Residents of the neighborhood surrounding Cameron Village might have a new view — and new neighbors — if the Raleigh City Council approves plans to construct a mixed-use building on the northeast corner of Oberlin Road and Clark Avenue.
The building is designed to be one that incorporates both living and shopping. In an e-mail from Kathryn Blanchard of Crescent Resources, LLC, the developer, 28,000 square feet of retail space compose the building’s base and 250 condominium units rise five stories above the shops. It will also include office space and banks.
The plan has been in the works since this past February, Brian Natwick, a Crescent official, said.
The Raleigh Planning Commission unanimously approved, in an 11-0 vote on Tuesday, conceptual plans to construct a six-story building amid the roofs of one-, two-, three- and four-story buildings of Cameron Village. The City Council will meet on Sept. 16 to discuss amendments to the plan.
Although the decision is not final, it has caused a stir within the historical neighborhood surrounding Cameron Village.
Natwick said Crescent began meeting with neighborhood residents in April and has had 15 meetings with public groups.
“We have sought as many opinions as we could gather, and made multiple changes to the proposed plan as a result of feedback we received,” Natwick said.
If the building is approved, Natwick said he hopes construction will begin in late 2009 or early 2010. He expects it will be completed in 2011 or 2012.
But to get the mixed-use building approved, the city must authorize plans for re-zoning the area, according to the commission’s staff report. Without this approval, Crescent Resources will not be able to begin construction on the 2.67 acres of land near the shopping center. This area is zoned for a shopping center with a pedestrian business overlay district. To accommodate the mixed-use building, the city would have to rezone the property to add a streetscape and parking plan.
The rezone would also make “[a]djacent properties to the north and east of the subject property within the Cameron Village Shopping Center,” the report said, “likewise designated for higher intensity development.”
In an effort to “save Cameron Village,” residents of Clark Avenue, Woodburn Road and Groveland Avenue, among others, have posted signs in the street-side yards of their homes. The signs’ message: vote no for rezoning Cameron Village. They have even created a Web site, entitled Save Cameron Village News, that updates citizens on the plan’s progress and what people can do to halt Crescent’s plan from becoming a reality.
Jason Pendleton, a 2006 graduate in multidisiplinary studies, has not been involved in the group, but he has resided in the same apartment for five years. His location puts him about a block from the proposed development site.
He said the building’s size and design might not fit in with the other houses in the neighborhood, which is largely composed of houses that have stood there for 70 years or more.
“If I moved away from this location, I’d like to stay in this general area,” Pendleton said. “If I owned a historical building or an old house, I could see [the development] tainting the value or the aesthetics.”
The building’s location and potential residents, he said, would also have a jarring effect on the intersection’s traffic, which can already “get bad around rush hour” and when students are going to and getting out of classes.
“If the roads over there can’t handle many people, that could be a problem,” he said.
According to the Save Cameron Village News Web site, the Planning Commission denied a traffic study that those against rezoning had requested.
