The Greensboro City Council approved all of the annexation, zoning and rezoning requests at the Tuesday, Feb. 1 meeting unanimously.
The City Council regularly talks about the housing shortage in Greensboro, but developers who come before the council almost always have reduced the number of dwelling units from the maximum allowable in order to get the original zoning or rezoning approved.
Mike Fox, an attorney with Tuggle Duggins representing the Koury Corporation for an annexation and original zoning request on Liberty Road, was congratulated for reducing the proposed development in half. It was the only request before the City Council that involved residential property.
The request was to annex 24 acres at 3510 Liberty Road and zone it Conditional District – Residential Multifamily – 18 (CD-RM-18) to build 386 dwelling units.
In response to a question from Councilmember Sharon Hightower, Fox said that originally the project was going twice the size of the plan before the City Council.
Fox said, “We initially had 50 acres and almost 800 units, but we decided to half the project.”
Fox explained that cutting the project in half was the result of a neighborhood meeting, and Hightower noted that the neighbors were not there to oppose the zoning request and congratulated Fox on doing a good job.
No one on the City Council suggested that because Greensboro has a serious housing shortage that the developer should be encouraged to go back to the original proposal and build 800 new dwelling units instead of 386.
The only request before the City Council that had opposition was a request to rezone 4200 and 4206 United Street from Conditional District-Commercial Medium (CD-CM) to Conditional District-Commercial Medium (CD-CM).
The purpose of the rezoning was to allow the property to become a used car lot – a use that was prohibited by the conditions.
One of the main arguments of the opposition was that used car lots were prohibited at a rezoning request in 2012 and should continue to be prohibited.
The City Council didn’t agree.
