SOUTHPORT — With North Carolina Department of Transportation road work, a nearby business, and local response in mind, the Southport planning board decided to table discussion regarding a 100-home gated community to next month.
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The board voted unanimously to revisit the rezoning application for potential construction of Turtle Bay, a gated community intended for older residents. Property owners Bob Weinbach and Terry Ando applied to rezone 54.09 acres from heavy commercial (R-20) to planned unit development (PUD).
The proposal includes bringing single-family homes with a density of 1.85 dwelling units per acre, under maximum density of six dwelling units per acre; there is 10.88 acres planned for open space. Turtle Bay is to be bordered by Highway 87, with an entrance located off the highway.
The plans were presented to the board by Jackson Starling of East Coast Engineering.
“This community is supposed to be geared more toward the retirement community,” Starling said, “so we’re not doing the pools, the tennis courts, we’re looking more towards the active leisure, the trail system, the gazebos, the lookout points.”
Hodgin said the plans met the unified development ordinance requirements: “All the boxes are checked.”
“We agree open space is what we’re after, and as we look at growth, in the town, so their open space meets our requirement for contiguous area,” Hodgin said. “It allows for walking paths and a park in the community, and I think connectivity and a sense of neighborhood is part of out goals as well.”
Weinbach and Ando filed the master development plan coupled with a staff request to amend the land use map and designate the property as low-use residential rather than heavy commercial.
Two members of the board bogarted the discussion with concerns over the NCDOT’s highway widening project.
NCDOT is undergoing a widening project for seven miles of state Highway 211 from two lanes to four-lanes. It began in February 2022 and is set to conclude in summer 2027. Turtle Bay would directly abut properties on Highway 211.
The road widening will add a lane on River Road between Jabbertown Road and Rob Gandy Boulevard and another right lane at the intersection of North Howe Street and River Road.
Roy Pender and Donnie Joyner said the proposed development would make it more difficult to turn into an Ace Hardware, roughly 0.6 miles away, located near the intersection of River Road Southeast and Jabbertown Road, the latter of which would be right-turn only under the new plans.
“So that’s something outside this presentation that needs to be looked at,” Pender said, “That would mean if I went to Ace Hardware I could get in, but I couldn’t get out, except going up 87. And that’s just some, DOT needs to be a little more sensitive to the needs of the community.”
According to City Planner Mo Meehan a traffic impact analysis was conducted. The development will bring 1,009 daily trips, 74 trips in the morning and 99 trips during evening peaks.
Pender expressed his dismay the increase in population the 100-home Turtle Bay could bring to Southport.
“I’m sorry to see another hundred families coming to Southport, but that’s just the way it has to be,” Pender said.
Hodgin made a motion to approve the PUD application rezoning to go to before the board of alderman; however, no one seconded her motion and instead it was met with dead silence.
“Folks we need a motion one way or the other,” she followed up.
Joyner suggested revisiting the plan at the next planning board meeting.
“Can give us a little time to look at everything because like I said I don’t think Ace Hardware is gonna be too happy with this,” Joyner.
He also wanted to examine more closely how Jabbertown Road would only be right turns after NCDOT’s road work.
Scott Jones later made the successful motion to table the PUD application for additional consideration or staff comments, to return in March.
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