A proposed residential development in Burlington that sunk like a stone when it debuted three years ago has resurfaced in a much-altered form – one which has, so far, gone over much better than its ill-fated predecessor.
Dubbed Lakeside Village, this 251-unit, single-family development along Lakeside Avenue garnered a unanimous endorsement from Burlington’s planning and zoning commission on Monday.
The brainchild of Ray Covington and his business partner James Kirpatrick, this 67.6-acre development is now cleared to go before Burlington’s city council for a final rezoning decision.
The planning commission’s unalloyed vote of confidence on Monday came in sharp contrast to the 5-to-1 rejection that its members dealt an earlier version of this project in the spring of 2023. This dismal showing was all the more remarkable for fact that Kirkpatrick was serving as the commission’s vice chairman when he and Covington endured this reversal.
The proposal that Kirpatrick and Covington had proffered in 2023 had been couched as a “limited” form of high-density residential development. Under Burlington’s unified development ordinance, a developer can apply for “limited use” to weed out some of the more obnoxious activities that are otherwise permitted by right in a particular zone.
Due to his financial conflict of interest, Kirkpatrick had recused himself from the commission’s consideration of his limited use request in 2023. In the meantime, most of his colleagues were put off by the lack of specificity in the erstwhile request. Nor were their misgivings allayed when Covington shared a preliminary plan for 32 townhouses and 206 single-family homes that had no actual bearing on the request before the planning commission.
The commission’s members were joined in their opposition to the original request by a number of residents in the nearby Brassfield Meadows development. In the end, this one-two punch from these neighbors and the city’s planning commission compelled Kirkpatrick and Covington to withdraw their original request before it reached Burlington’s city council.
The demise of this project’s first iteration didn’t prevent Kirkpatrick’s colleagues from selecting him to serve as their chairman – a role that he retained until he rotated off the commission earlier this summer. In the meantime, Kirkpatrick and Covington have worked behind the scenes to repackage their beleaguered development into a form that would fare better than its predecessor with the city’s decision makers.
The moment of truth for this proposal came Monday night when the planning commission convened its first monthly meeting since Kirkpatrick had stepped down from the dais. During that evening’s proceedings, the group’s former chairman took his place in the audience next to Covington, while the job of presenting their new and improved rezoning request was left to Ryan Moffitt, an attorney in the duo’s employ.
Moffitt, who had also represented Kirkpatrick and Covington in 2023, insisted his clients had sunk a great deal of time into reworking this project because they recognized the community’s persistent need for mid-priced single-family homes.
“We certainly have a demand for these attainable, residential uses,” Moffitt explained during his pitch to the council, “and we know this demand isn’t expected to wane anytime soon…So, we have been through several iterations and approaches with the development of this land.”
The proposal that Moffitt ultimately unveiled at the podium was framed as a “planned development” rather than either a conventional rezoning proposal or a request for limited use.
Under Burlington’s unified development ordinance, developers can avail themselves of the “planned development” option to propose high-quality projects that are tailor made for particular sites.
According to Burlington’s planning director Jamie Lawson, a developer can use the vehicle of a planned development to obtain leeway in the city’s development rules. In exchange, they’re expected to exceed other development standards or proffer amenities that will benefit the community in its entirety.
Lawson added that, in the case of Lakeside Village, the biggest departure from the city’s development standards is the proposed inclusion of lots that are smaller than the norm for a high-density residential zone. With 251 lots, this version of the project carries a higher unit count than the 238 townhouses and single-family homes that Covington had pitched in 2023.
In other respects, Lawson said that the developers have exceeded their remits with voluminous buffers, rich landscaping, numerous recreational amenities, and an open space allotment of 20.8 acres that exceeds the city’s quota by some 200 percent.
Other features of the proposed subdivision were spelled out in a series of 18 development conditions that Covington and Kirkpatrick attached to their rezoning request. These promised extras include five satellite parks, including two that will offer pickleball courts, 3,400 feet of natural trails, 14 fitness stations, and land set aside for a future bus station within the development.
In lieu of the smattering of protests that the project’s previous version had drawn from Brassfield Meadows, its latest rendition only elicited a couple of questions from David Gorey, a homeowner along Elva Drive who shares a property line with the development’s site.
Gorey was particularly wary that the development would interfere with a lake that’s located on his own land. Moffitt assured the concerned neighbor that his clients have proposed buffers twice the size of anything that the city requires to prevent this eventuality.
Lawson went on to inform the commission that the city’s planning staff has seen fit to endorse the rezoning request with 18 development conditions that it contained. The commission went on to vote 6-to-0 to recommend the request to Burlington’s city council.
Meanwhile, Charles Beasley, who has succeeded Kirkpatrick as the commission’s chairman, reflected on how much smoother the commission’s deliberations had been than they were when this project went through its first variation in 2023.
“I remember the first time this came around,” he told the rest of the group, “we were rough [on the proposal] back then.”
