Planning Board Says No To Development

The High Point Planning and Zoning Commission on Tuesday, Nov. 13, voted 7 to 2 to unfavorably recommend to the High Point City Council a request to rezone 431 acres for a business park north of High Point.

The business park would be on land assembled by developer D.H. Griffin and would be the largest business development annexed into High Point since Piedmont Centre was built in the 1980s.

Exactly why the commission rejected the rezoning is unclear, but the High Point Planning and Development Department reported to the commission that a traffic-impact study for the development was not submitted in time to be properly reviewed by the commission meeting, and numerous residents of the area in question, which is north of High Point and south of I-40, spoke against he rezoning request.

Planning and Zoning Chairman Andrew Putnam and Commissioners John McKenzie, Cynthia Davis, Andrew Putnam, Martha Shepherd, Marie Stone and Carson Lomax voted to recommend the zoning request unfavorably to the City Council, which will consider the applicants' zoning request, development plan and annexation request on Monday, Nov. 19. Commissioners Mark Walsh and Jim Davis, who will be sworn in as District 5 city councilmember on Dec. 3, voted against the unfavorable recommendation.

The land, assembled by D.H. Griffin and containing land owned by one of his holding companies, 350 South Land Holdings LLC, also contained parcels owned by Bland Property Investments and the Hedgecock family.

The 431 acres lie south of I-40, west of Sandy Ridge, north of Boylston Road and east of Bunker Hill Road. In October 2010, Guilford County Schools tried to buy more than 100 acres of the land for its ill-fated airport area high school, but gave up on the site after opposition from High Point, which would have to have provided water and sewer to the property.

The land is outside the High Point city limits in unincorporated Guilford County. However, it is in what High Point considers its planning area because it has negotiated annexation agreements that will make the land part of High Point eventually. And any large developments in the area between the High Point city limits and I-40 will have to be voluntarily annexed into High Point to get High Point water and sewer.

Griffin's holding company requested that the land be rezoned from the Guilford County agricultural and light industrial zoning to a High Point planned use development-mixed district (PDM).

Griffin proposes splitting the PDM zoning district into two large phases. Phase I, the southeastern 155 acres, mostly south and east of Adkins Road, would be used for uses allowed in High Point light industrial (LI), corporate park (CP) and agricultural (AG) zoning districts.

The larger Phase II contains the northwestern 276 acres, mostly north and west of Adkins Road. Those 276 acres would be parked with an agricultural zoning until roads and power lines are extended to allow light industrial and corporate park uses. Some planning and zoning commissioners said it would take years, perhaps even a decade or two, for Phase II to be finished.

It's hard to imagine Griffin shifting from trying to sell some of the land to Guilford County Schools to having it rezoned for a mixed-use business park unless he had one or more anchor tenants.

Griffin and 350 South Land Holdings were represented by attorney Tom Terrell of Smith Moore Leatherwood LLP. Terrell said, "There are companies that I can't disclose that we're in conversation with."

Cynthia Davis asked High Point planner Herb Shannon if the owners could bank the 276 acres for Phase II without having it rezoned.

Shannon replied that the holding company is also asking that the property be annexed, so some zoning has to be placed on the land.

High Point Planning and Development Director Lee Burnette said the land would be marked "PUD" on zoning maps if it was annexed, but that the PUD zoning for Phase II would allow only agricultural uses until Phase II was rezoned.

Terrell said the land is ideally situated for business and industrial uses, for which High Point has it earmarked in its land use plan, because it is near I-40, near Piedmont Triad International Airport and close to all cities in the triad. He said that common ownership of the land would prevent piecemeal development.

Terrell said, "What this does is to turn on the green light for 350 Holdings to begin marketing this land to companies all over the world."

Several speakers, however, said the rezoning request was being rushed through without enough participation by neighbors, or was ill considered.

Todd Smith, who lives on Boylston Road in Colfax, said there weren't enough signs or mailings to notify neighbors and that he bought his house because it was in a rural setting, which he said the office park would disrupt.

Smith said the development would overload roads in the area and argued that it was unnecessary.

Smith said, "I don't know why this is being pushed when there are other industrial parks that have failed to develop." He cited the Triad Business Park in the part of western Guilford County that has been annexed into Kernersville as an example. The Triad Business Park is home to a FedEx sorting facility but is largely undeveloped otherwise.

Ironically, Triad Business Park was the second place that Guilford County Schools tried to buy land. It was rejected by Kernersville for the same reason High Point didn't want a school on the 350 South Land Holdings properties – because schools are not taxed and all jurisdictions that have land near I-40 or the airport want it used for high tax value industrial and office uses.

The land Guilford County Schools wanted to buy in Kernersville was owned by another holding company: TDO Land Holding LLC, whose principals are Arthur Samet of Samet Corp., David H. Griffin of D.H. Griffin Construction in Greensboro and Grover Shugart Jr. of Shugart Enterprises of Winston-Salem.

Griffin and Samet have banked much of the land near I-40 in Guilford County under various holding companies in expectation of developing them as industrial or office business uses as the economy recovers.

James S. Hedgecock, an owner of one of the properties involved, agreed – as did Terrell – that there are traffic problems in the area and that improvements would have to be made before the land could be fully developed.

Hedgecock farms a 161-acre piece of land bought in 1950, which he described as "a little bit of heaven."

"The fact is that progress is going to come," Hedgecock said. "And I've seen a lot of rape-and-pillage developers in my time. My family really blistered me out for considering selling this piece of property."

Hedgecock said Griffin wasn't such a developer, and would be conscientious about the land.

"When Mr. Griffin says he has several people who are interested in looking at this property, I know that's correct," Hedgecock said. "He's one of the most open people I've ever seen."

Most of the speakers opposed the rezoning request, however.

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William Gansman told the commissioners that traffic problems should be resolved before the rezoning request was granted.

"It's not a business park," he said. "It's a business trail. I'm invigorated. The City of High Point has come up and said, 'Hey, there's a traffic problem here.' Phase I has a gorge going through it and no real access except Joe Drive. If they're going to have access to Sandy Ridge, they should own some property on it."

The City Council, which has been trying to attract industry and offices to the area south of I-40, may be less particular on Nov. 19. Its consideration of the various clearances for the development will be one of the last actions of the current City Council. An almost-new City Council elected on Nov. 6 will be sworn in Dec. 3.