WILMINGTON — A long and skinny strip of single-family homes could be en route to a sliver of land off South College Road, pending a conditional rezoning request that has been proposed in New Hanover County.
Preliminary site plans for the proposed subdivision, Jasmine South, show a single row of 40 homes placed on a strip of land approximately 0.3 miles long. Per the Wilmington Business Journal, the developer intends “to provide affordable homes for the community.”
The last transaction for these parcels — which run parallel to Jasmine Cove Way on the west side of S. College — took place in March 2020, a sale for $525,000. The purchaser in that case was SOCOL, LLC. The applicant for the current rezoning request is River Birch Investments, LLC. The journal reported that Herrington Classic Homes is the force behind the LLC that applied for the rezoning request, which would allow for higher density on the 5-acre parcel.
Between Jasmine South and S. College Road is the Wilmington Korean Baptist Church. More single-family homes and Cedar Cove Assisted Living are situated to the north. At the edge of the proposed development, site plans show a stormwater pond surrounded by open space, and a dog park.
The surrounding area is no stranger to residential sprawl. Just across the street, different developers backed by the Cameron family launched a successful rezoning bid that green-lit the buildout of S. College’s last remaining large chunk of undeveloped land. It was a 64-acre tract, an extension of the Whiskey Branch subdivision. It will be replete with over 400 apartments, 120,000 square feet of retail space and more.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the S. College corridor was zoned for low density housing, but county planning officials and local politicians have encouraged more density in the area amid the commercial and residential growth in the Monkey Junction locale.
The developer intends to host an online information meeting for nearby property owners, the link to which can be found online. The application will go before the planning board, likely in August, prior to a public hearing before the board of commissioners.
At the next meeting of the New Hanover County Planning Board, scheduled for July 8, two residential projects will be up for debate: Hanover Reserve will be bisected by the under-construction Military Cutoff Road extension and an apartment project in Scotts Hill will be presented.
Also in Scotts Hill, New Hanover Regional Medical Center will present its bid to rezone a large tract in order to build a new hospital. Further, the planning board will consider an application for a 130-foot “monopole antenna wireless communication facility” on Valley Brook Road, and changes to height ordinances.
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