BERMUDA RUN – As Twin City Soccer looks to grow, neighboring Kinderton Village residents continue to  seek ways to minimize the impact of the sprawling complex on their quality of life.

After packing town hall in last month’s meeting to voice their concerns over Twin City Soccer’s expansion plans, only Barton Sexton of 185 Kilbourne Drive spoke in last Tuesday night’s meeting, but he was representing the neighborhood as spokesman.

“My understanding is some of the proposals have been changed and been backed off,” Sexton said. “The sticking points right now are the stadium lights 75 to 100 yards from behind our house and the soccer field that is as close as that. We want to be good neighbors, but it doesn’t mean we want to back off of the challenge or desire to rezone. If you leave that zoning wide open, they can do whatever they want.”

Town manager Lee Rollins said he met with Kinderton Village folks at their quarterly HOA meeting the night before the council meeting

“Two issues came up – one was stadium lights and the other was noise,” he said. “I told them my commitment to them was when Erin Burris, our zoning administrator, provides the staff report for a rezoning request to the planning board, I will then provide that to them through email with a pdf so they’re seeing the same thing the planning board is. The planning board will either approve, deny or defer. So then it would go to the town council, who I’ve told to go ahead and incorporate a public hearing on the 13th of June.”

Rollins said that the soccer group has already agreed to take out the connecting street and the parking lot on the west side closest to the back side where homes are impacted, and not to incorporate a walking path on the north side that runs parallel to those lots.

“Those were the three big concerns,” Rollins said. “As it relates to lighting and noise, that’s something that will have to go through the process. But the soccer group made some pretty significant concessions to the point that it may impact our ability to partner with them on property for some things.”

Sexton said that his group would love to find a solution to reducing the glare of the stadium lights, especially on weekends, and move one of the fields to the other end of the complex to have more of a buffer.

“Our initial intent was to preserve our neighborhood and our home values,” he said. “We’d love to talk to the Twin City folks but haven’t had that opportunity yet. We tried to arrange one meeting a while back, but they have been unavailable for quite some time.”

Sexton also mentioned a solution to the traffic problem at the soccer complex could be converting the walk bridge over I-40 to a traffic bridge.

Councilman John Guglielmi said that the council had already investigated and that the state department of transportation was already too far into the bidding process for the widening of I-40 from Bermuda Run to Harper Road.

Rollins added that the old bridge will have to be torn down when the widening project, which will expand I-40 from two lanes to three lanes on each side, takes place. He said that the DOT has agreed to replace it with a pedestrian bridge, which would be steel and look like a 1920s model.

“We would have to pay the difference in aesthetics,” Rollins said. “They’re giving us estimates.”

Regarding the widening project, which will be let at the end of June or early July, Rollins said that a public information session has been planned for June 6 at The Granary at WinMock.

In other business, Rollins presented the 2017-18 town budget and called for a public hearing at the June 13 meeting.

Rollins said that the General Fund is proposed to be balanced at $1,795,000, the Gate Operations Fund is proposed to be balanced at $512,247, and the Utilities Fund is proposed to be balanced at $554,200.

He added that sales and use tax revenues are budgeted at $500,000 with this estimate based on the hold harmless agreement with Davie County that will provide 80 percent of sales tax revenues via the “per capita” reimbursement formula for the 2017-18 budget.

“The good news is that other state revenues have gone up and kind of offset that decline in sales tax revenue,” Rollins said. “There’s another bill in the House and Senate that if passed would provide Davie County additional sales tax revenue. If it passes, it would provide Bermuda Run another $41,000.”

In another item, Rollins said the town’s summer concert series with the Davie County Arts Council starts on May 27 with a beach concert by the Special Occasion Band at 7 p.m. at the Town Square in Kinderton Business Park.