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The Standard of Boone Rezoning Recommendation To Come Before Boone Town Council in June Meeting

By Jesse Wood

June 12, 2014. The Boone Area Planning Commission on Monday recommended the request to rezone property in between Faculty Street and Blowing Rock Road for The Standard of Boone Development in an 8 to 1 vote, according to staff with the Boone Planning & Inspections Department.

Now, the recommendation to rezone the property will come before the Boone Town Council at its upcoming, monthly meeting in June.

The Standard of Boone development is proposed on several parcels of land that include the Red Carpet Inn, the condemned Scottish Inn and the vacant property adjacent to McDonald’s. The Conditional District General Business rezoning request was for 784, 862 and 862-B Blowing Rock Road; 299, 311, 325 and 339 Faculty Street; and three vacant parcels.

The student-housing development proposed by Stonegate Developers is slated to be completed in summer 2015 and will feature 450 beds with 9,000 feet of commercial space on the first floor, according Stonegate’s website. Other amenities include a 3,600-square-foot gym facing Blowing Rock Road, a coffee shop and multiple atriums throughout the development.

“The Standard will be Boone’s premier off-campus student housing project when delivered and will incorporate a mixture of high country design while keeping an urban feel,” the website states.

In April, the Boone Board of Adjustment granted seven of eight variance requests to Stonegate Developers, according to Boone Planning and Inspections staff. The lone variance not granted was the request to increase the building height for the single-use, multi-family building off of Faculty Street to 52 feet. A town ordinance requires structures within 100 feet of a single-family residential zoned property not to exceed 35 feet.

The developers had requested variances to increase the maximum building footprint; to reduce the minimum percentage of commercial total gross floor area required; to increase the building height for the single-use, multi-family building; to allow encroachments in the floodway zone; to allow temporary and permanent encroachments in the 25-foot buffer zone; to encroach in the secondary height setback; to allow two driveways onto the protected thoroughfare and to allow reduction in spacing between those two driveways.

In addition, the project calls for the relocating and daylighting of Boone Creek.