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By Mike Barnhardt

Enterprise Record

Rezoning for a townhouse project on 409 Farmington Road were approved on a 4-1 vote by county commissioners earlier this month.

Robert Hendrix owns the 19.02-acre tract, and developer Jimmy McKnight proposed conditions for the rezoning that were approved unanimously by the county’s planning board.

The rezoning takes the property from residential R20 to residential R8, meaning residences could be built closer together. It also means the development must be attached to public water and sewer systems. It will be 18 months before county sewer is available to the site.

Among the approved conditions on the rezoning:

• a maximum of 72 dwellings will be built on the property, maybe less depending on a wetlands study;

• a pocket park and hiking trail in the flood plain will be built;

• there will be no more than four units on an acre of land;

• greenway space at the back of the property will be dedicated to the county;

• at least 50 percent of the property will be open spaces.

Developer Jimmy McKnight told commissioners the homes will be mostly duplexes, because people like side windows, with a few instances of three, four or five units in a building. The three bedroom, 2.5 bath homes would have garages and sell from $300,000 to $325,000 per unit, aimed at young families starting their careers.

Commissioner Benita Finney spoke up, and said her son is starting a career as a school teacher and couldn’t afford one of the homes.

Emory Crawford spoke against the rezoning request at the public hearing, mainly citing traffic.

Admitting that he has been part of the problem adding traffic to Farmington Road, he urged commissioners to get ahead of the traffic situation before making a decision to add more.

“The people north of the Shell station, all the way up to Farmington, are really worried about traffic more than anything,” Crawford said. He urged the county to conduct a traffic study and make plans on the road before deciding on such a development.

Commissioner Richard Poindexter said the county has little say as to what improvements are made to Farmington Road, or when they are made. “We don’t get to tell the state what they’re going to do,” Poindexter said. “This property is in an area that needs to be developed as it is proposed.”

He then made the motion to approve the rezoning request. Terry Renegar made the second, calling the proposal “a nice transitional use” between commercial uses to the south and North Davie Middle and Davie High schools to the north. He agreed about the traffic needs. “They (N.C. Department of Transportation) move at a glacial pace and we can’t speed them up.”

Commissioner Brent Shoaf said he isn’t knocking on doors to lure development to Davie County, but the proposed project makes sense. “In my heart, I just do not think it will create major impacts.”

Finney cast the only no vote.