Mount Airy officials have taken action to allow townhouses to be built on property with a troubled past.
“There were three houses on there,” city Planning Director Andy Goodall said of a site along West Poplar Street containing the low-income single-family dwellings with a long history of housing and nuisance violations.
“Since they’ve been demolished it’s been quiet on Poplar Street,” Goodall added in reference to work occurring in the past year to clear away housing that frequently had been visited by police.
In its place will be new townhouses, due to a 5-0 vote last week by the Mount Airy Board of Commissioners to rezone tracts at 141 and 151 W. Poplar St. after hearing comments from the planning director and others. This included one North Main Street resident who spoke against the rezoning.
The area in question — of just under one acre — was rezoned from R-8 (single-family residential) to R-6 (General Residential). It adjoins a larger tract already zoned for multi-family occupation.
“So it would be a total of about four acres,” Goodall said of the overall development. That includes property behind and beside the two lots targeted for rezoning and the rest of the surrounding area.
A 20-unit development is involved, consisting of 20 units comprised of 10 two-family dwellings, according to city government documents. (Those documents also refer to the units as condominiums, but one-story townhouses actually are specified, information presented to the commissioners by property owner Dean Bray III and Realtor Robbie Sutton revealed.)
The townhouses will be sold for prices starting at $225,000, and are similar to a complex earlier built in the Pilot Mountain area, Sutton said.
Traffic worries mitigated
Some concerns have emerged about how the new housing resulting in the wake of the rezoning might impact traffic in the area of West Poplar Street, which runs from West Lebanon Street to North Main Street.
Goodall cited studies showing that the extra travel created by residents of the units, less than 10 vehicle trips per day, would not appreciably increase the volume along West Poplar.
The streets it feeds into, North Main and West Poplar, also are not even operating at 50% capacity and should easily absorb any traffic generated by the upcoming construction, he indicated.
Goodall, referring to concerns about collisions at the intersection of West Poplar and North Main streets, said city police records show no accidents occurring there in the past 12 months.
The proposed rezoning had received preliminary approval by an advisory group to the commissioners, the Mount Airy Planning Board, in a 7-0 vote on May 27 after it had reviewed the proposal — including written comments from several adjacent landowners.
Commissioner Jon Cawley said some concerns might have stemmed from confusion about the scope of the area actually sought for rezoning before the city council, which is just a part of the overall site for the housing. “The rest of it has the (R-6) zoning already.”
The planning group found that the rezoning request would be consistent with applicable land-use and growth-management strategies contained in a city comprehensive plan adopted in 2015. The group’s recommendation for approval set the stage for a public hearing last Thursday night preceding the commissioners’ vote.
Alan Bagshaw, a resident of North Main Street near the project area, expressed skepticism during the hearing regarding the new housing being framed as a positive addition to the neighborhood.
“My concern is what happens there may not be what’s been presented,” Bagshaw commented, expressing concern that the development might lead to the destruction of a city block.
“Just because we’re not downtown doesn’t mean we don’t matter,” he added during the public hearing.
Bagshaw also questioned the validity of the accident figures, recalling one incident in which a car spun out at the North Main-West Poplar intersection.
Source: https://www.mtairynews.com
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