September 17 Board of Commissioner Hearing
At the September 17, 2009 Board of Commissioners hearing, in spite of the citizen’s requests and pleas, Mr. Harrell made a motion to approve the re-zoning. His stated options were that “he could pass it on to the next commissioners or he could approve it”. He chose not to request the developer accept KCR’s compromise offer for a Vickery Village type development with much less intensity and only 12,000 cars per day.
He did not mention the option of denying the application due to the fact that it did not follow Forsyth County’s land use plan or the Uniform Development Code (UDC).
Discussion followed the motion. Commissioner Jim Boff asked the planning department director: “given the disparity between the proposed 1.1 million sq ft commercial development versus the very small amount of commercial recommended by the future land use plan (1.8 acres), how did the department come to the conclusion that the application conformed to the future land use map and the comprehensive plan?” (a close paraphrase)
The planning department director replied that “she” (his staff person) spent “a lot of thought, time and effort” on this application but he did not answer the question of why his planning department concluded that a 1.1 million sq ft commercial development conformed to the future land use county’s land use plan. Homeowners should be aware and concerned that the same director position is responsible for assessing the traffic impact of ZA 3411 when it is 50% built out.
Mr. Laughinghouse, chairman of the commission stated that he read the “Comprehensive Plan’s three volumes cover to cover” and “did find any basis for conformance of this ZA.” He also expressed concern over the state’s inability to fund improvements on Route 9 to help alleviate the large amount of new traffic from this development.
With the question called, Harrell, Tam, and Bell voted YES to approve; Laughinghouse and Boff voted NO in support of the 1,200 homeowners and the ZA passed 3 to 2.