Moving a proposed dog park didn’t earn an apartment developer many points with opposition from existing neighbors, but Greensboro developer Brown Investment Properties was ultimately successful, 2-1, in getting rezoning approval for 140 apartments on a 14.7-acre lot along N.C. 119 near the former Hawfields Presbyterian Home (now Compass Healthcare and Rehab).
Mayor pro tem Tim Bradley was absent from the meeting due to recent surgery, and councilman Jonathan White asked to be recused inasmuch as he serves on the board of the school that is seeking to sell the property to the Greensboro developer.
The remaining three eligible council members were conflicted about the project, especially in light of heavy opposition from neighbors who said that the apartment complex was both too dense and incompatible with single-family homes already in the area.
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The developer had moved a dog park, which had been on the outside corner lot opposite existing single-family homes in the Landing at Summerhaven developer. Those neighbors appeared en masse during the planning board’s consideration of the project last month. [Note: the graphic of the layout shown below is the original, not the revised plan with dog park moved to the center of the apartment complex.]
By the time the project came to the city council this week, the dog park had been moved into the center of the apartment complex, far away from the single-family homes whose residents had vociferously complained to the planning board, which had unanimously recommended against rezoning for the apartments.
Planning board chairman Judy Taylor had suggested during the planning board consideration of the project that the developer should consider moving the dog park to the front of the development, along N.C. 119. But in either case, the new location is away from Summer Walk Drive, where neighbors had objected to a dog park that they feared would set off barking both from the new apartments and in their neighborhood.
The apartments are “unique,” according to Nathan Duggins, the attorney representing the developer, who highlighted that the rental units look much like typical townhouses. Each unit is two stories with one- or two-bedrooms, a garage, and are planned, at this point, to be rental units. Duggins also said the parking provided is 50 percent greater than required by the city’s ordinances.
[Story continues below layout, prior to move of the dog park.]
Duggins also stressed the success the developer had had in obtaining a second entrance into the apartment complex, and thereby improving the traffic flow on both sides of the acreage.
The other change offered Monday night by the developer’s lawyer was to place an opaque fence along the southern border of the property, facing the existing Summer Haven homes.
Original plans: private Christian school Bradford Academy
Duggins stressed the “lack of impact of the new subdivision compared to the original plan for a school on the same property.” The Bradford Academy had originally purchased the land and intended to build there.
But subsequently, the school has become focused on the possibility of buying First Baptist Church of Mebane inasmuch as the church has received approval to build a new church and daycare facility along Gibson Road.
Bradford Academy is a private K-12 classical Christian school founded in 2008 and currently based at Grace Reformed Baptist Church at 939 South Third Street in Mebane. The private school had purchased 14.74 acres along N.C. Highway 119 several years ago to build a future school adjacent to the Summerhaven subdivision.
Bradford Academy founder and headmaster Jeff Johnston said in a May interview with The Alamance News that the initial plans to build a private school on the 14.74-acre site along N.C. Highway 119 hadn’t come together.
“The property on 119 we purchased with the plans to build on that,” Johnston said. “We haven’t been able to put the money together to build there yet; if we had the donors to be able to go ahead and build there, we would, but right now we’re looking at different options.”
Bradford Academy’s board purchased the 14.74-acre site from Desco Summerhaven for $830,000 in November 2021, based on documents that were filed at the time with Alamance County’s Register of Deeds.
Density of apartments
Density was the focus of many of the half-dozen or more neighbors’ objections and was first raised by councilman Sean Ewing, who questioned why the developer was proposing “such a dense product.”
Danielle Austin, who lives on Summer Walk Drive, the street that enters the existing subdivision Landing at Summerhaven beside the new apartment subdivision, suggested “there are lots of better locations for high density growth” like the apartments being proposed. She urged the council to await “something better, more fitting” for the property.
Ben Saconn worried aloud that the density of the apartment complex, the first apartments in this part of Mebane, could “open the door to more density in this area.” He said the apartments don’t “fit the area,” which is primarily single-family homes.
Janet Eckelbarger raised concerns that Brown Investment Properties’ pattern is to build apartments and then sell them off. She suggested that the council could be more selective in approving projects inasmuch as “people are chomping to come to Mebane.”
Chester Brown of Brown Investment Properties estimated that the rents for the one-bedroom (40 percent) and two-bedroom (60 percent) apartments would be in the range of $1,700 to $2,200 per month, based on the current market.
Duggins relayed a likely groundbreaking on the project “within a year,” adding that the project would not be “phased,” but that all of it would be built at one time, with the amenities – pool, clubhouse, dog park – built at the outset.
Ewing made a motion to deny the rezoning, but his motion failed for lack of a second.
Katie Burkholder then made a motion to approve the rezoning, which appeared about to meet the same fate of failing for lack of a second, when Montrena Hadley, reluctantly seconded Burkholder’s approval motion. Hadley noted that the fact that the school would have generated more traffic than the apartments was an important factor in her support.
The approval then passed 2-1; the city’s attorney had noted earlier that a 2-1 vote would be sufficient to adopt, or reject, the rezoning, since the three members present still constituted a quorum of the five-member council, even with Bradley’s absence and White’s recusal.
