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By offering an alternate traffic plan, developer Bob
Hansen of MHK Ventures, LLC responded quickly to a key
point of contention with neighbors of the proposed Pine
Forest Development, a 1,799-acre major subdivision and
resort that will be located along the busy NC Highway
211 corridor.
On Thursday, October
15, Hansen conducted a second Neighborhood Meeting on
the project and presented a modified traffic circulation
plan that completely eliminated a public access road in
his original proposal that would have connected Archie
Road to NC Highway 73.
Hansen said
he was comfortable working with either traffic plan and
left the final decision up to the community.
A verbal poll of the crowd showed majority support for
the modified plan, which Hansen said he would present to
the Moore County Planning Board for review on Thursday,
November 5.
However, despite the
developer’s best intentions, there is no sign the
existing traffic problems on Archie Road will be solved
anytime soon.
Residents of this
once-quiet, no-outlet street, located midway between
Pinehurst and West End, face complete gridlock twice
each school day when West Pine Middle School fills in
the morning and empties in the afternoon.
Commuters on NC-211 are similarly affected, with traffic
backing up a quarter a mile or more during these same
periods. And the new 500-student West Pine Elementary
School under construction immediately behind and
adjacent to West Pine Middle will only serve to increase
traffic and congestion along this busy stretch.
The NC-211 road widening project proposed by the North
Carolina State Transportation Improvement Plan [NC-STIP]
was initially set to begin in 2005. However, the project
has now been delayed — twice — and is now expected to
commence in 2012.
Hansen’s
modified Pine Forest Development plan calls for a new
traffic light and main entrance on NC-211 approximately
one-quarter mile west of Archie Road. This entrance will
provide access to a proposed retail area as well as Pine
Forest’s resort and gated communities.
With the public access road removed from the plan, a
private interior road would now provide access to a
proposed tertiary wastewater treatment plant that will
serve both Pine Forest and the Dormie Club, another
major project currently under development by Hansen.
PUD-Hamlet Rezoning Requested
The Master Plan includes a rezoning request for 1,623
acres to Planned Unit Development-Hamlet [PUD-H] with a
combined maximum density of 890 total units, including
hotel rooms and private residences. With no more than
300 hotel rooms, the resort will also feature a spa,
conference center, and fitness center. Each of the two
planned golf courses would have its own clubhouse. In
addition to the retail center proposed along NC-211, a
small "farmers'-market-style" retail area is proposed at
the NC-73 entrance.
Projected by
Hansen to cost $60 to $80 million “just to get started,”
Pine Forest will be broken into two individual gated
communities that will share amenities, design
characteristics, and infrastructure. One of those gated
areas, the "resort" community includes the retail area
and hotel, with eighteen and nine-hole golf courses. The
second gated community will be located north of Nick’s
Creek and will also feature an eighteen-hole golf
course.
Water for the project is
expected to come from Montgomery County, based on a
yet-to-be-negotiated agreement between Moore and
Montgomery Counties. Hansen has offered to pay up to $3
million to lay water pipe from Candor to connect with
the county system at Seven Lakes and fund some
infrastructure improvements needed in Montgomery County
in order to make the water available.
However, Hansen said his first step, once the project is
approved, will be constructing the on-site wastewater
plant. That plant will initially take 350,000 to 500,000
gallons of wastewater from the county's existing system,
so that the treated effluent can be used to irrigate the
Dormie Club. Once Pine Forest Development comes on line
— a larger development with more acreage — the
wastewater treatment plant would be able to remove and
treat an estimated 640,000 gallons per day of county
wastewater.
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