The Planning and Zoning Board recommended rezoning 6.96 acres of land off Washington Post Road.
The Planning and Zoning Board voted 5-2 to recommend that the Board of Aldermen approve a request to rezone land off Washington Post Road from an A-5 agriculture district to a R-6 residential district during the Aug. 15, 2024 meeting at City Hall in downtown New Bern, NC.
Kendrick Stanton, land and community development administrator, presented the staff report.
He said Preston Lucas applied to a rezone 6.96 acres of land from an A-5 agriculture district to a R-6 residential district on behalf of Lucas Land Company, LLC.
The property is located at 597 Washington Post Road and is identified as Craven County parcel 8-222-046.
He said single-family residences, a manufactured home park and vacant lots are within a half mile of the site and compared the two zoning districts.
Stanton said the A-5 district allows “low-density, single-family housing on five-acre minimum lots.”
“It encourages conservation of the area existing agricultural and forestry resources and to promote further expansion of these land related resources,” he said.
He said the R-6 district allows single and multifamily units with 6,000 square feet minimum lots for one and 2,000 square feet for each additional dwelling.
“To discourage any use which, because of its character or size, would create requirements and cost for public services, such as police and fire protection, water supply and sewage, substantially in excess of such requirements and cost if the district were developed solely for single family purposes,” the report said.
Stanton displayed a graphic that showed examples of what special uses would be allowed in A-5 and R-6 districts. The Table of Permissible Uses is available here.
“One of the key issues here is that it is a landlock piece of land,” Board member Kip Peregoy said.
Preston said, “There is a current easement going to the property.”
He said they requested an additional 50-foot easement that has been confirmed. So, we’ll have two easements leading to the property,” he said.
Allana Ross, real estate broker, said there’s currently a 30-foot easement that goes to Washington Post Road and a 20-foot easement to West Pleasant Hill Road.
She said they’re working on obtaining a 50-foot easement to Washington Post Road and handed out copies of the deed, surveys and a document that shows the proposed easement.
She said the person who sold the land to Lucas lives on the adjacent property and asked for the easement to be relocated. The current easement zigzags to the property and the 50-foot easement would better serve the site for EMS, fire and utilities.
Peregoy said the R-6 district is “as dense as it gets.”
He asked, “With that type of density on that parcel of land, does a 50-foot road easement qualify for the type of road designation that would be required?”
“It’s a good question for Public Works. Being as honest as I can, I can’t answer that question definitively just because that’s really outside of my purview for the rezoning application. We don’t know what type of use may be established there. We don’t know the traffic impacts that may come about. If that’s introduced, I would say an application, just depending on what is submitted, it’ll be vetted though through the Public Works agency before anything were to go forward. They’re a part of our departmental review,” Stanton said.
Board member Danielle Peoples asked, “Kendrick, would the owner also have the option of pursuing a special use permit if they wanted some items that qualified under R-6 without the approval of this rezoning?”
“If this rezoning does not get approved, they would not have that option. This property currently is still A-5, so it would have to transition,” Kendrick said.
He said the rezoning would have to be approved by the Board of Alderman, then they could access the special use permit in R-6.”
Board member Donald “Rusty” Ingram said, “We’re not supposed to consider the use that he’s proposing, but the use that he has proposed is allowed under A-5.”
Stanton said, “We really won’t know until an actual application comes in, so you got to be careful not to.”
“Single family attached houses are not allowed in A-5, but are allowed in R-6,” Ingram said.
“And for us looking at this parcel there’s existing residential and then there’s existing agriculture land so it’s not an outlier necessarily either way,” Peoples said.
Peregoy said there’s a lot more R-20 and A-5 than there is a R-6.
“The R-20 rural residential district is designed to accommodate low-density single-family dwellings with 20,000 square feet minimum lots that may not be serviced with city sewer service or multifamily dwellings that are serviced with city sewer,” according to New Bern’s Land Use Ordinance.
After a long silence, Brad Jefferson said, “I have not had this problem as board chair.”
Peoples made a motion to “recommend to the Board of Alderman approval of the zoning text and that this is consistent with the comprehensive land use plans.”
“This is a tough one because you’re right on the edge. If the parcel was already out to Washington Post Road and we’re talking about adding on to a development, that would be an easier question. In this particular case we’re talking about generating an easement that’s nowhere close to the existing R-6 and then putting R-6 in there when R-20 is on either side and you’ve got agricultural…,” Ingram said.
Robert Gough, the assistant director of Development Services said, “access to utilities and roads isn’t necessarily the question. It is whether or not this is consistent with the land use plans, the ordinance standards also don’t apply necessarily the question,” Gough said.
He continued, “A good question to ask, is this a logical outgrowth? When you mention that it is already adjacent to R-6, a lot of times in other municipalities and counties land use maps there will be a transitional zone.”
“The issue with this is that it currently has a harsh transition from R-6 to A5 in the first place so if you can logically come to a consensus for your motion, I would recommend basing it off the plans as well as what is on the ground for development patterns.”
“Right, but as I mentioned you’re talking about something that isn’t an outgrowth of the existing R-6 development that’s there and the easement that’s being discussed is far away from the existing R-6,” Ingram replied.
He continued, “To me it’s not a natural extension to what’s already was there, I guess that’s where I’m having some difficulty”
The board voted 5-2 to recommend the rezoning to the New Bern Board of Aldermen. Danielle Peoples, Kyle Dearing, Thomas Brownell, Brad Jefferson, Marshall Ballard and Kelly Kiser voted yes. Kip Peregoy and Rusty Ingram voted no.
Although the city posted a sign for a public hearing next to Washington Post Road, the meeting wasn’t opened to the public for comment.
After the meeting, NewBernNow.com asked Jefferson why he didn’t open the meeting for public comment prior to voting and he said he messed up and apologized. He said they just adopted new rules of procedure, so it won’t happen moving forward.
Gough told NBN that it wasn’t a public hearing. He said the public hearing signs are recycled and used for multiple meetings like the Board of Aldermen and Board of Adjustment meetings.
A week prior to the meeting NewBernNow.com asked Kendrick Stanton what the public hearing was for.
He replied, “The sign is in reference to an upcoming item (REZ-002925-2024) for the August 15, 2024, Planning and Zoning Board meeting.”
NBN asked the city why public hearing signs are being used if public hearings are not being held.
Colleen Roberts, public information officer, said, “While we are not required to post the signs you’ve referenced, they are installed as a means of increasing participation in the quasi-judicial process and the decisions of the board. Additionally, they increase transparency on behalf of local government. In this instance, what we were required to do was notify property owners within 100 feet of the subject property, which was completed by staff.”
The sign is still standing on Sept. 8, 2024.
NewBernNow.com has reached out to Preston Lucas and Allana Ross for comment, but we have not received a response.
Watch meetings on City 3 TV here.
By Wendy Card, Editor. Send an email with questions or comments.
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