Mebane city council members voted 4-1 Monday night to approve conditional rezoning that will allow for the construction of 82 single-family homes on 26.44 acres along Gibson Road and within Mebane’s extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Councilman Jonathan White voted against because the developer opted to pay the city $37,503 in lieu of providing 2.35 acres of public recreation space required under Mebane’s development ordinance.
“I’m still hung up on the missed opportunity with the public recreation space,” White said in explaining why he voted against the rezoning request.
“Calling it a public recreation is a misnomer because I don’t know that anybody would go to it other than the people that live there,” Mebane mayor Ed Hooks countered. “We can use the [payment-in lieu] to buy and build a bigger thing somewhere else.”
“If it was put close to Gibson [Road], it would be a very visible location,” White said of the public recreation space that had been omitted from the site plan for the subdivision. “I think some people would be very interested while somebody was shopping at Target – spending time at the park with their kids.”
Dubbed “Oakview Grove,” the subdivision is planned for 1026 and 1053 Gibson Road and will be built by Smith Douglas Homes.
Meanwhile, Hooks said he had a “major concern” about the lack of fencing around one of two ponds on the property; a stormwater retention pond is required to have a fence around it.
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Joan Franson, of 1120 Copper Circle in the nearby Copperstone subdivision, said during a public hearing on the rezoning request that she’s concerned about traffic, as well as potential safety risks due to the lack of a fence around the second pond.
“We are about to be inundated, all of Mebane, with traffic [from the ongoing development] . . . Sins will multiply in terms of hazardous conditions,” Franson told the council Monday night.
City attorney Lawson Brown later said that the developer has agreed to put a fence around the second pond.
The developer, Smith Douglas Homes, requested rezoning five parcels from R-20 to R-8, along with a reduction in the minimum side setbacks, from 10 feet to 7½ feet. Minimum lot sizes would be 8,000 square feet, or less than a quarter of an acre. There would be a minimum of 15 feet of separation between the homes, city staff said Monday night.
Preliminary plans for Oakview Cove call for two acres of private open space, surrounded by a five-foot natural walking trail with benches, with landscape buffers, an existing bond, and required stormwater control measures.
Other potential amenities include walking trails, picnic tables, and “grills above the wet pond,” based on the developer’s presentation.
Homes would span a minimum of 1,500 square feet, with finishes such as nine-foot ceilings, covered porches/alcoves, garages, and at least one tree in the front yard.
The state Department of Transportation has determined that the developer will need to pay for road improvements that include: an access to the site aligned with Copperstone Way, with an exclusive left-turn lane and a combination thru-right turn lane; a northbound left-turn lane on Gibson Road at the entrance to the subdivision; a southbound right turn lane at the entrance on Gibson Road; and a sidewalk at the front of the property along Gibson Road. [Changes shown below.]
The subdivision will have no secondary entrance, Mebane city officials explained.
Smith Douglas Homes says it hopes to target teachers, healthcare workers, and young professionals earning between 80 and 120 percent of the area median income, or between $70,560 and $105,840. Potential price points would be below $425,000, the median home sales price in the area between August 2023 and 2024, based on the developer’s presentation.
The houses in Oakview Cove will be ranch-style and/or two-story designs that buyers could “customize and design it to their forever home,” a representative for the developer said Monday night.
Voting to approve conditional rezoning for Oakview Cove were: mayor pro tem Tim Bradley; and council members Katie Burkholder, Sean Ewing, and Montrena Hadley.
The council recognized Monday night that the ordinance called for multifamily housing in this area and amended the city’s long-term development plan to reflect the rezoning.
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