why I'm doing the agritourism. I'd like to hand that down to my son, and that's a blessing. I can't believe the shine that was just put on up here saying that there's no impacts on the surrounding people. A lot of the people that live around this property are over 80 years old. Hard of hearing. And they don't hear a lot of these things, but they see it. There's a lady here with us today. I'd like for all the people opposing it to raise their hand that come with me today. It's a problem. This was done out of intention of, let's say we're farming. They do grow some crops and I'll give them that. But this four bay shop has had trucks in it since the doors were put on it. There's operations going on at 10 o'clock at night, just like Tuesday night, trucks coming in. They also operate a paving company. As you well know, paving usually is done at night when there's no traffic, no cars parked in parking lots. This property was not like this when everybody behind me come to Blues Creek. That is the biggest thing. And now if it gets rezoned, it's just a foot in the door. This will move on to other areas. And I'm just wondering why this got built here and they don't live close to it. They're within four miles of this place. One reason they don't want to hear this mess or don't want to see it I asked you to look at the papers, the aerial photos, and the first page was from Mr. Crim's Facebook page, and that will tell you everything that was intended for this place, not farming. And I'd like to just hand over the rest of my time to the other people that came with me. Thank you for your consideration.

Thank you, Mr. Crump. How much time is left? Eight minutes. Eight minutes. Next up, I've got Jesse Ryerson. Come up and give us your name, address, and zip code for the record, please.

Jesse Ryerson, 6956 Blues Creek Grove, Blues Creek, North Carolina, 27009. I've been living out there 29 years. I've seen it get developed more and more. You know, I work construction, so seeing houses being built kind of cut my own throat. No, we don't want another subdivision out here, but the trucks have got so bad. My house was built in 1948. I live closer to the road. They're coming by. I'm sitting in my living room. The whole house is vibrating. We've got the power plant stuff. We can't do anything about that. They got to get their coal. They got to get their ash out of there. But I have a lease on the hunting area near Mr. Crim's. And it's late at night. It's early in the morning. Unbelievable. For save that, three people were coming in and out of there. I rode by there today on the way up there. There's massive amounts of equipment back there. Tractor trailers, big TD bulldozers. I mean, it's definitely not something you want to live near. I'd like to live on Brinkley Road, so I wouldn't have to hear it. But I have to live where I got. I'm stuck there, so... You know, I'm definitely against it. The traffic's unbelievable. It's been 17 wrecks on my road in the last year. It's a 45 mile an hour zone. Everybody runs 60. Lots of curves in it. These big trucks, it's just, it's unbelievable. So I love it to be agriculture out there, just like it was when I moved, because the place is beautiful. Mr. Crump's place is unbelievable. His flower farm is just beautiful. And he's got that mess beside him. I mean, it's... I'd like to see it go away. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Arson. How much time's left? Six minutes. Next up, we've got Annette Edwards.

Hi, I'm Annette Edwards, 8095 Blues Creek Road, 27009. This is my mother, Linda Moore. I'm sorry. Sorry. Hi, I'm Annette Edwards, 8095 Blues Creek Road, 27009. This is my mother, Linda Moore. She lives at the same address. I grew up in this neighborhood, the land that Mr. Crump has. I used to run that as a child through the woods, playing. Saw my first wild red fox on that property. Went all through that property. I've watched it grow over the years. I've watched a farm be built from Mr. Crump. It's beautiful. I look out my kitchen window. There's a beautiful farm. I look to the right. Now I see a warehouse. The trucks are coming in and out. They're loud. They're noisy. They're disruptive. I work at a hospital. I get home at 11, 12, midnight. One night, there was a dump truck sitting at the main road with lights on to 2, 3 o'clock in the morning, just sitting there. My mom and I live together. We have no men in our house. She's 80 years old. It scared me. She's in her 80s. It scared me. Should I call the police? Why is this dump truck sitting out there that late at night with lights on? We don't want it in the neighborhood. We want it country. We want it agriculture, rural. We don't want it industrialized. We just want a peaceful, calm area to live in. We don't want all the noise. Do you have anything to say?

Well, I'm just used to a quiet neighborhood, and I just have a fear that this business might increase through the years and possibly cause us to lose value in our house. But I, you know, I just rather have a peaceful, quiet neighborhood.

Thank you very much to both of you. How much time's left? Four and a half minutes. All right, I've got Chelsea Tarr.

Hi, my name's Chelsea Tarr. I live at 8340 Cruiseway, 27009. I had a lot to talk to you about and... about the use case and how, but all of that has been covered. This is not what's appropriate for the area. It's not what's appropriate for my family, the other families here. We have young drivers learning how to drive on this road, turning in and out, and it's dangerous, and it's unappealing, and why would we trust someone to, make nice with the rules that are in place when they have not made any effort to do this since, I don't know, 94, 2024? Not sure, but I've only been at my property since 2019, planning on being there a very long time. If he thinks this is such a great thing for the neighborhood, why isn't he doing it on Brinkley Road where he lives, miles away? The wildlife, our children don't deserve this, our property values that just skyrocketed, apparently, according to our tax values don't deserve this. Thank you.

Thank you. How much time's left? Three minutes. Three minutes. Is there anyone else here that would like to speak in opposition to this proposal? Come on up, give us your name, address, and zip code, please.

My name is Sarah Kerr. I live at 7985 Pear Tree Lane, 27009. My family and I, who are all here today, have lived at our house for the past seven years. We moved into our house in 2019. And we love our corner of the world. We love it. We see deer. We see... turkeys, we just love being there. And we've had a wonderful time so far. Our neighbors have been very kind to us and we're just thrilled to be there. So I was reading over the notes that I think have been submitted to you all. And of course, we're concerned about the rules not being followed with this particular request. And so that concerns us because we understand the ramifications of that, where it could go. And as Chelsea said, why would we expect him to make right when these things have been ignored thus far? So we would just appreciate your consideration and we hope you will deny this request. Thank you.

Those deer and turkey, if you'll send them Mr. Ryerson's way, I think he'd probably appreciate it. Anyone else like to speak in opposition? All right. If there's no one else, then we're gonna declare the public hearing closed. Any discussion?

So why did it take so long for this to come up in the zoning violation?

Well, I can't speak to, and again, I don't know the whole history and the whole context of how all this has evolved over time. I mean, I think there has been a company, a hauling and grading company that's been operating, whether it's been operating from this location the entire time, whether it's been here, whether it's been on Brinkley Road. Could have always been here. I don't know if you... And I don't know whether we have the PowerPoint pulled up. You can go back and look. The area between Crim Road and the building used to be all woods, and you couldn't see anything. So whenever the building was built, it was cleared, and it became visible. And again, I don't know whether the visibility... drew the ire or whether it's the increased activity, if there is increased activity now as compared to pre-recession. Essentially, It was only known to us when we got the complaint. I'm not sure what led, why it took so long for the complaint to get here, but the aerial in its current state right there, if you went back to the 2020 aerial, there was no clear, there were trees along Crim Road on the subject property, probably at least about a third of the way into it. So you couldn't see anything. The building wasn't there.

Operations evolved, clearly. Okay.

So there was a question earlier you all were talking about. So if this is agricultural and a farm, as they have claimed to have done, what causes the inconsistency with them also doing other activities on the property? Is it that, I know the question that was brought up was like, is there a percentage of, or a primary use or something? If what I'm saying makes any sense, what I'm trying to get to.

I think where I know where you're going, but again, the distinction here is that the use that's operating there is building contractor heavy. and a building contractor heavy use is not allowed in AG zoning. If the building were built under an AG exemption and you had heavy machinery and you had dust and you had noise and you had vibrations, you had everything else that are commonly associated with agricultural type uses, We wouldn't be here because it would be an ag-exempt use. I mean, you know, this building, if it were for agricultural purposes solely, could be built without a building permit. The only thing they would have to get would be an electrical permit because Duke Power won't set a meter without it. But the ag exemption gives a lot of privileges that... purposely set forward in the statutes to allow that without nuisance complaints and those kind of things. But that's, while there is an agricultural component there, the distinction here is this is a building contractor heavy use admitted I mean, there's never been any attempt to hide that. They have always said that's, you know, that they've said since day one, that's what they're doing here. That's a distinction. If they were to remove, let's say that, you know, again, either tonight they decided to remove it or, you know, again, if the planning board recommends denial and the county commissioners ultimately deny it and they move their operations from this location. Theoretically, the building can remain, the gravel can remain, et cetera, as long as they meet the ag exemption and they're only using the building for agricultural purposes. It's the use of the general contractor heavy that violates the ordinance and is what is inconsistent with the recommendation in the plan.

Okay, that's what I was looking for.

Other thoughts, comments? I think a heavy buffer should the board decide to move forward with something like this would certainly be a requirement to at a minimum visually improve how things look out there.

Just to clarify what the UDO would require, again, this is, what they put forward is a limited use request without a site plan. If the commissioners were to approve the limited industrial zoning out there and they, to make this right, essentially. The UDO would require a type three buffer yard between them and all the other ag property, which again, that's, I know one of the speakers mentioned a type four buffer yard. We no longer have that in the UDO since, at least the last five or six years, but type three is essentially the new type four. So that would be required. Again, the way the ordinance is written, it allows you to choose from different widths, depending obviously if you choose the 20 foot, which is the minimum width, you're gonna have your plantings closer together. If you choose, I can't remember if 40 or 100 is our maximum for a type three, you can space the plantings more.

And just to call attention, there is a condition of approval in the packet in case you were to recommend approval and in case the commissioners were to approve it. That also requires a Type 3 buffer along Crim Road. Keep in mind, a public right-of-way in and of itself does not require... a buffer and the there is no parking within 100 feet of crim road so it wouldn't require a street yard so we already have we have a condition of approval for a type 3 buffer yard along crim as kirk was alluding to when if this were to get approved and they came in to get permits the buffer yards along the north west and southern lines would be covered at permitting

So forgive my ignorance, but with these types of ag exemptions that are being referenced with the sort of heavy equipment, the dust, the vibrations, are they or would they typically be in a lot like this on this type of road? Like where do those exemptions with that level of agricultural activity typically occur? I mean, from a statute. Is it scale? Is it size?

Well, it's clearly, the statute actually has a lot of language that we use in interpreting if something meets the farm exemption. And you know anything that's a bona fide farm can take advantage of that exemption so you can have a small operation as long as you meet there's there's four specific criteria and the statute of things you can do and it's it's something that we kind of look at people's tax returns is probably the easiest way to determine if someone is a bona fide farm that they're receiving taxable farm income but you could have, you know, a fairly small property and you could have this closer to the street than it currently is on a bona fide farm. And that would be perfectly legal. But again, the statute that Chris was referencing, it has some very specific criteria that we're evaluating with and general contracting is not one of those kind of value-add businesses that uses different machinery than combines and harvesters and some of the other things that you would store it in a building like this if it was genuine agriculture.

To go a different tack from Kirk's answer, that's certainly correct. But I mean, honestly, the area between Walkertown and the corner of Northeast Forsyth County on both sides of reasonable road is you can't throw a rock and not hit a, and not basically not hit a farm. I mean, there are a lot of farms that qualify for ag exemption. I mean, I would say, you know, several hundred up in this area and, you know, thousands of acres of farmland up in this area that has farm use farm exemption, uh, farm equipment that are used on a daily basis in this area.

And that's my challenge, is that the, you know, ag is an industrial, it doesn't have to be, but ag can certainly be a very heavy industrial type of, you know, operation, and it's allowed. There are, you know, we're, that's the problem that I have with it.

But the intent is to be industrial relative to...

Farming. Yes, farming should be the principal activity, and that is the difference.

It's a sticky, I mean, again, I'm not going to sit here and pretend. You know, it's a difficult problem to solve. I mean, again, there are many sides. Right. I don't want to say to the coin, to the dice. I mean, you know, there are, you know, if this were solely agricultural and it was causing the same impacts, there's not anything. We wouldn't be here because it would be, it would fall under the ag exemption. We're here because, again, you know, the folks were honest and said, you know, we're operating this. You know, we were, and again, you know, it's... And this is the solution is to ask for the rezoning. If the rezoning ultimately is denied, the solution will be they'll have to utilize this for purposes either allowed in the district or as an ag exemption and do the general contractor heavy use somewhere else.

I'm going to get on my soapbox for a minute. I mean, I'm from this part of Forsyth County. And as kind of has been alluded to, the real conundrum for me here is you've got farm use and a similar intensity to farm use with a lot of the same things that look and sound and make the same mess that farm uses do and we're concerned about housing in this county and we heard how AI and data centers are a national security issue, but I'm gonna tell you, agriculture is a national security issue in this country. I saw something on the news the other day, something like 80% of beef cattle operations have been lost in the last 90 years in the United States. And we keep having to try to find places to house people. You still gotta feed people too, and you can't do that without farmers. And I hear one farmer saying this is messing up my farming by this other guy that's saying I want to keep farming, but I got to pay the bills. And that's a common refrain in the agricultural community. I can remember growing up hearing people, you know, for a tobacco farmer in Forsyth County to have to go to what they used to call public work, meaning he had to go work for somebody else. because he couldn't afford to feed his family farm and that was that was like one of the most embarrassing things you could you think of years ago not so much now um but that's what i'm struggling with here somebody that wants to keep farming can't pay the bills somebody else is saying he's messing up my farming operation and a bunch of people saying we want to live where there are farms which good for them i wish more people felt that way um So this is a tough one for me. I looked in the UDO this afternoon to try to find the part about being a good neighbor. And that section is not in there. Reading between the lines, I think there's some issues with, and I don't know where the blame falls, probably on both sides of the property line, but there's probably some issues with folks being good neighbors. We can't solve that as a planning board. I am concerned about this idea that if you do this here, pardon the pun, the cow's out of the barn, and next time, well, we did it last time, and we just have so little agricultural land left in Forsyth County, and we need to try to preserve it, and that's probably, for me, gonna be the thing that tips the scales one way or the other.

But the problem, I understand, I grew up on a farm, But I understand, but we don't have a lot of good alternatives, I think, to work with this. Because once it's rezoned, then farmer or not, anybody can come in and do that on that property. And it can be totally separate from farming. Since there's no, I don't know how you make that connection permanent. And that's my sticking point with it. We face that with all other kinds of rezoning. So once we do it, it's for anybody that owns it and has this right with it.

I agree. I think it's the setting of the precedent. And although there were well intentions made and sort of promises made tonight from Mr. Krim, you can't rely on that long term once that door has been opened. So that's my concern as well.

From a procedural perspective, I think I have understood the staff explaining that With this request being an L request, that there's a significant difference in that and a special use request. I'm not so sure we're asking for the right tool to paint this pig pink with. And I will admit to not knowing. If there's another way to address the issue other than L zoning, I hope we could take the time to discover that and see if it works. If not, I cannot support the request as proposed.

And I don't want to speak for the petitioner. I mean, Rory might be able to speak or Brian or Mark. I know that one of the things that we did talk about, and again, it was the difference between L and S. I believe the determinant with the petitioner, the petitioner wanted to know if we would, I mean, again, I think this was the context. The petitioner wanted to know if we would recommend approval with an S. And it still, from a land use perspective, would not sway us, and I don't think that they wanted to pay Obviously an L is your application fee, an S is survey, site plan, etc. So again, it's an expensive endeavor without any assurances of approval. And again, obviously it's within the board's right to do what the board would like to do. But what I would hate to do is send someone away to bring back a site plan. and have that expenditure and end up with the same recommendation that you would have gotten with an L. So, I mean, again, unless there would be some type of an assurance that the planning board would, you know, again, I'm not trying to put words into your mouth and I'm not trying to paint you into a corner, but just knowing from, you know, from how costly a site plan is, it's not going to impact staff's recommendation. If it's not going to impact ultimately the planning board's recommendation, it would probably be better to send it forward with an up or down vote based on the petition as submitted. But obviously, that's also a question for the applicant and not just me. But I wanted to provide a little bit of that context.

I think the biggest advantage of the petitioner would be, if done correctly, the hope that some of the opposition that we've heard today might be assuaged by a good site plan that had some protections for the things that rightly concern them. But if you don't have that, if your neighbors are saying, look, we don't care. You can bring us the most perfect site plan. You can put it all underground, and we're still not going to like it. Then you're right. You're just wasting your time and your money.

I would add, I was surprised at the amount of commercial around this area. It doesn't, you don't have to look too far to see a, I'm just going to rattle it off, post office, boat storage, automotive, Dollar General, of course, Dogwood Farms. I'm not sure how traffic that is throughout the year, but certainly in growing seasons, Pet Barn, Fire Department. I mean, it is along a fairly commercial, fairly not intense, but Blues Creek is a pretty big road, not to mention the power station, the Duke Energy Station just north of it. And I don't think we can change the market as much as we may want more ag. We can try to make what's presented better, though, as a different way of looking at it.

Any other thoughts, comments, questions? Is there a motion?

I move that the planning board find that the request is inconsistent with the comprehensive plan.

Second. Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, sign by. Aye. Any opposed? So on consistency, that's unanimous.

I move that the planning board recommend denial of F1672. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any further discussion? All in favor, sign of aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, so that's 7-2. Yep, 7-2. Correct. That's what I had. So this will go on to the county commissioners for their consideration at one of their future meetings. If you... are concerned about making sure you know when that is. You can check with planning staff or got a notice for this. I think you'll get a notice for the commissioners meeting as well.

Yeah, you should get a notice from the Board of County Commissioners because you spoke and because you probably already got a notification as a property owner within 500 feet.

Thank you all for taking the time to be here.

If you have any questions, reach out to our staff. Reach out to Rory. He can tell you what the date will be. It will be sometime in September, I imagine.

All right. Thank you all again. We're going to take just a brief moment and let anybody that would like to step out go ahead and do that before we move to our next item.

There's always something interesting in the county.

He should have just not admitted it.

He's got 125 acres of soybeans. I mean, he wasn't there. Okay, so we'll get back on our agenda now. We'll hear from Tiffany White who will present UDOCC 37.

Good evening, everyone.

I am here to present UDO CC 37, which is a petition from Planning and Development Services staff to modify chapter five of the UDO to remove buffer yard requirements for planned residential developments with perimeter lots that do not meet the minimum dimensional requirements of the underlying zoning districts. So some background, last December, City Council's Community Development Housing and General Government Committee asked the planning staff to investigate removing or reducing perimeter buffer yard and thoroughfare open space requirements for PRDs. So our staff looked at what exists and some options. Currently a 20 foot type one buffer yard is required around the entire perimeter of any PRD where perimeter lots do not meet the minimum dimensional requirements of the underlying zoning district in which the PRD is located. One caveat to that is that PRDs that abut other PRDs are exempt from that. In addition, the thoroughfare open space requirements are a 50 or 100 foot type three buffer yard within GMAs three, four, and five, where PRDs abut major or minor thoroughfares. So that's what's currently in the UDO. UDO regulations concerning PRD perimeter buffer yards have kind of varied over time. The requirement for them dates back to when the UDO came to be in 1994. It was briefly removed in 2005 and then reinstated in 2008, and there were some additional requirements that were made in 2020. As for the thoroughfare open space, the requirements for that were introduced in 2008 and have remained unchanged since that time. Some analysis, most of the PRDs that we have seen have been developed as single family residential subdivisions and are considered low intensity land uses. Conventional residential subdivisions as opposed to PRDs are not required to provide buffer yards even in situations where adjacent lot sizes are very different. For example, if there was an RS9 development right next to an RS40 development, those conventional subdivisions would not have a requirement for a buffer yard. PRDs are often developed adjacent to other residentially zoned lots, similar to conventional subdivisions. And it should be noted that PRDs with multifamily units in RM districts are required to have those buffer yards when adjacent to other zoning districts in another UDO section. So that is not being changed in this proposed text amendment. Those would remain in place. Staff believes that removing the PRD buffer requirements will lead to some more efficient development patterns while not being detrimental to those surrounding areas. This amendment does not prohibit the installation of buffer yards. If a developer would wanna do that, it merely removes the requirement in the UDO. Staff believes that the thoroughfare open space, however, those requirements for PRDs in GMAs three through five should be retained as they foster attractive streetscapes and reduce the impacts of the high traffic roads on those adjacent lots. This amendment would also support the goal of Forward 2045 to reduce barriers to housing and increase housing supply. And with that, staff recommends approval. Any questions?

for staff I do just want to add just one emphasis from what Tiffany from the presentation if you have one lot in the PRD that doesn't meet the minimum requirement of The minimum lot size for the district that you're going in, you have to provide the buffer yard for the entire project. It's not just along the line where that lot doesn't meet it. You have to provide the whole thing. And again, I'm saying that in a little bit tongue-in-cheek. It's rare you're going to see a PRD that's only going to have one lot that is less than that size. But again, that's the... That's the penalty for having anything less than is you have to do this. And from a public policy standpoint, you know, we had this debate 20 years ago when we took it out. Why from a public policy standpoint are we buffering? like uses from like uses based on a based on a lot size so again from a public policy standpoint we feel like this is you know it makes perfect sense there are other safeguards in place if there are prd uses in the prd that are not single family but in this context when you're doing generally speaking the prds that you saw today All of them had lot sizes smaller than the underlying zoning district and thus at this point had to provide a buffer yard. They'll be able to change that probably before they get built if this gets adopted. But again, just a little additional context. All right.

No one signed up to speak in opposition to this recommendation. Was anyone here opposed to this item? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed. What's the pleasure of the board?

Move that the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussions?

I just want to reiterate how important this is for development. And I think it's also important to note that it may encourage folks to do PRDs more often, which kicks in the open space requirements, which I'm 100% for. particularly when they're done in a good manner. So this one is very smart, big, whatever you want to say. It's a pretty great step for us to take.

And to expand, to go from that, I agree, it's a really good step to take. I was also somewhat impressed with the letter from the Winston-Salem Regional Association of Realtors government affairs director and their collective suggestions of additional things that might be tweaked in the future and just hope that that they can remain on on someone's plate to look at and bring further improvements in if possible

Yeah, keep in mind, being an outside request, there are certainly lots of other things that our staff are working on to move the needle as far as housing affordability and additional units and those kind of things. But we did not want to commingle the two because we feel like this is an easier lift than... allowing attached product in PRDs and some of the other things that we're going to be bringing forward and we didn't want this to perhaps get voted down whenever it could stand on its own. So we're certainly gonna be bringing those other things.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate the spoiler alert. But one thing also to add is this is not also just for developers, but it significantly reduces the cost on the burden of HOA. So I don't want that to get lost that this is all for developers.

Good, good all around. All right, any further discussion? There's a motion and second on the table. All in favor, sign of aye.

Aye.

Any opposed? That's unanimous.

I move that the planning board recommend approval of UDO CC 37. Second.

Motion by Mr. Farabee, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, signify.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Mr. Chairman of the board, we'll now hear from Matthew Bertick, who will do the public hearing presentation by staff on the Northeast Suburban Area Plan.

Thank you, Chris, and good evening, board members. The item before you is consideration of that Northeast Suburban Area Plan. So I wanna take some time this evening just to discuss the area plan, the process we've gone through in developing the plan, and share with you the final product as well. So we started on this plan back at the end of 2025, and... have gone through this process, really this latest round of area plans and the Northeast Suburban Area Plan is the first iteration in this latest round. The latest round is in support of the Forward 2045 Comprehensive Plan. So what we're trying to do is implement that vision that was developed through the Forward 2045 Plan. And we'll go through the entire series of 18 area plans through this process, but this was the first, the Northeast Suburban Area Plan was the first. And the primary deliverable of these air plans in this new round is a set of parcel specific recommendations. So when all is said and done, we'll have parcel specific recommendations for all about 160,000 parcels within Forsyth County. And one thing we emphasized with the public as we were going through this process was that You know, the recommendations that we're making are not mandates, these are recommendations that the board can use, that the elected bodies can use when making land use decisions. So that was something we definitely wanted to highlight with folks who were involved in the process. And then I have a note there just about this being a unique process and product. There aren't really any other communities that do area planning at this type of parcel-specific level. So we're pleased to give the public that opportunity to get involved with this process early on so that they can have a say in how the community develops. So I mentioned those 18 area plans for Forsyth County. They're highlighted here with the Northeast Suburban Area Plan circled there. So moving specifically into the northeast suburban area, it includes parts of Winston-Salem and unincorporated Forsyth County. It's a wide variety of development types. You can see the southern end of this area plan of the zone almost reaches Smith & Reynolds Airport and extends all the way to the Stokes County line. About 16,000 residents live here, about 21,000 acres. and about 8,000 parcels, each of which again will receive a land use recommendation. So I mentioned that the wide variety of uses and development types in the area. This is the growth management area plan overlaid over the area plan district. You can see GMAs two, three, four, and five are all covered within this, within the northeast suburban area. So a lot of different interests, a lot of different needs, a lot of different development types and all of those things to consider as we were making these land use recommendations. This map shows the sewer service area for the planning area. Those parcels in that tan color represent areas with existing public sewer service. The areas in white represent those without that service. And then you can see that orange line running through there east to west, that's the Northern Beltway. And this is really the crux of the whole issue of this plan area is the presence of the beltway and the presence or absence of those sewer utilities. So again, we have the growth pressure from the beltway, and then we have the constraints created by the lack of public sewer service in a large part of this area. And that's gonna be present in all of the land use recommendations we have for this area. Definitely a major consideration. And really the reason why this northeast suburban area was selected first to be considered through this new round of area plans. So the process we went through, we had four public input meetings. Each of those meetings was accompanied by an online survey as well. So we tried to get to people, reach them where they were, what was convenient for them. We started the public meetings back in February, finished them up in June, and have been working on developing the actual plan documents since then. In support of those meetings, we had to have a lot of advertising, again, trying to reach people in a number of different ways, everything from social media and digital ad campaigns, to podcasts, to radio and TV appearances, print media, phone calls to individuals, posting of flyers at local businesses, and whatever we could think of, we were out there trying to promote these meetings. As a result of that outreach, we had about 100 people participate either in person or through those online surveys that I had mentioned. So you can see the participation numbers for each of those meetings. Pretty good participation throughout the process. I mentioned that the primary deliverable of these new area plans is really focused on the land use recommendations. So very much consistent with the existing area plans, the currently adopted plans. That's a product, the land use recommendations map is a product that is used frequently by our staff, by planning board members, by elected officials. And that's really the focus of these new area plans. So you'll see plenty of maps like these. While generally those land use recommendation maps are consistent with maps that we have done with the current round of area plans, there were a few additions, some new features we have added to these area plans this time around. One of those features is something we called mixed use areas. So these are sites with multiple parcels that would benefit from some kind of comprehensive design and planning. Using this number seven here as an example, this is mixed use area number seven. You can see there's a number of individual parcels that make up this mixed use area, each of those having its own land use recommendation. So if an owner of one of those parcels wanted to develop it or change the use of it, we would have an individual parcel land use recommendation for that parcel and could make a decision on that. However, if somebody were to acquire all of these parcels and wanted to develop this area comprehensively, there's a recognition that that could be beneficial to this area and it provides a little bit of flexibility to rearrange and expand the uses that are recommended for these parcels. So just going through quick, briefly through these areas, the mixed use areas we have identified, I mentioned there were seven of those. Three of them are kind of clustered around the Germantown Road Beltway interchange. So again, there's some larger groups of parcels there that could be developed in a number of different ways. One of them is near the intersection of University Parkway and Haynes Mill Road. Another is near the Box Mountain Northern Beltway Interchange. And then there are two kind of centrally located in the plan area along Old Royal Hall Road. So the other new feature associated with the area plans is something we're calling alternative development option areas. So again, it's a group of parcels, each with their own base parcel recommendation. But there's some recognition that that base parcel recommendation may not be the only suitable use for that site. And you probably think, well, there's multiple, many parcels in the area that could have multiple uses like that. What's special about these is there's something about the location, the size, the current use, something that makes these stand out as justifying potential alternative use. So what we're trying to do with these is just provide flexibility to best meet the needs of the community.

I have a question for you just as it relates to this one. The parcel just to the north is labeled yellow. If someone were to purchase the old Haynes property, how easy is it or hard to include an adjacent parcel?

to add it to this alternative development option area. I don't know if it would be necessary to do that. I think that parcel, there are probably specific conditions for that parcel to the north. I think if it makes sense, there's an opportunity there. But I think what we have done, these parcels that we've identified in this ADO are specific to the Hanes brand parcel. So that's why we identified it. To me, there's potential for adding something to it, but as it stands now, these are the parcels we thought were appropriate for that location.

Yeah, just to answer that, Again, these parcels are what are already currently part of the campus, and you have a base recommendation, which I think that is for office. Is that what the pink is? Yeah, that's correct, yeah. But under the alternative development options, it may say, you know, you can bring this in as a comprehensive, you know, mixed-use project with multifamily and commercial, et cetera, et cetera. Well, again, if... you have this piece that you're talking about to the Northwest. Well, I mean, again, part of a mixed use project, you could have single families so they could easily incorporate that into there as a single family. Or again, if they wanted to add that and have it as a more intense use project, you know, 85% of it would be compliant. We would just have to judge that 15%. So again, it's just like any area plan. And it's one of the criticisms that, you know, we've heard over the course of time is, you know, that, you know, you're setting this in stone and you're not flexible. I mean, we always, if folks can ask whatever they want, we have to analyze it based on the plan of record that we have, you know, if it's adopted, but, you know, certainly, if someone were to bring all this in as a mixed use project and wanted to bring that northeast, sorry, northwest piece in as part of it, they certainly could.

So continuing, you know, just to give you an overview of these ADO areas, again, coincidentally, there were seven of them. ADO number one, way on the western edge of the Northeast Suburban Area, west of University Parkway. We've talked about the Haynes Brands headquarters. Maple Chase Golf Course was another ADO identified. Number four is the Box Mountain Road, Northern Beltway Interchange location. Five and six, two locations off of Oak Summit Road. And then number seven was a set of parcels within the Ogburn Station Activity Center. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions you might have about the process or the end product for the Northeast Suburban Area.

Just a question, like say the Maple Chase special parcel. Now, this is the new iteration of area plans. Will it be common practice to identify, say, golf courses or large parcels with recommendations in future area plans, or was there a specific reason for, say, including Maple Chase?

Maple Chase wasn't singled out as different than we would for similar uses. This is something that just kind of seeing what we've had in the community in the 20, 25 years that some of us have been here, you see that we've lost three or four. I think Chris's count is four golf courses that have turned into residential subdivisions. So again, and I know we've done that in some of the later area plans in the last round, but just trying to be more consistent in that.

For those of you that don't know some of my background, I'm very economic development oriented. And with that full disclosure, 21,000 acres, generally speaking, in this area, of which a couple of years ago the county and its consultants identified possible future economic development areas. of which there is a cluster of parcels comprising about 640 acres in this northeast area um and we all know that it's going to be very expensive to make it viable because there's no sewer we all know money solves that I would like some input on the possibility of mentioning this significant economic development opportunity subject to the provision of utilities so we continue to plant and grow those seeds rather than not bringing it up at all in this plan. 640 acres is a lot of acres, but it's less than 3 tenths of 1% of the total area. But it can have a much greater impact, from my opinion.

What I can say is one of the things that we included into the plan was a statement, a simple statement, but if the sewer services were to come to any of these areas where they currently don't exist, that we would reconsider parcel-specific land use recommendations at that point. And I appreciate that.

I just know the people that come after us, that are going to be trying to get the money for those sewerage extensions need all the support they can get rather than saying, if something changes, we might be there for you. I would like something more specific. But if it's not within the intent of your area plans, then that's that too. But if it wouldn't hurt anything, I would recommend it. I would request it.

I commend the planning department for this effort. So thank you so much. And I appreciate the alternative suggestions as a means to create more flexibility to meet the evolving needs of the community. So thank you.

Yeah, the ADO concept is fantastic. I'm looking forward to seeing that actually bear fruit in the future. Any other discussion?

JUST KUDOS FOR UTILIZING DIFFERENT TOOLS TO REACH THE COMMUNITY. I MEAN, THE PODCAST, THE SOCIAL MEDIA, IT'S JUST THINKING IN A MORE CURRENT WAY. BECAUSE WE NEED THE INPUT, BUT WE DON'T GET IT THE SAME WAY AS WE DID THE LAST ITERATION OF AREA PLANS. CONGRATS.

Walter wants to be on a podcast, is what I'm talking about.

Yeah, I'll jump in. Volunteering. I'll jump in the chair for you.

Origami with Walter. All right, any other discussion? Is there a motion?

Don't we need a public meeting?

Technically, we usually have public hearings.

Oh, yeah, sorry.

All right, is anybody here who would like to speak in support or opposition to this proposal? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed now.

Is there a motion? I move that the Planning Board recommend approval of the Northeast Suburban Area Plan. I second.

By Mr. Farabee, seconded by Mr. Patino. Any further discussion?

Would anyone consider the inclusion of my request?

I probably need to make a specific.

Well, I mean, again, I will defer, I would defer, you know, I think there is enough built-in flexibility in the plan to allow that. Again, one of the things is the horizon year on this. I mean, we got $20 million, we being Forsyth County, to do the Wahlberg Road lift station and we're three and a half years into it and we're about at 30% of the design build. So before that gets, you know, we're probably two and a half to three more years before that gets built. I have a feeling we might be on the next round of area plans before, if Forsyth County were to secure that money, What we don't want to do is to go up and put a lift station just over the ridgeline. So, again, it's going to be a fairly expensive project. I don't necessarily know that it's going to come to fruition within the horizon year of where this plan is. What I would say is, I mean, again, let's just say, you know, the fairy godmother or father bestowed $100 million, and that's what it would take to get it done. There's enough flexibility in the plan already. that if sewer were available, we could accommodate that. I think that our reluctance to provide recommendations for industrialization without sewer didn't make any sense either. We don't wanna have it on the map and say this is an area for industry And there's no hope of getting sewer there for, you know, 30 years. So, again, I think there's enough flexibility in the plan without having to change the plan. I'll defer to the planning board.

Do we have any mechanism or is there any limitation on redoing an area plan at a later date without a new kind of plan? No. We're going to redo this plan.

Yeah, I mean, basically, the first round of area plans took us a long time because it was laying the initial groundwork. So by the time we got finished with the last plan, it was probably 14 or 15 years approximately from the time we began the first area plan, and that might be a little long. But, you know, again, we already had changes in... the community that led us to do a comp plan update, and then we did the next round of area plans as an area plan update, our hope would be that maybe we could do two rounds of area plans before we do the next comp plan. So there's certainly not anything that would be set in stone that would say we'd have to do another comp plan before we revisit that.

I feel like you would wind up with a better product than trying. I mean, Jack, your point is a valid one. But I think rather than try to do it prospectively now, I would rather see us say, hey, things have changed. We're even going to put this last one of this iteration on hold to do this one again to get it right. To me, that makes more sense.

And I'm not going to hold anybody up on this. I'll just say the other side of the reality is when local elected officials and professionals go to Raleigh to try to request the money for these kinds of projects, they need all the banking and support they can get.

Because the question is going to be, what are you going to do with it?

Why are you asking? The answer is, it's in our plans. It's in the consultant studies. We studied this.

And we really do have, I mean, the beltway. in and of itself with nothing else being necessary should be enough, it should place enough pressure on utilities commission to want to maximize the return on investment there.

And keep in mind it's a multi-pronged approach. As part of Forward 2045, we have a growth management plan that we actually changed part of the area up here from GMA5 rural to gma for future growth for sewer expansion so we have that in the plan we have some recommendations in here that again there's some flexibility built into this that would allow us if sewer became available to revisit some things we have you know forsyth county worked with hdr and there is a sewer basin study where they identified a number of large parcels but believe it or not this area didn't qualify because there weren't there weren't enough large parcels you would have to do assemblage but again we have tools in the toolbox that will allow us to get there should we get the money to do it all right motion second on the floor any further discussion before we vote

All in favor, signify. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous.

Mr. Chairman of the board, the last item we'll hear today as far as on your agenda is B-11. It's disposition of Parkland. And we'll hear from Deputy Director Kirk Erickson. And I apologize in advance. I keep promising you we're not going to bring you any more of these. And every time I turn around, we're bringing another one. But I'll let Kirk talk about that.

All right. I guess I should say at this point, good evening, Mr. Chairman and commissioners. But I'll try to make this brief. This, as Chris mentioned, again, this is the... I think we calculated this about the fourth one of these you've seen in the last 12 months. And the petitioner in this case is the Prosperity Alliance. And the request is to purchase undeveloped land designated as West Clemensville Road Park from the city. Just as a little bit of background, again, you've heard this before, but in 2001, City Council adopted a resolution requiring the Planning Board and City Council to both hold public hearings prior to the sale or transfer of any city-owned park property. In 1958, the city acquired this 4.9-acre piece of property near West Clemensville Road and South Main Street with the intention of being developed as a park. Unfortunately, the site has remained undeveloped for nearly 70 years and the city has no plans in the future to develop it as a park. Recognizing that, in 2022, the site was included in the city's inventory of surplus property to be sold for affordable housing. Under this program, developers may petition council to purchase designated properties for a nominal fee so long as the property will be developed for affordable housing. And again, there's some specific stipulations under that program that detail what that means. Council voted to sell this property to Prosperity Alliance, who are a nonprofit developer out of Charlotte, in November of last year for the nominal fee of $1. And the developer plans on building 33 affordable housing units on the site. Again, I've included a copy of that resolution in your agenda book. Just briefly, this is a growth management plan showing where the West Clemensville Road Park site is. It's in GMA2, kind of in the south side of the city. Again, zooming in a little bit, this is a location map showing that the property is accessed via Rhine Avenue, which is just northeast of the intersection of Clemensville and South Main in the Con Oak area. This is an aerial image of the property as it currently exists. It's mostly wooded and there's a small cleared area in the middle of the site. Just showing you a few images of the subject property. This is at the intersection of Main and Rhine Avenue looking towards the property. Those trees behind that home are the start of the park property. And going down the street, this is actually at the frontage of the park property. And one last image, this is looking into the cleared field portion of the property, but again, the vast majority of it is treed. There's a little bit of this field that goes to the left side of the image and wraps around some other residential properties. So the City Recreation and Parks Commission reviewed this request last week at their August 4th meeting. All members present expressed support for the proposal and planning staff also would recommend approval of this request. It would facilitate development of affordable housing in a convenient location with access to services, amenities, and multimodal transportation. Again, should this board recommend approval, the next item or the next step will be to have a city council public hearing and I'll be glad to answer any questions. Any questions for staff?

Is there a requirement for the property to remain affordable residential when you do such a disposition?

There is. One thing, the actual resolution language is on my iPad, but I did brush up on it before coming up here. There's a two year period where they have to start development of the site within two years after receiving it. And then under that program, I believe it's a 30 year time frame. It's either 20 or 30 years, but I believe it's 30 years. The property has to remain affordable. Again, you can do that as either individual home ownership units, or you can do it as kind of a managed complex situation where the holders of the property are keeping it affordable via rents. And that part of the process is managed by the city's housing development department.

Thank you. And a somewhat related question, during that two, rather at the end of that two-year period, if there's been no activity, do we include, do we, the city, include a revertor provision where we get the property back and can put it back on the market to someone else?

The contract would essentially become null and void at that point, although just in practice... I would imagine the developer, if they saw that kind of sunset coming up, they would probably reach out to the attorney's office and or counsel and again, try and re-up the contract, just for full disclosure, the original contract that was adopted in November, they were looking at doing townhome units, and in their current due diligence on the site, the developers are now looking at doing 33 single-family homes, so they're in fact going to be redoing their contract with council in the coming months, so it'll be a new date for the two-year clock.

Thank you.

I guess the site plan will be coming up to us at a later date.

Correct. Right now, it would need to be properly zoned. Well, if they decide to ultimately go through a single family, the current zoning would work, but it would have to go through either a subdivision or a planning board review if they do a PRD. All right.

Any other questions for staff? No one signed up to speak in opposition or support of this recommendation. Is anyone here that would like to be heard on this matter? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed. We'll submission a pleasure to the board.

I move that the planning board recommend approval of the disposition of property designated at West Clemensville Road Park.

Second. Motion by Mr. Fairby, second by Mr. Patino. Any discussion? All in favor, sign by. Aye. Any opposed? That's unanimous.

Mr. Chair and the board, that brings us to staff report. I won't turn to Kirk this time. I'll just do it myself. Under work session, we're more than likely going to cancel that. It seems like we're canceling a lot of those, but just the way the calendar's kind of working out, we don't have anything ready to bring you. But I think in September, between September and October, we're going to have you at least three text amendments, if not four. And we may actually even be... introducing you to the next area for our next area plan. I'm not exactly sure where that falls out on the calendar, but we will be beginning that process probably even before this was adopted by the city and the county, or at least the county will begin the next area plan. So again, we'll send a cancellation notice, or at least we'll try to remember to do that. I think somehow the last one fell through the cracks, and I think Clarence showed up perhaps for the meeting because we forgot to send one out. We'll try to remember to do that. And with that, I'll turn to... Oh, yeah. Do you have it? You don't have it on there. If you're available next... Wednesday between 2 and 4, Steve Smotherman, we're going to have a retirement party for Steve. He's retiring at the end of the month. So, you know, again, I'll tell you, I moved my son into college this week, and the three days that I've been here, I've hardly been at my desk. So I didn't actually send out an email asking for staff report items, or I would have had that on there. So thanks for reminding me. But 2 to 4 on next Wednesday, Steve Smotherman, retirement reception in our conference room downstairs on the third floor. I'll turn to Mark for a zoning case preview.

Yeah, so that's actually as of earlier today, this is a little out of date. So now it's eight total items because one of those five new rezoning cases has been continued to October. It's actually going to be four new rezoning cases, one continued rezoning case, which is the self-storages over at Brookbury. That has quite a bit of opposition to it, so expect a nice crowd and three new planning board reviews.

And it's a little bit of advance, you know, just a little advance notice. We will have a marker unveiling Sunday, October 11th. This is the Forsyth County marker, but as part of the America 250 celebration, the information is on there. We'll try to remember to have that on there for your meeting next month as well. But Sunday, October 11th at three, around the Louisville Volunteer Fire Department out on Shaliford Road. And then just finally, I did want to introduce Sarah Dunishaw, who is here. If you wonder who's sitting back there, she is our budget analyst. Recently became our budget analyst for the city, and she's interested in learning more about what we do. So she wanted to... Talk about a glutton for punishment. Come and see what our planning board meeting is. I told her it was going to be a long one. So anyway, if you're wondering who's sitting back there, she is observing today and she's going to be coming to our apartment and just seeing some of our day-to-day operations.

If you make house calls, I need help.

And Mr. Chairman, with that, I am finished with the staff report. All right. Well, thanks, everybody, for hanging in there.

I just want to give a special hoorah to every one of the staff members that must have worked double duty to prepare the information you provided to us this month.

A lot of stuff. Thank you all. Absolutely. Very much. Thank you. All right. Before we adjourn, I'm going to note for Shelly that I've put the green sheets right there. I'm not taking them home.

All right.

I've done so many times lately. It sounds like you're admitting something. I am. I've been in the doghouse.

We'll have our motion to adjourn before any more damage can be done.