RAEFORD — The Hoke County Board of Commissioners met Monday, June 5, with various items dealing with property on the agenda.
The board kicked off the meeting by holding five public hearings, all dealing with property matters.
The first hearing was for a rezoning request for 1.33 acres of property at 1270 Haire Road to rezone from RA-20 to Highway Commercial for an automotive repair and restoration shop.
“The applicant is wanting to subdivide the back portion of the 1.33 acres for his business,” said Planner Jeff Dockery. “He will be adding a 50-foot easement that would access his property if approved, and he will be installing all the required landscape buffering as designated by the Hoke County zoning ordinance.”
The second hearing was another rezoning request, this time for 98.39 acres of property near Royal Birkdale Drive to rezone from RA-20 to R-8 in order to connect it with the rest of the surrounding area in anticipation for a potential subdivision plan.
The request received pushback from a conjoining neighborhood due to the projected impact on traffic in the area, however, as this was only a rezoning request, those comments couldn’t be used as evidence against the request.
“This is a zoning issue,” said Chairman Allen Thomas. “Most of the issues that I’ve heard today have nothing to do with zoning. I did not hear anyone talk about the size of the lots being an issue. What that causes me to believe is that you all would have an issue even if it was RA-20 of houses going there because it would increase the amount of cars going on the road that you all share. When the road is the issue, that is when the preliminary plat becomes the issue. It seems that a preliminary plat has already been approved for the first phase that faces [Highway] 401 and connects into that road. That’s a big, big deal. The access point that they’re going to use has already been approved by the state DOT. There’s going to be a road there already, no matter what. The question now then becomes what are we going to do on the backend.”
The third hearing was for a preliminary plat approval for the 75-lot Kingston Village Subdivision.
“This subdivision has its own district,” Dockery said. “It’s a conditional use district that was decided about 15 years ago, and they have their own rules and regulations that they abide by.”
According to the developer, the lots will not be uniform and are instead tailored to different individual house plans within the subdivision.
The fourth hearing was for a preliminary plat approval for the 47-lot Buffalo Creek Subdivision, and the final hearing was for another preliminary plat approval for the 26-lot Strother Landing Subdivision.
Following each of the five hearings, the board approved each request.
Finally, the board approved changes to the Health Department’s clinical fee schedule for FY 2024.
The changes included a proposed fee of $100 for a pack of three Xulane Patches, $150 for Nuvaring, $40 for Toradol injections, $35 for Dexamethasone injections, $30 for 5-10 minutes of interprofessional telephone/internet/electronic health record consultation, $50 for 11-20 minutes, $75 for 21-30 minutes and $100 for 31+ minutes.
“As you know, when pharmaceutical drug prices change, we need to increase our fees to match the cost and prevent a loss,” said Health Director Helene Edwards. “The first four fees on the schedule are for medication, and the last ones, the interprofessional telephone, internet and electronic health record consultation, are new services that are involved in healthcare. They started during the COVID pandemic in 2020, and it was successful so we will continue to provide those telehealth services.”
The Hoke County Board of Commissioners will next meet June 19.
