The Greensboro City Council approved six different rezoning and original zoning requests at the Tuesday, August 17 meeting.
Five of the requests were for annexation and original zoning and one was a rezoning for what is considered infill on Friendly Avenue; all but one were approved unanimously.
The requests ran the gamut from a single-family residence to a proposed development on McConnell Road that when completed is approved for over 1,400 dwelling units.
The requests also went from largely undeveloped land on the outskirts of the city to the rezoning request along the heavily traveled Friendly Avenue corridor across the street from Friendly Shopping Center.
The opposition to the requests varied from none to well organized neighborhood opposition with speakers who had clearly done their homework, but the result on all of them was the same – approval by the City Council.
Although neighbors who opposed the various original zoning and rezoning requests did not defeat any requests, they did get concessions.
For the original zoning request at 206 Wolftrail Road, which is off Randleman Road, the developer reduced the density from over 400 units to 200 units and replaced some of the proposed apartment buildings with townhomes. The City Council approved the request to annex the property that was zoned County Agricultural (AG) and County Residential Single-family-30 (RS-30) to City Conditional District – Residential Multi-family-26 (RM-26).
For the rezoning at 3205-3211 Friendly Ave., the developer redesigned and reoriented some of the proposed townhomes and increased the underground stormwater retention capacity after numerous meetings with representatives of the neighborhood.
All but one zoning or rezoning request was for residential property. After the final rezoning request was passed, Mayor Nancy Vaughan said that Greensboro has a serious housing shortage, and she noted that the City Council had just approved requests to build over 1,600 homes. Vaughan also said that the council could expect to see more rezoning requests for infill development in the future.
Well, of course they did. Despite well informed neighborhood opposition. Been there, done that. My condolences to the people on Friendly. We fought hard opposing the Cone at Cleburne development by Koury. Our neighborhood made enough noise that the Mayor came to my house. It made no difference. In this city it seems Developers matter more than residents.
It’s ALL about the money which lines the pockets of public officials.