Mebane’s city council will consider a conditional rezoning request to allow for the construction of 82 single-family homes on 26.44 acres within Mebane’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, on the Alamance County side of the city, at the council’s monthly meeting next Monday night, March 9.
The city’s planning board unanimously recommended the project at its meeting on February 9.
The proposed subdivision, dubbed “Oakview Cove,” would be built at 1026 and 1053 Gibson Road by Smith Douglas Homes (SDH) Raleigh, LLC, which is based in Apex.
The developer has 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.
The developer is proposing to pay the city of $37,503 in lieu of providing 2.35 acres of public recreation space required under Mebane’s development ordinance. Oakview Cove would instead have just under two acres of private open space, surrounded by a five-foot natural walking trail with benches. The set-aside for private open space would include landscape buffers, an existing pond, and a proposed stormwater control device.
Possible amenities include walking trails, picnic tables, and “grills above the wet pond,” according to the developer’s proposal.
Homes would span a minimum of 1,500 square feet and have features such as: nine-foot ceilings; a covered front porch/alcove; a mix of maintenance siding, masonry, stone, or board and batten on the front façade; a garage with decorative paneled doors; and at least one tree in the front yard.
A traffic study reviewed by the state Department of Transportation and Mebane city staff, showed that the developer would need to construct, at its own expense: a “stop-controlled site access aligned with” Copperstone Way, with one ingress lane and two egress lanes, consisting of 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 exclusive right turn lane at the entrance on Gibson Road; and a sidewalk along Gibson Road.
The proposed site for Oakview Cove is surrounded by existing single single-family homes, townhomes, warehouses, and vacant land, according to an analysis by Mebane’s city staff.
Annexation would also be required before the developer could connect to city water and sewer service.
The developer has contracts to purchase the five parcels, contingent upon approval of its rezoning request.
Smith Douglas Homes says it hopes to target teachers, first responders, healthcare workers, and other local professionals by providing “attainable homeownership opportunities without sacrificing quality or long-term value.” The target market would be buyers 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 between August 2023 and 2024, according to the developer.
The vote to recommend the rezoning to the city council was 8-0. Voting in favor were William Chapman, Colin Cannell, Keith Hoover, Dalton Mack, Susan Semonite, David Scott, chairman Judy Taylor, and Edward Tulauskas; Gale Pettiford was absent.
Rezoning for duplex
The planning board was also receptive to another developer’s plans for a duplex in the West End neighborhood, an historically black residential area on the western edge of the city. The plans for a home at the corner of Giles and Vance streets drew a smattering of concerns from neighbors.
[Story continues below photos of the neighborhood and proposed layout of duplex.]
Dee Dee Vinson told the council that the plan “feels tight” compared to single-family homes that dominate the area.
Elsie Graves, who owns property nearby on West Lee Street, expressed concerns about the proliferation of duplexes in the area, worried that they would drive down home values.
She also worried that there would be no place to park.
The fact that there was not a garage with either unit, nor very wide driveways was a focus of a number of comments.
Omega Wilson of the West End Revitalization Association also expressed concerns and said the organization owns two properties near the proposed duplex.
The developer’s representative expressed a willingness to widen the driveways from 12 to 16 feet, if needed, but the planning board did not insist on that modification.
Frank Ascot, the developer, expressed pride in the quality of his company’s construction, and countered that he expected the “opposite” of neighbors’ worries of lowering home values.
“The marketplace has changed,” he said. He estimated rents for the units would be around $1,500 to $1,695 per month, which he described as “affordable housing” for the area. He estimated construction costs at over $400,000 for the homes with 1,400 to 1,500 square feet for each duplex.
The city’s planning staff explained that the only cause for a rezoning was because of the duplex nature of the structure. The same size house, with a single-family designation, would not require rezoning.
The planning board recommended the rezoning 8-0. Voting in favor were William Chapman, Colin Cannell, Keith Hoover, Dalton Mack, Susan Semonite, David Scott, chairman Judy Taylor, and Edward Tulauskas; Gale Pettiford was absent.
The city council will take up both rezoning requests at its meeting on Monday night, March 9 at 6:00 p.m.
