Sometimes plans can be deceiving and that is the case with the Greensboro Planning Department “Staff Report” for the rezoning request by the Koury Corporation for 23.3 acres on West Cone Boulevard.
The proposal by Koury is to build up to 531 apartments on the site that is currently zoned single-family residential. The rezoning request is on the agenda for the Monday, Oct. 19 meeting of the Greensboro Zoning Commission.
The Traffic Impact Study (TIS) by Davenport, a traffic engineering firm, attached to the Planning Department staff report includes a map of the area and the improvements recommended to handle the increased traffic of 531 apartment units proposed for the site.
The map also illustrates changes to the intersection of Cone and Cleburne Street, which would not allow vehicles to turn left on to Cone from Cleburne. According to the diagram, vehicles would only be allowed to turn right on to Cone and drivers who wanted to travel west on Cone from Cleburne would be directed to turn right, travel east to the Marston Road intersection and make a U-turn.
According to Greensboro Department of Transportation (GDOT) Engineering Manager Chris Spencer, GDOT requested that Davenport, when doing the Traffic Impact Study for the Koury Corporation, include an analysis of making Cleburne a “right only” intersection.
Spencer said, “It’s not really related to the rezoning.”
And he added, “We don’t have any immediate plans to do that.”
Spencer said that GDOT had been looking at possible improvements to the Cleburne-Cone intersection and requested Davenport include the analysis since they were doing a traffic impact study on the area. The city requires developers to have a traffic impact study done when the estimated increase in traffic from a proposed development exceeds certain minimum standards.
Spencer said that if the city were considering making Cleburne and Cone a right-only intersection that there would be more study and outreach to the neighborhood.
The changes that are recommended by the Traffic Impact Study related to the Koury rezoning request are that one of the entrances to the development include a connector road across the Cone median to allow vehicles leaving the development to turn west on to Cone and to allow drivers traveling west on Cone to enter the development. It also recommends that left turn lanes be added to for both eastbound and westbound traffic to access this proposed connector road.
Spenser said that the city would also require a right turn lane into the development be added along Cone.
