The Wilmington City Council on Tuesday rezoned the mobile home park on Wrightsville Avenue next to the empty Galeria Shopping Center lot for a mixed-use project that will accompany the development of the lot.
The rezoning of the 5.24-acre lot at 7000 Wrightsville Ave. from a residential R-15 to the urban mixed-use UMX classification was approved on a 5-1 vote, with only councilman Earl Sheridan objecting. The rezoning was mostly praised by council members, as developers said the project fit with both the city’s comprehensive development plan ratified earlier this year and with the 2011 Wrightsville Sound land use plan. No neighbors of the project spoke at the public hearing and developers had at least one meeting with neighbors before the hearing.
The developers were not required to submit a site plan for the project because it is located in an area of “intense development” where different planning procedures don’t require the plan. Councilman Kevin O’Grady said approving the rezoning without a site plan gave him some pause, but said he felt the developers had been sensitive to neighbors of the project, which included those on Edgewater Lane who stand to be most impacted by the project.
The developer proposed making the front 2.6 acres a “vertical mixed use” building facing Wrightsville Avenue that would feature retail and residential in the same location. The 2.6 acres in the back would be residential units. The property now hosts a mobile home park that has been there since the 1960s and has 47 units, as well as two boats for storage and a shed.
The 12.2-acre neighboring lot, where the Galleria Shopping Center was once located before it was demolished, is already zoned UMX, though no project has yet been proposed.
Attorney Michael Lee, speaking on behalf of the developers, said that the area was becoming a “gateway” and that the development would support the goals of walkability laid out in the city’s land use plan. He said the project was designed to fit with the land use plan and that it was an ideal “infill” project that supported development without adding to urban sprawl.
Even an outside developer spoke in favor of the rezoning, as David Spetrino, Plantation Building Corp. president, said the UMX rezoning fit the vision city leaders laid out for Wilmington in the comprehensive plan.
“If I had my way, the whole world would be UMX,” said Spetrino. “I came to speak about how important UMX is to our community”
Along with Sheridan, one audience member asked about the current residents of the mobile home park. Lee said they would be given 180 days notice, while councilmember Charles Rivenbark said he spoke with the mobile home park owner, who said that the park is failing and that some of the trailers weren’t occupied.
Additionally, the park has a private water supply that is having issues, Rivenbark said, proving to be another problem for the aging park.
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