SALISBURY — The Rowan County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing during its upcoming meeting on Monday on a rezoning that would allow a 33-lot business park to be built in southwestern Rowan County.

The agenda item is composed of three separate requests, a rezoning from Rural Agricultural to Commercial, Business, Industrial with a conditional district; a special non-residential intensity allocation for the development to exceed the maximum built-upon area; and a planned development subdivision with 30-foot setbacks between the lots instead of the standard 50.

Those three would combine to allow the applicant, Florida-based Sunwest Construction, to build the approximately 55-acre business park on the 100-acre property located at the intersection of Wilkinson Road and West N.C. Highway 152.

The special non-residential intensity allocation, or SNIA, is required because the property is in the Coddle Creek Watershed and would allow the company to build over the typically-allowed 12 percent. The request totals 67.54 acres, which is the largest request the planning board has ever received, greatly eclipsing the next closest of 17.71 acres from 2019.

The planning department typically recommends that a maximum of two acres be taken out of the county’s available watershed acreage, but that number can be exceeded with no upper limit if the increase in tax base or amount of jobs created was deemed worth the loss of extra space. To satisfy the tax base requirement, planning staff recommended that a condition be implemented that would require minimum building sizes of 5,000 square feet for lots sized one acre or smaller, 8,000 square feet for lots of 1.5 acres or more or 10 percent of the total lot size.  

The planning board recommended that the request be approved during their meeting in June. For more information on the request, go to https://www.salisburypost.com/2024/06/20/planning-board-recommends-rezoning-for-60-acre-business-park/.

The meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Monday and will be held at the Rowan County Administration building located at 130 W. Innes St. in Salisbury. The other agenda items that will be discussed include:  

• The commissioners will hold a public hearing on a rezoning request for a 3.67-acre parcel located in the 100 block of Jenny Drive. The request would change the property from Rural Agricultural to Commercial, Business, Industrial with a conditional district. The change would allow the electric car shop on the property to become a conforming use and allow for a 15,000-square-foot expansion. For more information, go to https://www.salisburypost.com/2024/06/21/planning-board-recommends-rezoning-that-would-allow-electric-motorsport-shop-expansion/.
• The commissioners will hold a legislative hearing on an amendment that would add a data center as an allowed use in the Red Rock Development conditional district. For more information, go to https://www.salisburypost.com/2024/06/22/planning-board-recommends-change-to-potential-usages-in-red-rock-development/.
• The commissioners will hold a legislative hearing on a request to establish a Neighborhood Business – Conditional District on a 3.2-acre parcel in the 2200 block of Briggs Road. The request would allow Myers Septic Services to relocate its operations from its current location in the 1800 block of Briggs Road to the 2200 block.
• The commissioners will hold a public hearing on a Special Non-Residential Intensity Allocation request for a property located at 150 Nitro Alley. The request would allow the property owner to construct an approximately 14,000-square-foot, multi-tenant storage and light manufacturing facility on the property.
• The commissioners will consider approving a resolution that would officially authorize the issuing and sale of bonds to help finance the Knox replacement project, roof replacement projects throughout the county and renovations to Fred L. Wilson Elementary School.