Reprint from The Greensboro News & Record
April 14, 2025
Residents in Greensboro’s New Irving Park community are planning to make a final stand against a rezoning for a new townhome project near their neighborhood.
The Greensboro City Council will consider the rezoning for the property at 1201 Pisgah Church Road at their meeting on Tuesday, which begins at 5:30 p.m. and will be held at the Melvin Municipal Office Building located at 300 West Washington Street.
The land in question consists of a little less than an acre of property at the intersection of Pisgah Church Road and Willoughby Boulevard.
Developer B.J. Johnson is asking the city to rezone the property from its current designation, which allows for three single-family units per acre, to a multifamily zoning that will allow 12 units per acre.
While speaking before the Greensboro Planning and Zoning Commission in February, Johnson said he had changed his original plans by reducing the number of townhomes at the site from 10 units down to eight.
He also said the development would have two access points, both on Willoughby.
Johnson said in an interview that he believes his development will be a benefit to the community.
“Our goal is to enhance, with the landscaping that we plan to implement there — again with some of the feedback from the neighbors — to make the aesthetic as beautiful as possible, keeping in line with the character of New Irving Park and to bring a safe, vibrant community to that corner,” Johnson said.
Still, many in the neighborhood do not see things that way.
New Irving Park resident Donna Esson is part of a group of neighbors opposed to the rezoning.
“We’re already at a very busy intersection so we are concerned about the safety issues,” Esson said. “We feel that it is definitely misuse of land for this little corner.”
She said the neighbors have urged the developer to use the land to build one or two single-family homes in accordance with the current zoning but that Johnson had said doing so would not be economically feasible.
Esson said neighbors had also asked Johnson to give them time to raise money to buy the land from him in order to donate it to the city for preservation as a nature area. She said he also rejected that proposal.
Susan Tysinger and Tim Souhan are among the neighborhood residents who share Esson’s worries about the rezoning.
Tysinger said she has heard from council members that they are only able to take the land use into consideration, but she believes that leaves out important factors including safety and increased erosion on the land, which slopes toward a ravine.
“In my opinion, land use is how the land is used, and putting four buildings, eight residences on this small lot just doesn’t make sense to me,” Tysinger said.
Souhan said townhomes would not fit in with the current composition of the neighborhood.
“The homes that front Willoughby Boulevard are 100% single family homes, so to wedge this 10-unit or eight-unit thing in right here doesn’t make any sense and it doesn’t honor the land use of the neighborhood,” Souhan said.
Souhan said he and others in the neighborhood do not oppose all development and noted several developments near the community. However, he said the neighborhood felt this particular project was inappropriate for the community.
“We’re worried about a domino effect, and frankly, we’d be worried about this whole corridor having the same type of housing,” Souhan said.
The neighbors have at least one ally on the city council: Councilman Zack Matheny, himself a resident of New Irving Park.
Matheny echoed the concerns about the incompatibility and the impact on traffic and safety on Willoughby, a major thoroughfare for the community of around 2,000 homes.
“To clog up eight townhomes at a major end of an intersection doesn’t make sense,” Matheny said, adding that it would not be appropriate to have a development like the one proposed in other parts of the city.
The request for the rezoning comes at a time when the city government is placing a strong emphasis on building new housing quickly. City Manager Trey Davis recently announced a plan to build 10,000 new housing units in the coming years, and Matheny himself has referred to the lack of housing as a crisis.
Matheny said there is a right way to achieve the city’s housing goals and the proposed rezoning does not represent the best way to go about development.
“You don’t want to get into a case where you are pitting neighborhoods against neighborhoods or destroying a neighborhood to try to get to 10,000,” Matheny said. “You don’t want to do that. You want to do it properly.”
kevin.griffin@greensboro.com
