Rezoning requests made: Planning Board recommends City Council approve changes

Published 1:27 am Sunday, April 12, 2015

The public will have a chance to provide input on a request to change the zoning classification of 3.47 acres on 15th Street Extension from a residential classification to a business classification.

The Washington City Council is scheduled to conduct a public hearing on the issue during its meeting Monday. Granville Lilley, owner of the property, made the request. The Planning Board, after discussing the request, recommends the council change the zoning classification from RA-20 (residential agriculture) to B-2 (general business). The property is adjacent to the fire station on 15th Street Extension and the Cherry Run shopping center. The Planning Board determined that changing the zoning classification would be consistent with the city’s comprehensive land-use plan.

Property adjacent to part of the 3.47 acres is in the B-2 zoning district, according to a document submitted by Lilley.

The council also is scheduled to consider changing the zoning classification of 6 acres on Whispering Pines Road (adjacent to New Sunrise apartments) from its B-3 (shopping-center) designation to O&I (office and institutional).

The Planning Board discussed the rezoning request filed by Rea Ventures Groups and recommends the council change the zoning classification of the vacant property, determining doing so would be consistent with the city’s comprehensive land-use plan. The property is owned by FF Acquisition LLC, which is based in Eden Prairie, Minn. The 6 acres is part of a 33-acre tract.

Documents associated with the two rezoning requests do not provide specific details concerning proposed uses for the two properties.

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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