The controversial rezoning case of 23 acres along West Cone Boulevard is scheduled to come before the Greensboro Zoning Commission on Monday, Oct. 19.

The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. and this rezoning case is the first case on the agenda, so it should be heard shortly after the meeting starts.

The request from the Koury Corporation is to rezone the 23.3 acres from Residential Single-Family-3 (R-3) and Residential Single-Family-5 (R-5) to Conditional District Residential Multifamily-26 (CD-RM-26). Koury has said the plan is to build an upscale apartment community on the property.

The CD-RM-26 zoning would allow closes to 600 apartments to be built, but the Traffic impact Study was done for 531 apartments, which indicates 531 would be the maximum Koury is considering and that would be a density of about 23 units per acre.

The adjacent neighborhoods have organized in opposition and some of those neighbors have hired Greensboro attorney Don Vaughan, a former member of the Greensboro City Council and a former state senator, to represent them.

Vaughan said, “The primary problems with the development are one the density; two the height; and three the traffic.”

Vaughan said, “It’s simply not a good location for that many units.”

Vaughan noted that the proposed development is surrounded by single-family neighborhoods with thousands of homeowners whose property values would be affected.

He added, “The setbacks are not what they should be.”

He said that Koury had offered some increased buffers but they were not close to what the neighbors wanted to see.

Vaughan said, “It’s mainly about density.” But he added that under the current conditions the height of the buildings was five stories, which was a concern to many of the homeowners, particularly those adjacent to the property.

Vaughan noted that having the meeting held virtually was a big disadvantage to the opponents. He said, “They have been very active and have over 3,000 names on a petition.”

Vaughan said about meeting virtually, “It’s an interesting situation.” He said there was a big difference between having several hundred people fill the Council Chambers for the Zoning Commission meeting and having several hundred people watching a Zoom meeting.