A long-stalled 29-home townhouse development at the corner of Ivey Road and East Gilbreath Street got the go-ahead from Graham’s city council Tuesday night, 4-1, after the developer made several changes to make the project more palatable to most council members.
The project first came up for rezoning at the council’s January meeting, but a series of questions and concerns from council members sent the developer and his attorney back to the drawing board to make changes.
Subsequently – at monthly council meetings in February, March, April, May, and June – the matter was successively postponed while the developer attempted to fine-tune the changes and ensure that the project could, in fact, proceed if it received council approval.
Tuesday night, Amanda Hodierne, an attorney representing the developer, outlined these changes as she renewed the developer’s request for rezoning approval.
Hodierne acknowledged the developer did not modify the density of the project, which proposes 29, two-story, three-bedroom townhouses. She added, however, the road width was widened to 31 feet, sidewalks were removed from one side of the one-street subdivision, and additional parking spaces were added near the mail kiosk.
The developer will also put in 8-foot plantings on top of berms on two sides of the project; the berms themselves will be two-feet tall on one side and four-feet tall on another.
In another, last-minute change recommended by the city’s assistant city manager, Aaron Holland, the developer agreed to make the singular road in the development private, rather than public. It will, however, still need to meet city standards.
The developer’s failure to reduce the density of the project on a 6.27-acre lot remained a concern for council member Bonnie Whitaker, who cast the lone dissenting vote against the rezoning.
Also concerned was a Gilbreath Street neighbor, Jeff Benes, who expressed opposition to what he termed “reckless growth” in the city and termed the townhouse site a “postage stamp.”
“What are you doing to Graham’s greatest asset?” he asked, adding that the quality of life is Graham’s greatest attraction, one that drew him from the Silicon Valley area of California 35 years ago.
Benes also pointed to crime in a nearby apartment complex, the Pines, but mayor Jennifer Talley said there was a considerable distinction between crime associated with those apartments and townhouses which are expected to cost $300,000 or more.
Talley emphasized that the current city council hasn’t approved any additional apartments in Graham.
“We didn’t accept this as it came to us,” Talley emphasized to Benes about the townhouse project, noting, “they have made a lot of changes to make it better.”
“But they didn’t change the density,” Benes responded.
In the final vote, Talley, mayor pro tem Ricky Hall, and councilmen Bobby Chin and Joey Parsons joined the 4-1 vote for the rezoning, while Whitaker was opposed.
[Story continues below layout of the 29-unit townhouse subdivision.]
In other zoning matters, the council:
- Unanimously approved a special use permit that will allow a previously-approved building at 1205 East Harden Street to be divided into multi-tenant occupancy.
- Unanimously granted a rezoning on family land along Gant Road to allow a “manufactured home for living” beside another home.
- Unanimously adopted a new ordinance to govern tobacco, vape, and hemp shops in the city. Councilman Joey Parsons wanted to do as much as possible to restrict the operations of such businesses; the final ordinance dealt primarily with restricting how close they could be located to each other. “I’d like to see them go away altogether” Parsons said.
- Again postponed action on a proposed joint annexation agreement with Burlington dealing with an area around Race Track Road.
- Unanimously denied, 4-0, a repeatedly postponed rezoning request from developer Jason Cox for a project at 200 South Marshall Street, across from the Graham post office.
Whitaker had urged last month that if Cox didn’t show up – the measure had been successively postponed since April largely because he wasn’t present to explain his request for general business zoning – the council would ditch it altogether, rather than postponing it again.
Talley, who said she owned land on the “other end” of Marshall Street, asked to be recused from the vote to deny the request, which the remainder of the council adopted 4-0. If Cox opts to renew the request, he’ll be required to re-start the process at the planning board level, which had voted unanimously against the original project.
