Rezoning request returns: Council to consider matter a second time

Published 1:41 pm Saturday, January 24, 2015

Washington’s City Council, during its meeting Monday, will again consider a rezoning request, a request that failed to get the required super majority at the council’s Jan. 12 meeting.

For the request to be approved at Monday’s meeting, only a simple majority is needed.

On its first reading, the request failed to win approval after a 3-2 vote by the council, with Mayor Mac Hodges breaking the tie. Although Hodges and council members Richard Brooks and Larry Beeman voted for approval, a super majority of the votes cast was needed to approve the request after its first reading. Voting against approval were council members Doug Mercer and William Pitt.

Councilman Bobby Roberson, a real-estate agent, was excused from voting because of a possible conflict of interest.

The Planning Board discussed the request to change the zoning classification from residential (R9-S) to office and institutional in December and unanimously voted to recommends its approval. The council has final say on changing zoning classifications in the city.

Robert M. Leggett and Belinda Gail Leggett of Greenville submitted the application for the rezoning, according to a city document.

Robert Leggett spoke briefly during the Jan. 12 meeting, saying the group he represents wants to build a child-care facility on part of the property what is near Washington High School. That facility would be accessed from Slatestone Road, according to Leggett. The group plans to buy the property from Fortescue Investment Group, which is based in Washington.

Some residents who live adjacent to the property in question oppose the request. They contend the O&I classification allows uses that are not compatible with the adjacent residential area.

One of the possible uses in an O&I zone is multi-family dwellings, opponents said, indicating such use would not be compatible with the single-family dwellings already in the area. They also expressed concern that other permitted uses such as banks and restaurants would not be compatible with the adjacent residences.

Mercer said the some of the land uses allowed in in O&I zones worries him somewhat, noting some of those uses might not be compatible next to a residential area.

The council meets at 5:30 p.m. Monday in the Council Chambers in the Municipal Building, 102 E. Second St. To view the council’s agenda for a specific meeting, visit the city’s web­site at www.washingtonnc.gov, click “Government” then “City Council” heading, then click “Meeting Agendas” on the menu to the right. Then click on the date for the appropriate agenda.

 

About Mike Voss

Mike Voss is the contributing editor at the Washington Daily News. He has a daughter and four grandchildren. Except for nearly six years he worked at the Free Lance-Star in Fredericksburg, Va., in the early to mid-1990s, he has been at the Daily News since April 1986.
Journalism awards:
• Pulitzer Prize for Meritorious Public Service, 1990.
• Society of Professional Journalists: Sigma Delta Chi Award, Bronze Medallion.
• Associated Press Managing Editors’ Public Service Award.
• Investigative Reporters & Editors’ Award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Public Service Award, 1989.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Investigative Reporting, 1990.
All those were for the articles he and Betty Gray wrote about the city’s contaminated water system in 1989-1990.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Investigative Reporting, 1991.
• North Carolina Press Association, Third Place, General News Reporting, 2005.
• North Carolina Press Association, Second Place, Lighter Columns, 2006.
Recently learned he will receive another award.
• North Carolina Press Association, First Place, Lighter Columns, 2010.
4. Lectured at or served on seminar panels at journalism schools at UNC-Chapel Hill, University of Maryland, Columbia University, Mary Washington University and Francis Marion University.

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