Orange County board gets major road change in RTLP development plan for Hillsborough
The Orange County commissioners talked for over three hours Tuesday about a 2.3 million-square-foot commercial development near Hillsborough but postponed a decision to Oct. 20.
Research Triangle Logistics Park, slated for the southeastern corner of Old N.C. 86 and Interstate 40, would have twice the square footage of The Streets at Southpoint mall and shopping center.
The commissioners are being asked to approve a master plan and conditional zoning for the project, which the developer said could attract warehouse, light industry and research companies.
If the master plan is approved, county and Hillsborough town staff would review each building plan as it is submitted. County staff would decide whether to approve a building based on the master plan and zoning.
Development officials with Terra Equity Inc. have said the $150 million project could generate up to 1,500 jobs, down from an initial forecast of 4,500 jobs. Terra Equity, a division of Louisville, Kentucky-based Barrister Commercial Group, has not identified any tenants yet, attorney Michael Birch has said.
Barrister CEO Frank Csapo offered some concessions Tuesday during negotiations with the commissioners, including a pledge that only emergency vehicles would have access to a controversial, second driveway on Davis Road.
Instead, all of the site’s traffic would enter and exit using a new traffic light at the Service Road intersection with Old N.C. 86, roughly 500 feet from the I-40 East off-ramp.
The N.C. Department of Transportation recently agreed to that plan after receiving a revised traffic study from the developer, county planning staff said. The plan will drop a traffic light proposed for the intersection of Davis Road and Old N.C. 86.
The concession removed a major roadblock that some commissioners said would prevent them from approving the project. Commissioner Earl McKee thanked the developer for the move.
“I really appreciate that, because that was a no-go for me ... to have any kind of delivery traffic out on Davis Road, and I know you all worked very hard with DOT to accommodate that,” he said.
Height, green buffers
However, the board continued to wrestle with other details of the plan, including how tall a building still planned for Davis Road should be and the size of a landscaped buffer between the project and surrounding homes.
While three of the proposed buildings could be up to 60 feet tall, a revised plan appeared to reduce the height of a fourth building on Davis Road to about 40 feet. However, it was unclear how the steeply sloped site, once leveled, could affect the building’s perceived height relative to surrounding homes and a church across the street.
Commissioner Sally Greene said she envisions the Davis Road parcel as transitional with suburban office construction. Even “40 feet is too tall for what I consider a transitional area,” she said.
“I would also want to see some provision around that building that it be stepped back at a certain point, if it is going to be over three stories, so that it has some character to it, and it’s not just some monolithic thing coming up out of Davis Road and what is otherwise a rural landscape,” Greene said.
The developer also will work with planning staff to bring back a better plan for landscaping and buffers. The Settler’s Point commercial development approved for the site in 2018 offered denser landscaping and a larger, 125-foot buffer. Settler’s Point has stalled and will not move forward if RTLP is approved.
Tradeoffs, like reduced parking or a taller building at the back of the site, could allow for more landscaping at RTLP, Commissioner Mark Dorosin told Csapo.
“I think we need to be as creative as we can,” he said.
Neighbor, board concerns
How the project could affect Davis Road’s rural and residential character has been a chief concern for neighbors and board members. The commissioners held two public hearings in September, but did not hear from the public Tuesday.
Residents from across the county, along with the Eno River Association and the Orange-Chatham Group of the Sierra Club, have joined neighbors to oppose the project. A group of neighbors also hired an attorney in anticipation of a court challenge.
They’re not opposed to the right development, RTLP critics have said, but they do have concerns about its potential tenants, the project’s size, the traffic, and whether it could increase stormwater runoff and light, noise and air pollution.
There are also concerns about critical natural areas on the land and surrounding it, including an Eno River headwaters tributary and a state Natural Heritage Area.
The developer agreed to a number of stipulations designed to address those issues. Commissioner Mark Marcoplos asked staff to provide more information about the natural areas at the next meeting.
The county has planned for the last 40 years to develop the land, most of which lies in the 637-acre Hillsborough Economic Development District. UNC Hospitals Hillsborough Campus and the Waterstone neighborhood are about a mile north.
On Tuesday, the commissioners added 89 acres to the district, including the 12-acre Davis Road lot, bringing it to the edge of the county’s rural buffer — roughly 37,000 acres where dense development and public utilities are banned.
The expansion had been in the works for years and was initially unrelated to the RTLP proposal, planning staff said. Hillsborough officials approved the district’s expansion in 2018.
