Thanks for your input, but ...
Airport officials, economic development types and city planners all oppose plans to build 300-or-so apartments next to property owned by Piedmont Triad International Airport.
So if you're in charge of rezoning 18 acres for the apartments, what do you do?
Well, if you're the Greensboro Zoning Commission, you vote 6-1 in favor of the apartments, siding with developer Roy Carroll and Robbie Perkins.
That's what happened Monday at a regular meeting of the Zoning Commission, which finally took a vote on the apartment issue, which has been moving from one monthly agenda to the next for much of this year ...
Carroll wants to build about 300 "high-quality" apartments in a project called Huntington Village at the southeast quadrant of Regional Road and Caindale Drive. He argues the apartments will provide housing for workers at the future FedEx hub, opening at Piedmont Triad International Airport in 2009, and other airport-area businesses.
But members of the Piedmont Triad Airport Authority have been fighting Carroll's plans. They claim residential rezoning of the 18 acres, next to the Pleasant Ridge Golf Course property, could block potential for future growth of the airport and related businesses. And they've expressed concern that residents of the apartments wouldn't have much quality of life surrounded by industrial and airport operations and the associated noise and bustle.
Meanwhile, members of the Greensboro Economic Development Alliance said at the Monday meeting that building apartments on the property, which is owned by Shamrock Capital Partners, would make it harder for them to attract companies to the golf course property, which could support a 400,000 square foot building and has been considered by a number of businesses. "In our view, residential zoning would absolutely devastate our ability to market this site for industrial use," Alliance VP Helen Cauthen said at Monday's zoning meeting.
The city's planning staff pretty much concurred, stressing Monday the need to keep existing tracts of land for future industrial development and maintain the property's zoning for industrial or corporate park uses, in line with the city's long-term planning map.
That didn't hold water with the commissioners, though.
In a brief discussion, they said the airport should have purchased the property when the opportunity. And the airport area, they said, needs more homes to help keep employees close to their jobs and cut down on congestion from increased traffic on Interstate 40.
Then they sided with Carroll and Perkins.
It should be interesting to see how this all plays out at the City Council, which has the ultimate power to approve or veto the project.
On the one hand, the council has a favorable recommendation from zoning officials to change the city's comprehensive zoning plan in favor of the apartment project. And they've got a residential development being backed by major local power players. On the other hand, they've got protests from officials who say the land could be better used - and that allocating it to homes could hurt potential economic development in the airport area.
Airport Authority Chairman Ted Johnson said Monday that he couldn't speak to the group's stance going forward, but that as far as continued opposition to the apartments goes, "my recommendation would be 'yes.'"
In May, the Airport Authority refused to sell Carroll a different piece of property near the airport for apartments. The Carroll Cos. had offered to buy 28.4 acres southeast of the Painter Boulevard beltway for just under $1 million. Airport officials turned down the request, citing concerns that noise at that site could be between 60 and 65 decibels, considered the highest range for residential building.