Planning board says 'yes' to name changes, honors Bowden
By Matthew Whittle
Published in News on August 16, 2007 1:45 PM
Holding its first meeting since nine-year member Arthur Bowden died earlier this month, the Wayne County Planning Board held a moment of silence before getting down to business Tuesday night.
"(Bowden) was a fine, outstanding man. He contributed a lot to the county," chairman Wayne Aycock said of the former county school teacher.
Bowden's term was to expire in October, but Aycock added, he will still be sorely missed.
Once the members continued on with their work for the evening, they found themselves faced with a short agenda, and quickly approved two name change requests.
One was to change Martha Vineyard Drive to Hollingsworth Road.
"The property had changed hands and my understanding was there was only one residency on that street and it wasn't going to affect our 911 system or anything, so we granted the request," Aycock said.
The other was to change of a portion of the Little Rock Acres subdivision off of Nor Am Road, to Oak Summit subdivision.
"It's a new development and there's been no homes built in it, so it's not going to affect anything," Aycock said.
The board, however, denied a rezoning application submitted by Tom Best to install a construction and debris site along Pecan Road.
It was the same request the board denied last year.
The change would have required the land, which is partly located within Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's accident potential zone, to be zoned heavy industry.
Planning department secretary and clerk to the board Robin Bjorling explained that while base officials had no objections to the site itself, there was some concern over the possibility of it attracting birds, even though there were no plans to dig holes in the lot to store the materials. The site would not have been considered a landfill.
But because Best was not present to discuss his plans with the board Tuesday night, members voted unanimously to deny his request.
"He was at the last meeting and we told him he had to re-submit his request and that we highly recommended he be at this one to answer any questions," Aycock said. "Some of the board members felt like if he didn't have enough interest to be there to represent himself -- they just voted to deny his request."