Developers, opponents ask for more time

A decision on a planned residential development off Pitchkettle Road likely will get postponed again at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

The meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in City Council chambers, 441 Market St. A work session will begin at 3 p.m.

Lawyers for both sides of the development — Cloverleaf Development, LLC and neighbors in a nearby subdivision — have agreed via letters to city staff that waiting another month will be beneficial for them as they try to work through outstanding issues.

The neighborhood already has been approved for 128 single-family homes and 114 multi-family units. However, the developers, Cloverleaf Development, want to increase the number of multi-family units to 158, reduce cash proffers for schools and alter minimum square footage and design standards for single-family dwellings.

The opponents in nearby Westhaven Lakes say the changes would create a substandard development that offers less money for infrastructure, while at the same time putting more of a burden on that infrastructure.

Neighbors along Pitchkettle Road have expressed concerns about increased traffic on the two-lane highway and also are concerned about a proposed connector road that would carry the new traffic through their neighborhood.

Also on Wednesday’s Council agenda is a public hearing on proposed changes to the Historic Conservation Overlay District.

A variety of areas in the district are proposed to be removed from it, although not as many as when the process first started earlier this year.

Members of the Planning Commission last month recommended keeping the Rose Hill area off Constance Road in the district, as well as a few homes on South Broad and Gittings streets and Bosley Avenue. But other areas, such as Mahan, Church, Central, Hill, Grayson, Jackson, North, Chestnut and Pine streets, still are recommended for deletion.

In the 3 p.m. work session, staff will present a review of the proposed redistricting map submitted by the Suffolk-Nansemond chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.