---

When Lincoln County Commissioners hold their mid-monthly meeting Monday night (March 18th), they will likely approve two rezoning requests for which public hearings were held at their March 4th joint session with the County Planning Board.

The Planning Board makes recommendations on all but quasi-judicial matters and Commissioners can follow their recommendations or decide differently.

Two of the three items heard at the March 4th meeting received 8-0 approval from the Planning Board; but the third, the only one to draw much public comment, got an 8-0 'thumbs down' from the Planning Board.  The applicant, D.R. Horton, has withdrawn the application.  That means that it can be changed or resubmitted at a later date.

The property for which the rezoning was requested (from Transitional Residential to Planned Development Residential) is located on the north side of NC73 and the west side of Ingleside Farm Road.  If developed for single family homes, it would support 26-28 homes.  The applicant proposed constructing 176 townhomes there.

Originally, the plan would have involved apartments, but that was changed.  While apartments would provide a more reasonable cost of housing, there has recently--in this area and many others--been considerable backlash against apartments by most current residents who seem to have the attitude, "I got mine; now you go elsewhere!"  

The property currently belongs to the Clark family, the original owners of Ingleside, who--as attorney Rob Brown pointed out at the public hearing--have made major contributions in land and otherwise to eastern Lincoln County.  Because of their opposition to almost any kind of additional development in the area, many Facebook users' opinion about the proposed project became the impetus for unduly criticising  the family.    

This reporter finds it somewhat puzzling and most unfair that many of those who spoke in hearty opposition to the proposal at the hearing now live in the nearby development called The Farm, which came into existence only because the Clarks sold the land making that development possible.  

A part of the proposal would have provided land near East Lincoln High School as a gift to the County for a new East Lincoln Library.  The good news is that even while withdrawing the current development proposal, the Clarks are still willing to provide that land for the library. 

---

---