Mebane’s city council voted 5-0 Monday night to approve rezoning for 6.19 acres to allow for the construction of a Tractor Supply store off Mebane Oaks Road and Forest Oaks Lane, near Sheetz and Wendy’s and close to I-85/40.
The approved rezoning is for a “conditional” permit, several municipalities’ favorite new zoning method which imposes specific requirements on the developer’s plans.
Originally, the city had sought to require the developer to pay to extend the little stub of Wilson Road on the Wendy’s/Chick-fil-A side of Forest Oaks Lane out to a new intersection planned on the opposite side of the road from the existing entrance to Walmart.
The site has sat fallow for more than a year, due to the developer’s inability to acquire an adjacent slice of land to extend what Mebane city councilman Jonathan White described Monday night as the “stub to nowhere.” The adjacent property owner, Roger Shields, has been unwilling thus far to grant use of his land to extend the stub, or to sell it at a price that Tractor Supply is willing to pay.
Instead, the council was told this week that the developer, Hendon Tiller Mebane, had offered a $200,000 payment to the city in lieu of the road improvements.
The payment-in-lieu will remain in the city’s coffers for five years but would revert to Hendon Tiller to apply toward the construction of the road if the developer is able to acquire the necessary right-of-way from Shields.
“We were hoping we could get that acquisition done for the development,” Nathan Duggins, an attorney for Hendon Tiller, told the council Monday night. “We were just unable to do it. So that opened up the prospect of what we’re offering, which is a fee-in-lieu. Those discussions ran parallel with our efforts with Mr. Shields; again, we worked with city staff, worked with our engineer, and we ultimately landed on a $200,000 number as our offer to essentially replace the condition, if you will.”
“We want to get this Tractor Supply built,” Duggins told the council. “We hope it will be a trigger for some additional development down Wilson Road.”
Mayor Ed Hooks responded, “Mr. Shields is a fantastic guy, and he’ll keep it [the adjacent land for the stub]. Any effort to buy is fruitless, period.”
Council member Katie Burkholder asked, “What happens with the fee-in-lieu?”
Interim city manager Preston Mitchell explained, “Typically, we keep it and utilize it for the purpose it has been given for. An example could be Al Neyer development: they made a voluntary condition of a donation of $262,000 for transportation improvements or studies in the area of West Ten/Buckhorn [roads just over the Alamance County line, in western Orange County]. A significant amount of that was used to install the signal lights at the Buckhorn Road and I-85/40 interchange. In that case, those funds did not stay there long.”
Duggins said, “The $200,000 would be tied to the ultimate construction of the Wilson Road extension. We’re very comfortable with a five-year term on that, which would give us five years to try to get the extension built and the property obtained. We could envision, if we’re ultimately successful in obtaining the property, that we would come back and use some of those proceeds to build the road.”
“Any true development of [another adjacent site also owned by Tractor Supply],” Duggins added Monday night, “is going to require the participation of Mr. Shields. I don’t have any doubt our client is going to be very interested in continuing to have conversations with Mr. Shields as this development occurs.”
“By continuing to talk to the property owner, that will enable you to make use of an acre or so of your land that currently is just not realistically developable?” asked White, referring to one side of the site that isn’t accessible due to the inability to acquire the right-of-way from Shields.
“It’s not, because of its size and its proximity to the stub,” Duggins said. “Ultimately, we’re going to have to come back in front of y’all and TRC, and you’d have to annex Mr. Shields.”
Any future road improvements would have to come back before the council for approval, because this was a “site-specific plan,” city staff confirmed for the council Monday night.
DOT settled with Shields for $1.5M after “splitting” his land
Duggins told the council that the state Department of Transportation had previously offered Shields $767,000 for the same sliver of land that Tractor Supply would need to extend the stub.
“[DOT] explained that part of it was for the land; part of it was for the road it was going to sit on,” he told the council. “They took about .09 acres from the larger tract that was here.”
Duggins told the council that the cost to develop the stub is “highly dependent” on who does it. “Our initial estimate was about $120,000 to develop the road,” if it was done in concert with construction of the Tractor Supply store, “and staff with the city had numbers ranging from about $350,000 to $400,000 to build the road.”
Site plan features
Meanwhile, smaller changes have also been made to the site plan for what will become Mebane’s first Tractor Supply store. They include: a reduction in the amount of curb and gutter on Forest Oaks Lane; the addition of crosswalks at the intersection of Wilson Road and Forest Oaks Lane; and a mid-block crossing on Wilson Road.
Curb and gutter will be installed on Forest Oaks Lane in order to mitigate concerns about runoff from the site onto neighboring properties, a representative for the developer told the council Monday night.
The latest site plan shows that the store itself would span 21,930 square feet on a 3.79-acre portion of the property. An outdoor garden center has been reframed as a “live goods center” that would span 2,640 square feet.
Overall, 2.77 acres of the 6.19-acre property would be impervious (i.e., paved) and 3.42 acres would remain as green/open space.
The site plan for the Tractor Supply store off Mebane Oaks Road shows three driveways, with two on Forest Oaks Lane and a turn lane on Wilson Road.
Part of the back portion of the acreage will be used as an overflow parking lot with about 29 parking spaces for Chick-fil-A, which is across Wilson Road from the new site. There will be 89 parking spaces around the Tractor Supply store.
Other Tractor Supply stores
There are more than 2,200 Tractor Supply stores nationwide; the stores specialize in products for home improvement, agriculture, lawn and garden maintenance, livestock, equine and pet care for recreational farmers and ranchers, pet owners, and landowners.
Currently, the closest Tractor Supply store to Mebane Oaks Road are in Hillsborough (13 miles away, along N.C. Highway 86) and on Garden Road in Burlington, in the same shopping center with the Walmart (17 miles from Mebane Oaks Road).
Mebane’s planning board had voted 7-0 in favor of the revised rezoning request earlier this year. The city’s technical review committee has also reviewed the plans three times, and the developer has adjusted the site plans to reflect the committee’s recommendations.
