SALISBURY — The Rowan County Board of Commissioners approved a rezoning request and a request for a special use permit from Bowtie Properties that would allow the company to expand the amount of land included in the Speedway Business Park. The request was brought before the board during their meeting Monday after it received a unanimous vote of approval from the Rowan Planning Board.

The request was approved after the board held two hearings, a legislative one for the rezoning and a quasi-judicial one for the special use permit. The rezoning request preceded the other, and involved a request for the 4-acre property located behind the business park to be changed from rural residential to 85-ED-2.

The rezoning came because Bowtie had built a driveway and storage facility that slightly impeded on the mandated 40-foot buffer for the property. Their neighbor, LGC Holdings, also had an unpermitted 6,000-square-foot building expansion that encroached on the buffer. This led Bowtie to request the rezoning so they can add the 4 acres to both of the encroaching properties in order to extend the property and remove the issue.

After the rezoning request was approved, the quasi-judicial hearing for the special permit request was held, including testimony from a Bowtie developer and from a local real estate broker. The special use permit is what allows the company to add the four acres to the business park and combine them as extensions of pre-existing parcels in the park.

The developer, Bill Arndt, noted that the company made sure to be aware that they will not mess with the traffic or character of the area.

“It’s not going to subtract from the character of the surroundings. In fact I feel like it’s going to enhance it because we are pushing that buffer so far back. There’s not going to be any noise and that kind of the thing as a problem for the neighbors in the north, the residential homes that are up there,” said Arndt.

The buffer that Arndt mentioned will be a 40-foot buffer on the north and west side of the property and a 150-foot buffer on the east side of the property, where Koontz Elementary borders. The 40-foot buffer on the north would include vegetation, such as many different types of trees, to screen away visibility of the property from the residences in that direction.

Local real estate broker Victor Poplin also provided testimony that the addition of the land to the business park would not negatively affect home prices in the area. Poplin testified that he checked properties that have recently sold around large development projects, such as the Dillard’s distribution center, and found that property values actually increased when those projects were implemented.

At the end of both hearings, the commissioners voted unanimously to approve the requests.