Burlington’s planning and zoning commission has declined to endorse a proposal for commercial zoning along a stretch of Garden Road that’s a stone’s throw from one of the entrances into the Alamance Crossing shopping center.
During a meeting last Monday night, the planning commission voted 5-to-1 to recommend against the approval of this request, which seeks a range of commercial uses on 2.2 acres at the southeast corner of Garden Road and Boone Station Drive.
The property up for rezoning comprises four vacant parcels that Whitsett resident Stanley Smith has owned in this area for more than two decades. All four of these lots are currently zoned for medium density residential use. Smith, meanwhile, has asked the city for a “limited use” form of general business zoning that seeks permission for about a third of the activities allowed in a regular general business district.
According to Chad Huffine, a civil engineer involved in this venture, Smith ultimately plans to sell this land to another individual, who some of the site’s neighbors have previously identified as commercial landlord David Morton.
Although situated next to an existing commercial district, the property up for rezoning also abuts an established neighborhood called Fairview Estates, which includes homes along Fairview Drive and Westview Terrace. The site’s proximity to these homes has given the city’s planning staff some pause about the particulars of the proposed zoning change. It has also generated stiff opposition from residents who live just beyond the bounds of the proposed rezoning site.
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Smith’s request to the city had initially sought to rezone five lots for 67 potential uses, or just over half of the 119 that are permitted by right in a general business district. Prior to the proposal’s debut at the commission’s November meeting, the city’s planning staff had encouraged the property owner to strike 16 of the proposed activities that it deemed most uncongenial to residential development. These uses included things like light manufacturing, gasoline sales, a hotel or motel, a drive-thru restaurant, an outpatient treatment facility, self-storage, and warehousing.
None of the staff’s recommended redactions were made ahead of the commission’s meeting last month. The applicant had nevertheless made another concession by ditching one of the five lots that had originally appeared in the request. This parcel, which covers roughly a third of an acre, juts out from the other four to form a dogleg into the existing neighborhood along Fairview Drive.
The elimination of this lot didn’t do much to mollify the neighbors, who showed up in force when the planning commission got its first glimpse of the rezoning request in November. After hearing their grievances, Huffine asked the planning commission to postpone its final decision to give him and his colleagues a chance to address the neighborhood’s objections.
In his return appearance last Monday night, the property owner’s civil engineer recalled that he had convened a meeting with some of the neighbors on December 1.
“We were able to whittle down some of the items, and we tried to remove those that were most traffic intensive,” he went on to elaborate. “We talked specifically about what the residents in the area could live with…and we tried to accommodate that as best we could, given our customer’s needs.”
Huffine noted that concerns about traffic and public safety had been a running theme during the neighborhood meeting – with many attendees vexed by existing conditions along Garden Road. He added that some residents had complained about vehicles which speed through the area while others objected to the pedestrians who apparently crisscross Smith’s now-vacant property to get to the shopping center.
Huffine said that the feedback from residents prompted him and his colleagues to jettison certain high-traffic uses, such as the drive-thru restaurant, from the rezoning request. Others, like gasoline sales, were nixed due to their incompatibility with the neighborhood, which includes some homes that still rely on septic systems and wells.
By the time the planning commission resumed its review of the rezoning request, the applicant had dropped nearly 30 uses from the original list – which, with a few additions, brought the final inventory to 39 activities. Yet, after comparing notes with the city’s planning director, Huffine conceded that his client was seeking several items the staff had discouraged, namely a hotel or motel, an outpatient treatment facility, outdoor storage, self-storage, a parking lot or parking deck, and wholesale sales.
The concessions which the applicant had made were small comfort to many of the site’s neighbors, and six of these unreconciled critics ultimately shared their continued concerns with the planning commission last Monday.
These speakers included Chad Mills, a resident of Fairview Avenue who recalled that he and his neighbors had brought their own list of proposed land uses to the meeting with Huffine on December 1. Mills added that this list differed considerably from the property owner’s amended inventory.
“[But] it is still our preference and our goal that this property remains medium density residential,” he went on to admit, “and we ask that you maintain our neighborhood as an established residential island and not allow business to invade and diminish our quality of life.”
The results of the neighborhood meeting also proved unsatisfying to Luis Perez, whose home at the corner of Garden Road and Fairview Drive would be particularly exposed to any commercial activity on Smith’s property.
“While we do appreciate the time [Huffine] took to meet with us,” Perez added, “we want this to stay medium density residential…Commercial use is, in my opinion, not the highest and best use of this land at this time.”
Meanwhile, fellow Fairview Drive resident Lucy Saconn all but confirmed Huffine’s inference about the neighborhood’s frustration with existing traffic conditions.
“People use our street as a cut-through to Garden Road,” Saconn told the city’s planning commission. “They often speed and throw trash out…and additional traffic of any commercial type would only exacerbate the situation.”
The neighborhood’s lingering objections did not leave Huffine or his client completely unmoved. The civil engineer eventually returned to the podium and offered to forgo the requests for outdoor storage, wholesale sales, an outpatient treatment facility, a hotel or motel, and a parking lot or parking deck. These changes left self-storage as the only staff-opposed item still on the applicant’s list of proposed uses.
Yet, in the end, these attempts to conciliate the critics weren’t enough to win over the majority of the city’s planning commission.
Of the commission’s six members, five voted not to recommend the request to Burlington’s city council due to its inconsistency with existing land uses. This five-person majority consisted of members Lee Roane, Ethan Raynor, Mike Mills, Ryan Spadaccini, and the commission’s chairman James Kirkpatrick. The commission’s vice chairman Charlie Beasley cast the lone vote of dissent in this case.
