By Richard Sullins | richard@rantnc.com

Contrary to what many people think, getting a proposal for new housing developments approved by the Sanford City Council isn’t a cake walk. After a developer submits a proposal and pays the required application fees, there’s a review by a group of experts known as the Technical Review Committee to assure commercial projects and major subdivisions comply with the city and county’s codes for construction and development.

The property must then be rezoned according to what the developer wants to put there, and that’s a two-step process in front of the council. In most cases, developers have their projects thoroughly worked through and they’re approved by the council, in a few cases with modifications that the council imposes.

But recently, there have been instances where the council refused to approve a handful of proposals because it didn’t think those projects were in the best interests of the city. In April of 2023, for example, the council voted down a plan for a 600-single family development submitted by D.R. Horton Builders called Gum Fork that would have been situated at the intersection of U.S. 1 and Colon Road across from the city’s new fire station that is now under construction.

Horton had failed repeatedly to address concerns the council had raised about the project across the space of several meetings, but perhaps more importantly, it had not listened to the city’s leadership when they explained their priority of creating communities and subdivisions that consist of a variety of housing types and representing the income levels of all its 33,000 residents.

It was a different set of circumstances April 16, when another developer, TMTLA Associates (Tony M. Tate Landscape Architecture) of Durham, brought three separate projects that would create a total of 212 townhomes to the council for a public hearing. One of the projects, a 9.11-acre lot along Harkey Road to be known as South Harkey Towns and containing 60 townhomes, sailed through its public hearing with no questions or objections raised.

A second community of 12.71 acres just across the road from South Harkey Towns, one which would be called North Harkey Towns, would be developed as an 83-unit townhome community, along with one single-family detached home for use of the caretaker.

Arnando Leak, a Sanford resident who has lived next door to the proposed North Harkey Towns project for the past 42 years, was the only person to speak against the proposed development. An earthen berm has given him privacy from the lots to the south that will make up the North Harkey Towns project, but conceptual drawings made by TMTLA Associates indicate that the berm will have to come down in order to make way for a required settlement pond.

Rob Bailey, a developer/builder with R&R Development Group in Raleigh who spoke on behalf of TMTLA, said that the company has offered to put in a 6-foot privacy fence and to deed him a small section of property that would assist Leak in his driveway access. Neither of these two options has been acceptable to Leak, who continued to insist during the public hearing that Bailey find a way to keep the berm in place.

“I can’t just stand back and not say things that I feel. These things can’t be explained by words. You have to come and stand in my yard to see what I’m talking about,” he said. “I’m not trying to speak against their project, but something’s got to give for me.

For his part, Bailey seemed to be exasperated. He has met with Leak twice before and told the council they continue to have an ongoing conversation, but there was little hint of any progress between the two. City Councilman Mark Akinosho urged Bailey to continue those discussions with Leak in order to reach a compromise.

Third one wasn’t the charm

But it was a third TMTLA project that brought the most controversy. Specifically, it is a proposal is for a 69-unit townhomes development to be known as Keller-Andrews Towns located between 3310 and 3314 Keller Andrews Road, placing it adjacent to Lee Christian School and right-of-way for the northbound lanes of U.S. 1 near Tramway.

The property is owned by Jeffrey T. Miles. Bailey is the developer/builder for the Keller-Andrews Towns, as with the two previous projects.

Andrew Ricabal, head of the private school, said that addition of nearly 70 new housing units would greatly increase traffic on the narrow rural road that was not designed to carry the large number of cars it is already seeing. There is no paved shoulder for cars to ease over onto, making an already difficult situation even more problematic for the 400 or more parents or grandparents who come to the school to drop off or pick up family members.

Ricabal said the heaviest traffic times of the day started around 1 p.m., when a line of cars would develop that stretched back to Carthage Street, forcing vehicles not in the school traffic line to go into the left lane around the traffic, creating the potential for a serious head-on collision. Traffic that heavy could potentially make it impossible for emergency vehicles to reach the school, or the development, in the event of an emergency situation. It was a story that would be repeated later by other speakers during the hearing.

“This property is closely situated to a school, and there could be a time when a disreputable person could be living there,” he added. “There is not a large buffer area between the two, and it raises security concerns.”

He alluded to the prospect that a convicted sex offender might choose to purchase a townhome and live there at some future point, always a possibility with any land purchase these days. The question is whether the community wants to run such a risk by placing a housing development adjacent to a school campus.

The Rev. Bruce McInnes, Chairman of the Board of Directors at the school, had other concerns he wanted to bring to the council’s attention.

“I am not pleased to hear about this development,” he said. “I see residences going up. This one here – why does it have to go up? How much building are we going to do, and do we have to keep doing it?”

George Blanchard, a Richmond Drive resident who picks up his grandchild every day from the school, also has concerns about who might move into the development once it is completed.

“I don’t like the situation,” he said. “But our school was there originally. This property will be right on our front door step and as a grandparent, it makes me very uncomfortable about what type of person may live there.”

Several people living in a housing development on the other side of the school, Savannah, complained that they did not receive notices of the community meeting held by the developer to answer questions about the planned use of the property. But Zoning Administrator Amy McNeill explained that the city’s zoning ordinances require that those notices be sent only to those property owners whose land directly adjoins that of the project being considered.

Councilman Charles Taylor asked Bailey whether his company had considered the possible use of “right-turn only” egress options for the development, something he said is being increasingly used across the state to reduce traffic congestion in high-traffic areas that surround places like schools seeing large numbers of vehicles clogging up the roadways at regular times of day. Bailey said that he hadn’t considered such an option but thought it might be worth talking about with the Department of Transportation.

Moved by the large numbers of people who spoke passionately about the traffic concerns on Keller-Andrews Road, especially as students are dropped off and picked up at regular times each day, Bailey asked the council to table the hearing until he could have a chance to observe those traffic patterns firsthand, and have an opportunity to talk with DOT about ways of possibly addressing the concerns of those who live in the area and those who drive daily to transport children and grandchildren. His request was granted and the council will take up the matter again on May 23.