Planning Board Meeting

Meeting recap

What happened, drawn from the records published after the meeting. Minutes

The board recommended approval of every item, each unanimously and each 6-0 with four of ten members absent, and elected an acting chair for the evening because the chair was among them.

The larger rezoning was Ashburn, about 15.3 acres at Mount Zion Church Road going from rural residential to a planned unit development. The applicant extended three existing streets and added two more stubs, and placed townhouses and alley-loaded single family to mirror what already surrounds the site. A neighbour asked for fewer houses and more buffer, describing children walking to a bus stop along the street and traffic backing up to the traffic circle from two schools; her side of the site has a 15-foot green strip while the boundary with Buckhorn Preserve gets more. Board members asked about grading, since the site rises and the stub from Buckhorn Preserve is the sharpest change, and about whether stormwater would be directed to prevent erosion on neighbouring land. A separate motion approved realigning the minor collector along Mount Zion and Hammocks Beach into a safer T-intersection, with a roundabout to keep the collector continuous, without changing its capacity or classification.

The other rezoning takes 6.22 acres at 1201 Chapel Ridge Road from rural residential to planned commercial for Jordan Lutheran Church, which plans to build only the sanctuary for now. A board member questioned the twenty other uses written into the request, some of which could be intrusive to neighbours, and asked how assembly halls are handled. Staff explained that the uses were the applicant's own and were included so the site could be sold or repurposed without a fresh rezoning if the church never builds, that an assembly hall could host a for-profit concert, that there is no square footage cap because the limit comes through parking, and that an assembly hall would have been permitted under the existing rural residential zoning anyway. A daycare would require its own neighbourhood meeting. The member said that answered his concern.

The board also amended the bicycle and pedestrian system map for New Hill Olive Chapel Road, amended the thoroughfare and collector street map for the Ashburn case, and recommended a set of development ordinance amendments including one defining ultimate right-of-way, the space a road would need if fully expanded later, which avoids problems such as driveways being left too short. Staff noted the town's transportation prioritisation study was out for public comment through 3 August.

How the votes went

Seven unanimous 6-0 votes with four members absent: electing an acting chair, approving the June minutes, two transportation plan amendments, the minor collector realignment and roundabout, the Ashburn rezoning, the Jordan Lutheran Church rezoning, and the development ordinance amendments.

From the published minutes.

Who spoke

2 members of the public spoke.

1. The applicant's agent said the road network had driven the design: three existing streets extended and two more stubs added, with townhouses and alley-loaded single family placed to match the pattern of the newer development around it, which he offered as the reason staff supported the plan.
2. A resident of Hammocks Beach Trail said she was not trying to stop the development but wanted fewer houses and a wider green buffer. She described children and parents walking to the bus stop in a daily procession along the street, traffic already backing up to the traffic circle from both the junior high and the high school on a delayed opening, and 15 feet of buffer on her side against a wider o…

Two people spoke, both on the Ashburn rezoning: the applicant's agent and a neighbour on Hammocks Beach Trail who asked for fewer houses and a wider buffer on traffic and pedestrian safety grounds. Nobody spoke on the other items or in general public comment.

Read from the records the government published after the meeting. Members of the public are private residents and are not named or indexed.