Planning commission schedules April 28 work session on Mariner Farm and Duncan Manor rezonings

Lee Panda, deputy county administrator for community and economic development, told the planning commission that staff is requesting a joint work session on Tuesday, April 28 at 6 p.m. to review two substantial applications: Mariner Farm and Duncan Manor.

"Bottom line up front, we are requesting a work session on Tuesday, April 28," Lee Panda said. The session will cover proffer amendments, conditional-use permit details and a set of waiver requests tied to both projects.

The Mariner Farm application comes from R2JS LLC (application signed by Rajesh Vora, with Tim Hearn the primary staff contact). Staff described a rezoning and a conditional-use permit for a roughly 24-acre site near State Line Road and Greenbackville that would retain a previously shown 140 townhouse units, add a mixed-use commercial building, and request six waivers. Among the waivers staff listed were reductions to minimum lot size (from 10,000 square feet to about 2,000), reductions in front-yard and rear-yard setbacks, and side-yard reductions for interior townhouse units. Staff also noted a request to count private drives/access as meeting access-point rules in locations where two public access points would normally be required.

Panda flagged circulation and parking as open issues. "If you only have 280 parking spaces for a 140 units, we don't know if a resident is gonna own more than 2 cars or if they're gonna have a lot of guests," he said, urging the applicant to consider additional parking and clearer pedestrian accommodations.

Committee members raised the project's recent history. A committee member recalled a prior, well-attended public hearing and a petition; "About 600, I believe," the member said. Panda acknowledged the earlier controversy and said staff had advised the applicant of the community's past concerns and the legal history surrounding access along Captain's Corridor.

Duncan Manor, the second project to be folded into the same work session, is a separate rezoning and conditional-use permit package that would rezone about 55.45 acres to village development and seeks permission for more than 50 residential units. Staff said the Duncan Manor proposal asks for four waivers, including an exemption from the 40-acre maximum project-size limit for village development projects and a total waiver of the 200-foot agricultural setback that typically applies where residential uses abut agricultural parcels.

Commissioners asked whether the developer had demonstrated water and sewer capacity, and whether school, fire and emergency services impacts had been assessed; staff said those topics would be appropriate for the work session and subsequent public hearings. Panda described the land-use-entitlement sequence: the commission should resolve rezoning and conditional-use questions first before accepting any preliminary plats.

The commission voted by voice to hold a single work session on April 28 at 6 p.m. to review both Mariner Farm and Duncan Manor and to come back with conditions and additional materials for deliberation.

The work session is intended to give commissioners, staff and the public an opportunity to dig into outstanding proffers, waiver requests and technical information before any public hearing or final action.