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By Jim Buice
For the Clemmons Courier

The Clemmons Village Council may consider a reallocation of funding for the Highway 158 Sidewalk and Yadkin River Greenway, Phase I project to meet an upcoming deadline for the Winston-Salem Urban Area Metropolitan Planning Organization’s Transportation Advisory Committee.

Planner Megan Ledbetter outlined a plan in Monday night’s meeting where the Village could delete funding consideration for two projects that could be filled through other means or at a later date to provide an additional $630,400 for a project that has been held up by higher than expected costs for utilities and right-of-way acquisition.

The Council can decide whether or not to consider this as agenda item for the May 13 meeting in advance of the TAC meeting on May 16. The TAC approved $1,296,800 in funding for the project in March 2015.

“Basically it’s a reallocation of funding for the 158 project from Middlebrook to Tanglewood with two lateral greenway connections into the park,” Ledbetter said.

The Village is proposing the deletion of the following projects to secure the additional funding for the Highway 158 Sidewalk project:

• Pedestrian improvements at the following locations: Lewisville-Clemmons Road and Allegacy Way; U.S. 158/Middlebrook Drive/Lewisville-Clemmons Road; Fair Oaks Drive and Harper Road; Lewisville-Clemmons Road and Stadium Drive ($360,000).

• U.S. 158 Sidewalk from the Stadium Drive intersection to the Kinnamon Village Shopping Center ($270,000).

Ledbetter said that because of the Lewisville-Clemmons Road project, some of the pedestrian improvements could be included in that TIP project and the sidewalk project on U.S. 158 from Stadium to Kinnamon could be done internally later as funds become available.

Also in Monday night’s meeting, the Council decided for a second time to continue the public hearing on the Comprehensive Plan Update until the next meeting on May 13 after Ledbetter received some comments from councilman Mike Combest, including what he called the need for “a fundamental change” with transportation and parks currently combined in one of the headings.

“Once I went through it in more detail, it hit me that those two need to be separated,” Combest said. “Transportation is essential, and parks are discretionary. I think we diminish unintentionally our focus on transportation by rolling parks back into it. When we separate it, we’ve got to keep transportation No. 1.”

Ledbetter said that Clemmons really doesn’t have a parks system, “so where and how do we develop parks is a linear parks system that connects you to destinations. I think when the Planning Board was initially considering consolidating different chapters, that’s why.”

Ledbetter said she wanted to consider Combest’s comments and any other tweaks, and reminded the Council that it still had a pending request at the previous meeting from developer Stan Forester for his request to make a modification to the future land use map along his portion of Lewisville-Clemmons Road.

Forester said he furnished Ledbetter and councilwoman Michelle Barson a copy of the traffic study he had completed for a proposed development on 38 acres on the western side of Lewisville-Clemmons Road near River Center Drive.

Councilman Chris Wrights asked if a copy of traffic study could be sent to other members of the Council, and Ledbetter said she would send it to each of the board members.

In other business, the council:

• Approved awarding the bid of $142,331 from RCR Contracting of East Bend for Harper Valley (Stormwater CIP Number VOC 18-02).

• Heard from Village Manager Scott Buffkin, who said that Clemmons will begin advertising for openings on several Village boards.

• Called for public hearings for Zoning Map Amendment of AAA Storage from LO-S (professional office) to GB-S (General Business-Special Use) (Storage Services, Retail) — Zoning Docket C-230; and for Zoning Text Amendment to the Unified Development Ordinance to Electronic Sweepstakes definition and amortization schedule (C-UDO-81).

• Recognized Sloane Dockery and Nicholas Stevenson, fifth-grade students at Clemmons Elementary School who were T-shirt design winners for Clemmons Community Spring Cleanup Day.

• Recognized Clemmons fireman Chris Davis, who was named N.C. Firefighter of the Year.

• Approved a resolution declaring May as Historic Preservation Month in Clemmons.

• Heard from Buffkin that the first Movie Night of the Year, which will be “Ralph Breaks the Internet,” will be Saturday night at the Jerry Long YMCA.