Next we considered an annexation petition for a property on Holt Road. This property had a rezoning turned down, but the property owner applied for a variance to allow them to develop, and was approved by the Board of Adjustment. I voted against the annexation, but it was approved 4-1 (Mahaffey)
Apex Gateway Phase II came back with an amendment to their rezoning petition. This is the project located near 751 and 64. This amendment added more commercial services to the project, which was something I had initially pushed for (and gotten) in the initial application, to meet the needs of neighbors. This amendment, driven more by market demand than anything, pushes that further. I believe this is a benefit to the community. It passed 5-0.
Next up: A Sweetwater PUD amendment. This amendment asked for permission for an additional story on a commercial building, as well as removing some amount of required office space. The office space request made sense, as the market for office space as changed significantly since Sweetwater was originally approved a decade ago. I am not pleased with the height amendment, and Sweetwater has come back to us many many times: including a request to remove a reservation for NCDOT, allegedly for a hotel, which I have since learned will not end up being used for the hotel. Regardless, it wasn’t entirely germane to this request, so I voted to approve it to be consistent with previous town actions in trying to bring a hotel with event space to Apex. I look forward to hearing about the next Sweetwater PUD amendment in a few months I’m assuming. Passed 5-0.
Next up, “Salem Street Townhomes” PUD, a small project which did a great job working with the community to address parking concerns. Enthusiastically approved 5-0 with the support of neighbors.
Finally, the big one of the night: Seymour PUD. This was a project centered around the corner of Tingen and the Peakway, near Salem Village. There is a lot that went on here, as it was a complicated proposal, mostly because this a very complicated section of the land use map: they had assembled a project which contained pieces of at least 4 different land use designations, and to their credit they attempted to put together a project which met the spirit of map (even though their districts didn’t line up exactly with the land use map, which resulted in at least one no vote at the planning board)
I think it’s important to point out that the overall density of the project was 20% lower than the density allowed by the map, with the lower density clustered by Salem Village.
Another contentious issue was stub street connections. I hope I can say this more eloquently than some of my colleagues did, but I do want to be blunt and straight to the point: We connect all stub streets. Always. It’s required by law. Although in theory we could change the law, we never have before, even though it is requested for us to not make the connection on every stub street. I just want to be clear, if you currently live on a stub street, and a development adjacent to you is approved, the stub street absolutely will be connected to that development and there is no chance you could prevent it short of buying the connecting property yourself and choosing not to develop it.
I ultimately voted against this project, which passed, 3-2 (Zegerman, Mahaffey)
Arno Zegerman – Apex Town Councilmember made some posts reflecting on some of these same votes, if you’d like to read his perspective:
VISION OF THE PEAK 