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LEWISVILLE — In golf lingo, it looks like another mulligan for the developers of the proposed driving range on Shallowford Road in Lewisville.

Public hearings for rezoning and annexation requests were on the agenda for last Thursday night’s Lewisville Town Council meeting, but similar to the last appearance before the board in March, the petitioner asked for another redo to seek a workable solution. 

Previously, the petitioners for the driving range project requested continuing those public hearings until the Aug. 8 meeting while awaiting further information from an engineer.

However, after hearing comments from the public, Ricky Lyons, one of the petitioners along with Chris Merritt, approached the podium and stated he “would like to formally withdraw our application for rezoning and annexation tonight, and we’re going to keep working toward a resolution for the future.”

So Mayor Mike Horn then closed the public hearing and said he felt there needed to be more of an explanation.

“When this item first came before the council, I think we were very concerned about the Highway Business designation, which we did not want in that area,” Horn said. “It’s zoned right now Residential RS-40. In RS-40, there are a number of uses, including a golf course, which is really kind of interesting to me. You can have a golf course but not a driving range.

“I think in the process of discussing this with council members, the petitioner, our manager and planning staff, we suggested that Highway Business was not going to fly in front of the council.

With some research and some investigation, we determined that the Highway Business could be withdrawn, the petition could be withdrawn, and we can have a text amendment to our UDO, and this particular facility could be still allowed under RS-40, so we would not be changing the zoning of the property.”

Horn added that the petitioner does plan on coming back at a future date and reapplying and resubmitting a site plan for this particular facility under RS-40 instead of Highway Business.

“RS-40 does give us a lot of latitude and the conditions that we place on that site plan,” Horn said. “So we’ll see how that comes forward in the future, but that’s where we are right now. I wanted everybody to know that there was more process on this to come.”

Town Manager Stacy Tolbert provided more details about what’s ahead.

“Currently in our ordinance, golf courses are allowed in residential zoning districts with a driving range as an accessory,” she said  “The approval process required is a review for compliance by the Planning Board (which first heard the request in December 2023 and voted unanimously to recommend approval of the request to the council). 

“The Town Council has asked the planning staff and Planning Board to explore options for an update to the Unified Development Ordinance to see if similar regulations would be viable for golf driving ranges as they are currently for a golf course.  This would add regulations such as prohibited lighting, regulated hours of operation, etc.”  

Tolbert said that UDO text amendments require approval by the elected body through a public hearing process and, if the applicant chooses to make a request once more if the UDO is amended, they will still have to go through the annexation process – also requiring a public hearing. 

Prior to the petitioners’ withdrawal of rezoning and annexation requests, Town Manager Stacy Tolbert said that the petitioner had made changes to the site plans to address residents’ concerns heard at previous meetings. Some of those included the proposed driving range being “too close for comfort” in a rural, residential area, that it seemed to be “a perfect example of spot zoning,” that it didn’t fit the careful planning the town is known for, and that the lights would forever change the night sky.

“First, the lighting, other than the lighting provided for pedestrian safety, has been removed from the plan,” Tolbert said of significant changes. “The building size was reduced from 4,500 square feet to 2,500 square feet, in turn allowing them to reduce the parking lot size from 42 spaces down to 29 spaces.”

Tolbert said that Lyons and Merritt have run the golf driving range on Country Club Road in Winston-Salem for quite some time but are looking for a new location due to their lease being up.  

Several golfers and others at last Thursday night’s meeting spoke favorably about Lyons and Merritt, saying they were teaching pros and good guys who would be solid additions to the community.

Also in last Thursday night’s meeting, the council approved a new traffic mitigation policy where residents can petition the town to incorporate traffic calming devices and systems in order to alleviate speeding, excessive traffic volume, dangerous intersections or other conditions that are of a public safety nature.

Jon Hanna, public works director, said that the town has been working for some time in trying to update and streamline the process regarding speeding and cut-throughs on town roads by first putting together a public safety technical review committee.

One of the improvements is that any petitioning groups or neighborhoods with concerns will no longer be required to pay half of everything over $1,000 for the cost of any traffic safety devices.

“We pulled that out of there,” Hanna said. “The town will cover the cost.”

However, Hanna said that the group that comes to the town with a traffic safety concern, once the area has been determined, they would have to carry out a canvassing process where they must go door-to-door to at least 70 percent of homeowners in that area and get a 65 percent answer in the affirmative of a specified mitigation device being considered.

“It is a case-by-case procedure depending on whether we’re dealing with a cut-through or speeding on a particular street,” Hanna said.