7 Lakes North, South cast vote for change - Seven Lakes Times

10 Seven Lakes Times March 21, 2008 AREA A
Board approves 300-home PUD near 7 Lakes
by Laura Douglass
Times Reporter
A 316-home, 131-acre PUD
that backs up to Seven Lakes
North cleared the Planning Board
Thursday night and now awaits
approval by the Moore County
Board of Commissioners.
Southwick and Northington,
two subdivisions along Holly
Grove School Road proposed
by Northsider Bill Beardslee,
were recommended for rezoning
by the Moore County Planning
Board during their March 6 meeting.
The projects will be placed
on the Board of Commissioners
April 21 meeting agenda for
preliminary approval. Beardslee’s
application requested a
zoning change from the current
Residential-Agricultural [RA]
designation to Planned Unit
Development – Rural [PUD-R] for
the 131-acre site. During an
intense two-hour meeting, he
responded to wide-ranging concerns
from both board members
and citizens related to potential
negative impacts on water,
schools, and traffic, and most
significantly, the design and
operation of the proposed on-site
tertiary sewage treatment plant.
Acknowledging that his proposal
is the first to seek approval
under the county’s newly developed
PUD regulations, Beardslee
said, “We not only meet the letter
of the ordinance but also the
intent.” The project has been
mothballed since last year, when
a de-facto subdivision moratorium
went into effect for Small Planning
Area A.
Beardslee also presented a
proposed 425-unit subdivision in
the western portion of the county,
near Cameron, and was granted
approval for a zoning change
from RA to PUD-Rural.The Cambridge
project sits on a 213-acre
tract and includes single family
detached homes, and three distinct
styles of town homes. This
development also includes an onsite
tertiary sewage treatment
plant.
Planning Board Chair Nancy
Roy Fiorillo and members of the
Planning Board seemed to be in
agreement that Beardslee’s
designs were well-executed and
reflected the conservation-style
goals sought by the new regulations.
The only “speed bump,”
as Fiorillo called it, was concerns
over the function, maintenance,
and technology of the
sewer package plants.
A single, privately-owned
sewage treatment plant, enclosed
in a self-contained building,
rather than a system of individual
septic fields, would not,
according to Beardslee, emit
offensive odor. Explaining how the
enclosure, underground piping,
and air scrubbers all work to
eliminate odor, he described to
the board a previous project
developed with houses positioned
within 150 feet of the
plant. “There has never been a
complaint,” said Beardslee.
Each tertiary sewage plant is
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$1 million. The effluent water
produced by the system will be
reused within the development
for irrigation purposes -- decreasing
the burden on the county’s
water system.
Addressing a related concern,
Beardslee said the plant is
designed with a standby power
system that will automatically
power the plant in the event of a
failure of the local power grid. If
a power failure causes it to kick
in, the backup system will also
alert the state-required site superintendent
and can, if necessary,
notify local police, fire, or rescue
personnel. Beardslee said it was
very rare for a plant to be “down,”
for more than a few hours but
explained that there is a certain
level of redundancy and
storage in the system. If a power
failure exceeded backup capacities,
the final failsafe is a standard
septic bed.
Beardslee said in his thirtyfive
years of experience with
these package plants, there has
never been a catastrophic failure.
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Association [SLLA] Director
Donna Stephan asked whether
excessive noise from the backup
propane generators would
be a problem. Beardslee
responded that the plant structure,
positioned on the far side
of Holly Grove School Road,
would deflect noise. Planning
staff also suggested that a
silencer around the generators
could be added to their list of recommendations.
This list of recommendations,
approved by the Planning Board,
included a first-time-ever requirement
for a developer to provide
an extensive, privately-funded
engineering study to determine
if the county’s existing public
utilities water system has the
necessary capacity to serve the
subdivision. Other requirements
included a stipulation that the
development’s Private Property
Owners [PPO] association must
operate and maintain the facility
under state guidelines, if the
county elects not to manage
the plant -- which is the option
Beardslee recommended. The
rezoning approval also is contingent
upon the developer receiving
all permits -- a process likely
to take, according to Beardslee,
at least a year.
The development plan, as presented
to the Planning Board, did
not address the impact on
already-crowded local schools.
Planning board member Dave
Kinney of Seven Lakes South, in
particular, expressed concern
that schools were not addressed.
Beardslee responded that he
expected approximately twenty-five
school-aged children
would reside at Northington.The
other subdivision, Southwick,
the parcel located closest to
Seven Lakes North, is proposed
as an age-restricted development
and would have no impact
on school enrollment.
Except for concerns over
schools and the sewage treatment
plant, Kinney said, the
plan translated the new ordinances
very well. “This is not
only the first [subdivision under
the new code] but may be the
best,” said Kinney.
Board member Kim Von-
(See“Holly Grove,”p. 12)
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