It’s Friday, July 26.
The most recognized award in the Triangle is back for 2024 – Orange & Chatham County nominations are live and will end on August 12th! Go now to nominate your favorites!
Good morning, readers.
By now, it’s a familiar story in the Triangle. A valuable piece of land. A property owner motivated to sell. A developer with plans. Residents—neighbors and environmentalists—who don’t support the developer’s plans for the property, even though it’s in keeping with the town’s future vision of building more high density housing.
This time the story is playing out in Wake Forest, a fast-growing suburb located north of Raleigh that has seen its population grow by more than 300 percent since the year 2000.
Raleigh-based developer Church Street Company has plans to build out the wooded parcel located across the street from E. Carroll Joyner Park into a high density housing and commercial mixed use project. But neighbors of the Harris Road property, including environmentalists, have concerns about the impact of the proposed project.
The parties have been seeking a compromise, the developer says. The group will either be granted a rezoning to build its 400-unit proposal—a mix of apartments and townhomes with 20 acres of open space preserved—or it will, by right, build a 40-lot subdivision of single-family homes without preserving any open space.
“Under the current zoning, we can do a subdivision with very expensive homes on large lots,” says Church Street team member George DeLoache. “If the rezoning fails we will do just that. But this doesn’t seem to be the best use of the property.”
In 2022, Wake Forest published a new community plan that outlines its development priorities and includes the creation of more mixed-use, higher density housing options.
But opponents of the project, including environmentalists, want something much less dense, or even total preservation of the property.
The town’s planning commission is considering the latest proposal before it goes to the town’s board of commissioners.
Have a good weekend.
—Jane
Durham
The local coffee chain 321 Coffee will close its downtown Durham location.
Op-ed: Durham’s construction boom is polluting local waterways, Neuse Riverkeeper Samantha Krop writes.
Wake
Raleigh-based duo Fancy Gap—which includes longtime Love Language frontman Staurt McLamb and producer and guitar aficionado Charles Crossingham—release a new album today.
Orange
The iconic Chapel Hill restaurant Mama Dip’s is set to close on August 17.
North Carolina
An audit found that Lt. Gov. Mark Robinson’s family’s nonprofit improperly billed the state of North Carolina for more than $24,000.
Today’s weather
A high of 83 degrees, a chance of storms.
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