A new residential development was approved on first reading Tuesday night by the Red Bank Commission for property in the 1800 block of Pine Breeze Road. The original zoning was for single-family homes, but the property had been rezoned for townhomes several years ago. That project had been tabled. The owner, George Back, has now partnered with John Coffett and Jonathan Bailey, who developed The Cottages in Ashmore to build a Planned Unit Development on the property.
A PUD requires R-3 high density residential zero lot line zoning. Although R-3 would allow apartments, that is not the intent of the developers, it was stated.
The proposed plan would have three housing types - all owner occupied. The preliminary layout consists of four townhome units, each having three or four individual, attached townhouses. There would be nine small single-family houses on the small lots and seven larger homes on larger lots. The development has been modeled after North Point Ridge, said Mr. Coffett. The townhomes would range from 1,600 to 2,200 square feet. The size of the smaller houses would be about 1,600 square feet and the larger ones from 1,800 to 2,400 square feet.
The zoning change was approved with conditions that the property can only be used for a PUD development and that there will be a maximum of 29 units. The site must be developed in three years or the zoning will revert back to RT-1, and there is verbiage that eliminates apartments.
Red Bank has a city code that prohibits pole signs. No new ones can be built and the goal is to eventually eliminate the existing ones. A complication of the ordinance is that new businesses that have moved into locations with an existing pole sign, have not been able to get a permit to use the old sign. An ordinance which passed on final reading Tuesday night placed a moratorium of enforcement of the sign ordinance in relation to pole signs, until the city finds a good method to eliminate them.
The final reading of another ordinance which would place a moratorium upon and suspend the Red Bank design review ordinance for a stated period of time, was tabled until the first commission meeting in January 2020.
A resolution was passed by the commission that authorizes an agreement between the city and the Financial Commission for Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas, for a grant totaling $18,000. The money received from this 100 percent grant will be used for reimbursement of overtime expenses for the police department.