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February 28, 2006

Approved, again

The Planning and Zoning Commission gave its second go-ahead tonight to the Blue Ridge Companies plan to put in a apartments, offices and shops between Eastchester Drive and Whites Mill Road.

We'll see if it makes it past the City Council this time. It died in front of the council in November for lack of a 7-vote majority. Because neighbors petitioned against it, a simple majority wasn't enough.

The development would bring as many as 287 apartments, and 71 kids into Montlieu, Welborn and Andrews schools.

There was quite a bit of discussion about a new road Blue Ridge would build connecting Eastchester and Whites Mill. Some thought it would make the traffic problem out there worse, others seemed to think it would actually make it better by providing a legitimate cut-through (instead of going around Big Lots in the parking lot) to turn south onto Eastchester if you're coming from Whites Mill.

It was also interesting to hear from several residents who basically said: If it's got to be developed, at least it's Blue Ridge doing it. A couple of folks were happy with concessions the developer made to do things like build a culvert in the Meadowlark area to help with existing stormwater problems.

Posted by Jonathan Jones at February 28, 2006 9:28 PM

Comments

Sounds like the same story as last time to me, did they have any new ideas on where the traffic flow was going and so forth johnathon, and also what is the date it is going in front of the city council. Guess it is time to get on the phone and call all of our fine leaders.

Posted by: Tim Brown at March 1, 2006 7:43 AM

Tim, they did talk about the traffic flow. There was some belief that the new cut-through road between Whites Mill Road and Eastchester should actually relieve some traffic congestion on Whites Mill. You're not going to have a lot of options coming out of that development. You'll have a choice of heading south on Eastchester or taking Whites Mill to Skeet Club and through the intersection.

Planning Commissioner Jim White also said briefly that he doesn't feel the city can wait for road improvements to be built before approving developments since the state's road building process is so time consuming -- you don't know if the road will be built in 20 years or not.

To me that's one of those chicken and the egg arguments, like most public infrastructure. If you build it, will they come? If you don't build it, will they come anyway?

Take an empty piece of farmland that's ripe for development. Does it make sense to build a five-lane boulevard through it and hope that commercial forces will bring the kind of development you expect? Or does it make sense to let the market dictate where you need to build a five-lane boulevard? It's questions like that which make me glad I'm not a city planner.

When it comes to traffic in that area, I'm curious about what will happen when NCDOT gets around to widening Skeet Club -- currently slated for construction after 2012, likely before 2015. You won't be able to turn left from Whites Mill onto Skeet Club anymore. With the lack of a left-turn onto Eastchester, which makes sense to me, it leaves you with one option if you want to head west out of that development, or the Big Lots strip, and that's taking Whites Mill over to Braddock. I'm not sure folks are going to like that.

But like that Skeet Club widening is a way off and things could certainly change between now and 2012 on the design front.

Wow. That was longer than the original post. Also, I added a link to today's story, which is now on the web.

That date you were looking for Tim is March 20.

Posted by: Jonathan Jones at March 1, 2006 9:35 AM

I'm sure these developers will be donating money to the county for more schools to accommodate all these families.

Posted by: Yeah Right! at March 1, 2006 10:30 AM

Personally, I don't think a single new development should be approve in the area until schools are built to handle existing students.

Posted by: yellowdog at March 1, 2006 4:55 PM

It's not a bad idea yellowdog, the problem is implementing it. Without an adequate public facilities ordinance or something similar, the landowner has the right to develop his or her property within the limits of the current zoning. You could stop, or at least hold up, developments such as this one that require new zoning, but there would be a lot that could go forward "by right."

I've heard from a number of people in the last couple of days who feel the same way yellowdog. The options on that front involve pursuit of an APFO or impact fees. Both can be difficult to achieve because they almost invariably face a court challenge.

Posted by: Jonathan Jones at March 1, 2006 5:05 PM

Jonathan i see another option for the traffic and that is to cut a road in the back to let everyone acess 68 from hickswood also. Just my $.02, but then everyone in that neighborhood who supports this development would all of a sudden oppose it. When does it end......, i hope March 20th at 6pm.

Posted by: Tim Brown at March 2, 2006 12:48 AM

If you only looked at the best way to ease traffic, you'd be absolutely right Tim. But I also think you're right the neighbors would no longer be OK with the development.

In fact, the property proposed for development does have a driveway access onto the Midview Drive cul-de-sac. You could take that out to Meadowlark (which is Hickswood on the other side of 68). But one of the developer's many concessions to neighbors was a promise that access would not be used or developed -- that all the access would come off Whites Mill or the new internal road that runs between Whites Mill and Eastchester.

And double check that time Tim. Often the public hearings are slated for a 5:30 start -- although I don't have the start time for this one readily available at the moment.

Posted by: Jonathan Jones at March 2, 2006 9:56 AM