The rezoning request for the 2.3 acre tract on the corner of Lawndale Drive and Lake Jeanette Road on the Greensboro City Council agenda for Tuesday, Feb. 18 was continued to Tuesday, March 17, but not without some additional rancor between the developer and the neighborhood.
The other contested rezoning request, for 389 Fairystone Dr., turned into a battle between Councilmember Sharon Hightower and the rest of the City Council and was approved on an 8-1 vote.
Marsh Prause, the attorney representing Kotis Properties in the Lawndale and Lake Jeanette rezoning, told the City Council that he had been sandbagged by the neighborhood. He said, “The developer wants the extra time to bring something to the council that would be in the best interest of everyone here.” He said he thought the neighborhood agreed to the request for continuance, only to find out at the council meeting that the neighborhood was opposing it.
Aaron Terranova, the president of the Lawndale Lake Jeanette neighborhood association, said that the neighborhood just wanted to get the rezoning request voted on and hopefully voted down. He said he didn’t intend to give Prause the impression that the neighborhood was in favor of a continuance.
Councilmember Tammi Thurm said, “From time to time we tell developers you need to try and work something out. I say that to the neighbors, you need to try to work something out.”
City Councilmember Justin Outling said he generally opposed continuances unless both sides agreed. Councilmembers Michelle Kennedy and Hightower agreed with him and the vote to approve the continuance passed on a 6-3 vote.
In the Fairystone rezoning case, the property owner, Demetrios Dascalakis, was represented by attorney Henry Isaacson, who went through the history of the case with the request for multifamily zoning withdrawn and the new request for Residential Single Family R-5 being much more in line with what the neighborhood requested. He also noted that, because of a pond, stream, Duke Energy right-of-way and the topography, that only about 45 percent of the 18-acre tract was buildable.
Outling noted that all the impediments to development made the R5 rezoning request essentially an R-3, which is what the neighbors had requested.
Even, Denise Washington, who spoke for the neighborhood, didn’t seem that opposed to the R-5 rezoning request. She stated that the neighborhood would prefer an R-3, which is what the homes in Bethany Woods were zoned.
Hightower remained adamantly opposed to any rezoning and at one point it appeared she might have decided to filibuster.
