By David Purtell

david.purtell@salisburypost.com

Editor’s note: this story has been updated to correct an error regarding the Planning Board’s decision regarding a request to rezone land at Richard’s Bar-B-Q.

The Salisbury Planning Board Tuesday gave its recommendation for approval to two rezoning requests, one for an owner who wants to sell her land and the other for more parking spaces.

The board approved the rezoning of land along Jake Alexander Boulevard South just east of Faith Road. The rezoning is from general residential to corridor mixed-use, CMX allows for much more intensive development — apartments, townhouses and commercial buildings — than general residential. The parcel is 1.3 acres and on the north side of Jake Alexander Boulevard.

Linda Sanders owns the land, which has been in her family for generations.  Sanders lives outside of Charleston, South Carolina, and said she can no longer take care of the land. She wants to sell it, and thinks changing the zoning to allow for more uses will help attract potential buyers.

The board also asked city staff to reach out to the owner of the property on the east and west side of Sanders’ lot about rezoning his property to CMX. The area around the intersection of Faith and Jake Alexander falls into the city’s Eastern Gateway plan that, by design, calls for more commercial development around the intersection.

Sanders’ request will go to City Council July 21.

The board also approved setting conditions to allow Richard’s Bar-B-Q on North Main Street to add additional parking. Richard Monroe, who owns the restaurant, received an additional 3/4 of an acre of land adjacent to the restaurant after the Schulenburger home was torn down to make way for the new school central office.

The land is currently zoned downtown mixed use, which doesn’t allow for off-street parking in the front yard. Monroe requested the land be rezoned to highway business, which allows for front-yard parking. But the board, and city staff, think that highway business is not an appropriate zoning for the downtown business area.

To allow for the parking spaces, the board left the land zoned as downtown mixed and approved a conditional district overlay that removes the front-yard parking restriction for the property. But, if the site is razed and redeveloped, the DMX front-yard parking prohibition remains.

Contact Reporter David Purtell at 704-797-4264.