Planning Board - Regular Meeting

Good afternoon. My name is Jason Grubs. I'm the chair of the city county planning board. Welcome to the December 11th, 2025 meeting of the planning board. Would you please stand and join us in the pledge of 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 10:00 a.m. Friday morning and again at 4:00 p.m. Sunday afternoon. Additionally, an on demand recording will be available on the city of Winston Salem's YouTube channel. Our first order of business today will be the consent agenda containing items for which the petitioner is requesting withdrawal or continuence 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 and 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. Items under section B of our agenda will will require final action by the elected body either the Winston Salem City Council or Scythe 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 zoning 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 of 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 uh before you begin your comments, give us your name, address, and zip code for the record. First item on the consent agenda is the approval of the minutes of the November 13th meeting. Is there a motion?

Move approval. Motion by Mr. Lan. Second. Second by Mr. Patino. Uh any discussion? All those in favor sign of I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Now going to call on Mr. Brian Wilson who'll take us through the rest of the consent agenda.

Good evening, Mr. Chairman and members of the board. Our first two items are B3, that's case F1663, and item D2, that's PBR 2025-21. Both of those items are going to be continued to your January 8, 2026 meeting automatically. And then our first item tonight is B1. That's W3672. That was the case continued from your November hearing. Uh petitioner is Parks Family Holdings LLC. Um the site plan was called 906 South Broad Street. That's the street address. Uh requesting reszone from an LB uh zoning to PBS. It's a 23 acre site located at the southwest intersection of West Walnut Street and South Broad Street. Um uh the site itself is located in a mixeduse neighborhood on South Broad Street. It's just uh north of the uh gateway activity center there. The MUS uh zoned area there. Um a lot of this area has been reszoned from Alli or other um mixture of uh prior zoning to PBL over the recent years, the past five years. Uh actually more like eight years since about 2018. Uh there's some uh still some remnant lizone property to the south. And then of course you have uh West Salem there on the to the north and west the single family zoning. And this is the aerial. You can see the side is fairly small. It's a a less little less than a quarter of an acre there. It does have one existing single family home and is uh heavily wooded. And you can see all that commercial property there across uh South Broad Street there to the east. I'm going to put my pointer on so everybody knows what I'm actually pointing at. Here we go. And the South Central uh area plan recognizes the existing land use for the single family home. Uh again, this plan

when it was adopted in 2015. Uh this was all owned by um Old Salem, they've devested this property and that's been reszoned over time. This is kind of more evolved into more of a mixeduse uh area. So the requested uses, they're all multif family and single family uses are are generally consist consistent with uh that change over time. And this is the proposed site plan. It uh depicts a single three unit town home building and then an off- streetet parking area with access on to South Broad Street. The site itself is uh has great transit and multimotal access. Um it's a good infill project to get a couple extra units in the serviceable land area near uh goods and services. Uh the site plan itself does meet all UDO requirements and staff recommends approval of this request. Be more than happy to answer any questions you might have.

Any questions for staff? I just have one real fast one. When when I look at the layout of uh of the parking seems to be five units, I mean five spaces for three units. Is there room to the right of the last space for a six space? There's actually seven spaces on the plan. One one is obscured by the tree and one may be obscured by the the radius of the of the streetyard tree and I'm obscured by age. Thank you. Thank you.

All right. Any further questions for staff? No one has signed up to speak in opposition to this item. Is anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, I declare the public hearing closed. What's the pleasure of the board? Mr. Chairman, I move the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Okay. Motion by Mr. Lamb, second by Mr. Patinho. Any further discussion? All those in favor sign of I. Any opposed? Mr. Chairman, I further move the planning board recommend approval of W3672. Second. Motion by Mr. Lamb. Second by Mr. Pino. Any further discussion? All in favor? Son of I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous.

Mr. Chairman, we'll move on to the next item. That's B2 W3673. Petitioner is Southern Properties of the Triad LLC. They're requesting a general use resoning from GOS to LO General use. It's a.39 acre site located at the northeast intersection of Brigham Street and South Hawthorne Road. You can see on this location map, the north side of um uh South Hawthorne is already zoned L. And uh the south side does have multif family there. That's actually condominiums. And then um it does transition into the single family neighborhoods there further to the south. You've got the Nvant for medical that's uh to the west there, the C the campus use there, excuse me, campus district. And this is the aerial. You can see the um essentially constructed environment there with um a whole lot of doctor's offices um in that particular section. And then you can see the single family homes again further to the east and south. The Southwest Winston Salem area plan recognizes um the existing land use uh for offices again uh with the surrounding um development pattern as a low inensity transitional use between the higher intensity uh no and campus use there and um kind of providing that buffer uh that use buffer to the single family uh neighborhoods further to the east and south. And uh just a reminder, this was originally reszoned from LO to GOS in 1999. So in many ways, this is a reversion back to that original zoning uh that that was here prior to this GO. Um this is consistent with the staff found this to be consistent with both the area plan and the comprehensive plan and staff recommends approval of this

request. Be happy to answer any questions you might have. Questions for staff? All right. No one here has 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? Mr. Chairman, I move the planning board find that the request is consistent with the comprehensive plan. Second. Motion by Mr. Lamb, second by Mr. Patio. Any further discussion? All in favor? Son of I. I. Any opposed? Mr. Chairman. Sorry. Go ahead. I further move the planning board recommend approval of W3673. Second. Motion by Mr. Lamb, second by Mr. Patinho. Any further discussion? All right. All in favor sign of I.

I. Any opposed? That's unanimous. Before we move on to to item four, couple things. I'd like to recognize council member uh Joiner who is joining us. Thank you for being here. And our next item, I believe, is a little bit unique. So, we'll let Mr. Wilson uh Mr. Chairman, if I could, we're actually not going to since it is a little atypical, we're not going to do that one on consent. We'll come back to B4. So, we'll go ahead and go to C1. Sorry, I should have I should have told you that on my part. Thank you.

All right. So, now we'll move on to item C1. Uh, this is preliminary subdivision number 2025116. Um, so far it's named the Golden Valley subdivision. Uh, it's a 42 lot proposed major subdivision in an RS9 zoning district. Uh this area was recently annexed into the city of Winston Salem. It's a 13.7 acre site located on the north side of Union Cross Road at its intersection with Thomasville Road. So there and this is the proposed site plan. Um they are proposing to extend um Glenn Laurel Lane that's in the Hunterwood subdivision further to the north. extend that through the site and then um they'll have uh its own um intersection access to uh Union Crossroad there a little bit further back from um that kind of odd intersection there that um that white intersection. Um the developer did work with NC DOT to uh provide additional rideway dedication. Um the site plan does meet all underlying uh requirements including sidewalk and a storm water device. Um, staff recommends approval of this request and I'll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Any questions for staff? Move approval. Second. Motion by Mr. Lamb. Second by Mr. Pinio. Any discussion? All in favor? Sign of I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous as well.

Right. And last item on the consent agenda is D1. That's PBR2025-20. Uh, petitioner is Vioat Incorporated. um requesting the use of utilities in an AG zoning district. The entire tract of land is 12 acres, but just to be clear, the actual lease area that will be utilized is only about 700 square ft. Uh it's located on the north side of Bowen's Road between Isaac Street and Hunting Hounds Run. Oh, and I apologize. Uh I don't even know if you could see it, but that is the approximate location of the lease area on this

red square. And just another uh kind of location. Uh that's the the approximate location of that lease area. And this is the actual kind of blow up of uh where they're proposing to install that infrastructure there. They're going to um hook it to utilities through this access here. And I believe that's going to be a fiber connection. This is a satellite communications array. And then they are showing all required fencing, their access, and the required um buffering and uh frontage screening. Site plan does meet all UDO requirements, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Any questions for staff?

Will the remainder of the 12 acres ever be able to be developed? Yes. Move approval. Second. Motion by Mr. Lamb. Second by Mr. Patinho. Any discussion? All in favor sign of I. I. Any opposed? That's unanimous.

Mr. Chair, we'll now go go back to item B4 and Deputy Director Kirk Ericson will will present that. I do want to provide just a little bit of context on this. Um, this is something that the planning board doesn't see very often. I think since since 2017, this will be the third time that we've seen this. This is uh back in 2001, city council passed a resolution uh that required any time that the city was looking to either sell, convey, or even grant a long long-term easement on a piece of park property that it go not only to the parks and recck commission, but to the planning board just for uh review and a recommendation. So, what Kirk is going to go over is this is a request for an easement for a transmission tower and access easement. And uh this what you would do today will be make a recommendation whether or not what the request is makes sense from the utilization of park property. The ultimate recommendation and consideration and decision on whether or not to lease this will ultimately lie with city council. this just is does the request make sense? Are we losing valuable parkland? Uh is what uh is being requested um a problem or does it look like it would it could work and still continue to provide uh the necessary benefit that the the park provides. So with that, I'll turn it over to Kirk.

All right. Thank you, Chris, for that introduction. And again, good afternoon, uh Chairman Grubs and members of the board. The petitioner on this item is Vogue Towers LLC and their request would be to enter into a long-term lease agreement with the city of Winston Salem for land located within Shaner Park. And I apparently I'm not getting through to the computer, so we'll try it this way. Uh again, as Chris mentioned, a 2001 Winston Salem Council resolution requires the planning board and council to hold public hearings on the sale or transfer of parkland, including long-term leases. For those who aren't aware, Shaner Park is a large recreational facility. Uh it's located in western Winston Salem uh on both sides of Silus Creek Parkway. The park is approximately 47 acres in size and it contains a variety of amenities including an exercise parkour, tennis and pickleball courts, a children's playground, and athletic fields. This is the forward 25 growth management map showing uh the location of Shaner Park. As you can see, it spans both growth management areas two and three, but uh the site that we're looking at is within growth management area two, the urban neighborhoods. This is a location map showing the boundaries of the entire park in the lavender color and the access easement and actual lease area in the yellow area. The petitioner approached the city about leasing a 60x60 area in the southeast corner of the park to build an 120 foot tall monopine transmission tower. Again, this would be the type of tower that is designed to look like the trees that it would be going in uh and kind of increase compatibility. The tower would be directly adjacent to the wooded area at the edge of the park

and it would be secured by fencing meeting UDO requirements. The tower would be accessed by a 30- foot wide easement that connects to Yorkshire Road. That easement is already there. It's basically a travel lane for some temporary parking that's used for soccer and other types of athletic events that are held in the park. And the proposed lease agreement has an initial term of 5 years with the option for the city to renew that lease at seven five-year increments up to a maximum term of 40 years. So, the option only belongs to the city, not the lei.

Well, the city and the lei basically. Again, I'm I don't want to pretend to be a lawyer and I haven't seen the contract language, but I would assume that there is a clause that could allow either party to uh basically dissolve the agreement under certain circumstances. Uh we'll just go through a few site photos. This is looking east on Yorkshire Road. The subject property is to the right. the actual park, the the tower site will be much further off the screen. This is looking west on Yorkshire Road. Again, the park is to the left and the actual tower, which we'll see later, is going to be much further off the road. So, this is looking into the subject uh property towards the play area where those cars are lined up. And further towards the trees is the access easement. Again, as I mentioned, there's some fields that you can see in the background, and those cars are kind of parked there for the athletic events that happen. And this final picture shows where the actual tower will be going. It's in that in the distance where that treeand is. And this is looking from Yorkshire Road past the pickle ball and tennis courts to the far southeast corner of the park. Uh, does does that oval represent the expected height of the tower or is that

No, it's just it's just meant to kind of circle the the general area since I couldn't pinpoint the specific location from this angle. Tall tree.

Uh, and so finally, we have an aerial photograph. Again, you can see uh the the lighter area that kind of runs north and south in the red dashed area that represents the driveway that's already there for the athletic field parking. And that easement will continue over to the southeast and the dark uh shaded area, the 30 by30 lease area. The petitioner has also submitted a uh example of one of their previous monopines. This one is in Tennessee, but that's an example of one of their facilities. So, overall, uh, just to give you a little bit of analysis on this, the city wreck and parks commission recommended approval of the lease agreement at its November 2025 meeting. That's the first step in this process as outlined by the council resolution. Planning staff also reviewed this and recommends approval of the request for a variety of reasons. Number one, the total lease area is less than 2% of the total park size. Uh, additionally, the proposed tower type and location shouldn't negatively impact the functionality or appearance of the park. The new tower will improve telecommunication service in the area. The lease will provide additional revenue to support city services. And finally, the actual tower approval isn't granted by this request. That would require a separate review process where staff would be looking at both the zoning and state building code requirements. With all that said, uh staff does recommend approval and I'll be glad to answer any questions. We also have a representative of the petitioner here if uh if we need to call on him.

Can you go back to the slide that shows the easement, please? Uh this one here. Mhm. If north is up that east west section, is any of it fenced? I mean, it's you're not excluded from being able to walk across that path. No, the easement will not be fenced. And again, it's it's not going to prohibit any access. It just secures the applicant a perpetual legal right to kind of go through there to access their tower. The only thing that will be fenced is the 60x60 compound at the far corner. Okay. And will that be maintained by the lei or by the city? The lei. Okay. Will this come back for a formal resoning?

No resoning is required. Uh if the I know some of you were on the board back in 2013 when uh we went through the the big process to redo our transmission tower standards. And under that ordinance, basically these concealed towers, stealth towers as they're known, the ordinance was set up so they could be approved by staff because again they're the least intense types of towers. And so it would be a staff review, but it wouldn't involve both zoning and building code. Okay. Is there any anticipation of more than one tower in the future? And if so, would that have to come back uh to us or or to you?

We're not aware of that. Again, this is the city manager's office is who actually in in consultation with the attorney's office was who actually negotiated the potential lease on this. Obviously, this tower would allow for colllocates for other users. I mean, you know, obviously obviously we can't determine whether or not there would be another tower. It probably if so, it probably wouldn't be at this location. It would probably be somewhere else in the area. That may or may not be city-owned property. It could be I mean, I have no idea.

So, the action that we would take at this time is specific to one tower. Well, the action you would take at at this time would be, you know, if if the planning board believes that the request is um appropriate. I mean, appropriate. I mean, you know, there isn't this isn't an ordinance thing. This is one of one of those hybrid things where city council wants input from the planning board. If if if the planning board feels that this is appropriate, what the planning board will do is just make a recommendation to city council for approval as presented.

And the only reason this is in front of us is because it's in a park. Correct. Right. We have nothing to do with cell tower placement or anything like that anymore. It correct. And just again, just to be abundantly clear, there's nothing about this request that deals with the actual tower itself. Council will only be approving the the lease agreement and the designation of what area is encumbered by the lease. And so, we're just approving the easement. Well, the the easement path and the lease area and the lease and and really, I think specifically, is there some

planning UDO reason why this would not be appropriate. You know, we're we're looking at it from a still from a planning perspective, not should this tower be here or should the city lease the property, but is there a specific planning development ordinance issue with doing this? Right. Correct. How tall is the tower? It's proposed at 120 ft. Do sometimes I think a non monopine looks less intrusive than a just a regular one. It always does.

I I would not necessarily argue with that, but the but but the the ordinance requires the monopine in certain situations and the zoning that is at this location dictates that it has to be a monopine. Got it. 120 ft is approximately 10 stories. Yeah. Tall tree. Any additional questions for staff.

All right. No one here has signed up to speak in opposition to this matter. Is there anyone here opposed to this recommendation? Seeing no one, I'll declare the public hearing closed. Are there any questions, additional questions for staff or any discussion on this? Mr. Mr Chairman, I move the planning board recommend approval of the proposed disposition of city park land. Second motion by Mr. Lamb, second by Mr. Patinho. Any further discussion? All in favor sign of I. Any opposed? All right, that's unanimous. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and the board. That brings me to staff report. And I actually have to get to my notepad to get to that. Um the first item we will have is uh Mark Alred will go over the zoning case load for January. Well, it's not in front of me, but there's five for uh next next month. Um it is just uh trying to remember off the top of my head. Thank you. One continue resoning case, one final development plan, one text amendment, and of course that continue planning board view and one new plane board view. So pretty short, small number of cases. best way to put it.

Uh, and speaking of the text amendment that's on there, uh, I'll now turn to Dan Roberts who will give you a brief preview of UDOC CC32. This is something that is fairly simple to do. And since we're not having uh, since we don't have work sessions in either November or December, we would like to be able to advertise this for a public hearing for January if the planning board doesn't have an issue with it. And this is dealing with mechanically stabilized slopes i.e. retaining walls and I'll turn it over to Dan who will give you just a brief overview.

Great. Good afternoon Mr. Chairman, members of the board. So this ordinance amendment is to remove section 8.4.6 uh B which is graded slopes and mechanically stabilized slopes and bill is the title of it and the amendment is to remove that section from the ordinance entirely. Uh the conditions in this section will be re-evaluated by engineering staff and placed in the infrastructure development standards. And so this section essentially deals with the approval process for retaining walls and graded slopes that exceed the ordinance and the approval process um that that kind of goes through. And I can provide more, you know, detail and um background in the in the following session. uh but planning staff will no longer be responsible for facilitating that approval process if it's were to go forward and it would be the engineering department's responsibility.

Just a little bit of additional context, currently the UDO limits the height of retaining walls to 10 ft without doing a 10-ft terrace and moving back. there is a provision that allows for either in the city the assistant city manager for public works to approve an alternative height uh or the planning board to approve that alternative height if it's not in the city. So if it's in the county and it's one of those things where from a staff perspective, we feel like that we're not experts to be able to guide and advise the planning board on engineering standards on things not in the city. and the assistant city manager for public works has an engineering staff, utility staff who can look out for public infrastructure uh if there is a perceived threat to water and sewer lines or roads or other infrastructure if the height gets too tall. Uh so for that reason we would like to remove it from the UDO and actually have it in the infrastructure development standards that protects the city and city county utilities if it's in the county and it's adjacent to a rightaway in that's something that NCDOT would be looking at. So we feel like it's covered uh by these other um methods and it would be better taken out of our court. So that's the text amendment we're looking at and the text amendment should be fairly simple. We're going to take it out of the ordinance. It's going to say reserved. Um, so with that, are there any questions?

Makes sense. So, you feel like that's something we could bring to you in we've done like the uh if it's a site plan review or something where they're giving you all the information about a site, that's where we s where they're looked at now, right? Correct. So yeah, I mean it's it's it's not take I mean that they will still be reviewed. Currently any retaining wall

uh over a certain height requires an engineering cert an engineering design and certification anyway. So if you know it it's it's being reviewed, it's being permitted and it's being certified that it's going to be constructed a certain way and then we don't actually even do the inspection. They have to submit a certification that it was constructed per the design. So if anything happens as far as a failure, it's back on the engineer. But to answer your question, yes, it will be shown on the plans that go through the approval. It's just there doesn't have there's not a waiver mechanism where they have to either go to the assistant city manager or to the planning board. It's just handled at the staff level. Will it will it show up in the notes or review notes like other similar things that someone else may give the final approval on?

It will. Well, and again the the the engineer the engineering department utilities they it will be in the infrastru infrastructure design standard guidelines that they use to review everything anyway. So they will be providing feedback on that. So the note would say to the applicant you must get this approval from the infrastructure and design group. Correct. Just like it would go to you must get approval from storm water or from utilities for anything. Correct. It it will be part of the review process. Okay. All right. Any objection to us moving forward with a public hearing on this our January meeting? All right. No.

All right. Thank you very much. Uh the next item that I have is I would like to introduce Cornelius Washington CJ. He is our newest planner. Uh oh. He was a he was a permit tech uh on our staff. And for those that don't know, this is Chris Leak's son. So, he is he is doing great things for us. He came in, worked hard, and has already been promoted. He's been with our he's been in our department for less than what, six months. So, anyway, you will probably see him on some future zoning cases, but wanted to make sure introduced him. Uh, next to I'm sorry. Go ahead. I just said welcome aboard. Oh, thank you.

Next to last is uh for those that don't know, today is Mark's 50th birthday. Remember Happy birthday to Mark. And then finally, uh I did say it at the party uh the reception downstairs, but for those that weren't here, just thank you for all of everything you do for the community. Thank you for all that you do for planning staff and we want to wish you a merry Christmas and happy holidays and really appreciate everything that y'all do. And with that, Mr. Chairman, I'm finished.

All right. And I understand my predecessor may have been watching his uh introduction online, his son's introduction online. So, we'll just wish Mr. Leak a merry Christmas as well. And is there anything else for the good of the order? Yes, we'll have a motion to dismiss. All right. Second. Thank you very much. Have a good meeting. Thank you, Jason.