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By Jim Buice

For the Clemmons Courier

The recent “transportation thing” remains front and center in the village of Clemmons, but a question late in the discussion in Monday night’s council meeting brought positive news regarding pedestrian crosswalks at the intersection of Lewisville-Clemmons Road and Peace Haven Road.

Doug Moore, the planning and community development director, was wrapping up his report on the busy slate of projects when council member Michelle Barson asked about that busy crossroads.

“I was thinking about this, and it’s a DOT road where there are two crosswalks and we’re missing two,” she said. “It’s a pretty well-used intersection by walkers, and I wasn’t sure if we had any way to work with Pat Ivey or whoever at Division 9.”

Moore said that’s the reason the village is doing both the Safety Plan and the ADA Transition Plan.

“All of that is going to be identified, and we will give copies of that plan to the district office,” he said. “We have our Zero Task Force, which is the steering committee for overseeing these plans, and we actually have two representatives from DOT that are sitting on our task force. That’s a little unheard of. They’re both out of the safety division — one of them out of Raleigh and one of them out of the office here.

“So we’ve got that kind of extra tie-in with DOT on that, and so that’s going to help us. I’m not sure if they had a specific reason for that at that intersection. But I agree it needs to be identified and needs to be pointed out.”

Mike Gunnell, village manager, said he could provide some history on this topic.

“When Publix came in, that’s what they were asked to do was to put in the first crosswalk with the pedestrian lights,” he said. “Since then, we have been working with Connie James (of Division 9 of the N.C. DOT) on U-6004 (the Lewisville-Clemmons Road project) to include a second pedestrian crossing. And we’ll go across Peace Haven Road and connect at least a section to get on the northern side with the pedestrian lights. We’re working on it.”

Speaking of crosswalks, Moore added that the village is also working on a grant to hopefully receive funding to do some pedestrian signals on Stadium Drive, too.

He said that the April-May timeframe will be hectic in the midst of three transportation projects — Village Transportation Plan Update, Safe Streets for All Safety Action Plan and Safe Streets for All ADA Transition Plan — and two development projects — UDO Update and U.S. 158/Clemmons Road Overlay District.

“The first project is the master transportation plan, and we’re trying to do the public process for all the transportation projects together as one so that we don’t confuse folks,” Moore said. “This gives you an idea of where things will end up with the UDO being done before the end of October. One thing really starting to happen is we’re going to start bunching up here pretty quick with our different public process events.

“We’ve realized the survey method is not working very well. And no one wants to hear an hour or hour and half presentation. So we’re trying to do something where we actually engage people through walking audits. We do not have any dates scheduled yet.”

In addition to the walking audits, Moore said that the village is going to do a transportation summit at either the Historic Broyhill Center or the auditorium at the Clemmons library to set up different stations to talk about specifics and needs for the plans that are being done.

And although the UDO Update is on track, Moore said that the U.S. 158/Clemmons Road Overlay District is still on hold as a result of Senate Bill 382.

“However, we’ve seen so some legislation introduced to counteract Senate Bill 382,” he said. “The first one is House Bill 24, which basically will restore the ability for communities to control down zoning for the whole state. If that falls through, there are four others that are coming in and doing it by county and city. So we’re watching to see what’s going on. This is critical. There’s a lot that we will not be able to accomplish with the update of the UDO if we don’t get this repealed.”

In other items on the agenda, Amy Flyte, assistant manager, said that after the discussion at the recent retreat on annexation agreements with neighboring municipalities, she has already made progress.

“I have sent over a draft to Bermuda Run for their review with a request that we get this back by August,” she said. “Their council has already been briefed on it, so that will be the fastest moving one. I have started conversation with Winston-Salem, and I’m waiting for their feedback. And finally, we have continued to meet with Lewisville to work on a map together.”

Flyte said she has expectations of completing two of the three of them — Bermuda Run and Lewisville — by August.

The council also approved a stormwater budget agreement for professional services that have been contracted out with only one current staff member in the stormwater department instead of two.

Also, the village approved a street acceptance for Titan Village Court in Titan Village — previously known as Loader Acres.