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Consultants outline draft growth strategy, downtown master plan for Mocksville
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Summary
Benchmark Planning told the Mocksville Town Board it is halfway through drafts of a comprehensive plan and the town’s first downtown master plan, highlighted priorities—downtown vitality, housing mix, mobility, design standards—and announced three public downtown workshops (March 16, March 30, April 20).
Benchmark Planning consultants presented an update to the Mocksville Town Board on March 7, saying they are roughly halfway through drafting both a comprehensive plan update and the town’s first downtown master plan and will hold three public downtown workshops later this month and in April.
“My name is Bridget Kaleya, and I’m here with Von Hanson. We’re the consulting firm that was hired by the town to update your comprehensive plan as well as draft your first downtown master plan,” Bridget Kaleya said, and told the board the project website, planmocksville.com, contains background materials. Kaleya said the team has completed background research and a community kickoff survey and is now drafting vision statements and guiding principles.
Benchmark highlighted several themes from outreach and data review: the town is growing faster than the county and state; commuting patterns show large inflows and outflows tied to the Winston‑Salem area; downtown repeatedly emerged as a top priority in surveys and listening sessions; and residents expressed mixed views on housing density. Kaleya noted the firm’s draft vision aims to “preserve and enhance our small town character and charm, sense of community, and high quality of life” while accommodating measured infill.
Von Hanson walked the board through a draft future land‑use framework that differentiates “town residential” (older, smaller‑scale lots) from “suburban residential” and directs higher‑impact industrial growth toward areas with better highway access. Hanson said the plan encourages compatible infill and cautions against isolated, one‑off commercial or industrial sites that are surrounded by residences: “We’re not advocating an expansion of the town to go out and grab isolated, satellite annexation areas,” Hanson said.
Benchmark announced three downtown workshops — March 16, March 30 and April 20 — that will divide downtown into subareas and cover streets and public spaces, placemaking, opportunity sites and design strategy. Kaleya said the downtown master plan will include renderings and visuals produced between workshops for public review.
Board members and the town attorney cautioned that statutory limits on local land‑use control (including references to state law on down‑zoning) mean the town should ground zoning decisions in the comprehensive plan to make them defensible. The consultants said they will continue drafting goals and recommendations and bring revised materials back to the planning board and the town.
The consultants’ next steps are to complete the downtown workshop series, refine the draft vision and goals based on feedback, and proceed to more detailed recommendations in the comprehensive plan.
