Johnston County Rumors We Hear..... Red Garden Depot? UPDATED

Clayton's impact fees and unreasonable requirements from the Planning Staff and Town Council are more than most restaurants are willing to handle. You dont have a whole lot of eateries banging down the door to get in to Clayton. There is a reason for that.

 

It is what Clayton does (or doesn't do for that matter) with those impact fees that concerns me. The areas up and down Hwy 70 are a damn mess. The shotwell intersection is a joke where they shoehorned any and everything they can get in there without any serious considerations for traffic patterns.

 

Apparently those requirements dont apply to Quick Lubes, gas stations, Mexican restaurants or pawn shops.

 

Which are owned probably by those who set the requirements.

 

I can semi agree about the fast food joints (though here in clayton that is an oxymoron as none of them are fast) and gas stations, but when it comes to resturants Clayton isn't exactly overflowing with them unless you are refering to the number of "mexican resturants"

 

The restaurants are all in existing buildings. Meaning one goes out of business, another takes its place. It might be a change of use on an existing building but the truth is that there are no new companies coming in to Clayton and setting up new restaurants, meaning you dont see Golden Corral come in, put up a new building and then take off. Plenty of them coming in out at 40/42. Smithfield has them but you wont see them in Clayton.

When the Golden Corral was built at 40/42, originally they wanted to come to Clayton but "problems" persisted and the owner of the GC said that you will never see a GC in Clayton.

Wonder why, as much as it is or was booming, places like that just seem to avoid Clayton.

Aside from Wal-Mart, which Clayton expanded its ETJ to encompass, when was the last new free standing restaurant to come into the town limits? Discount Wendy's as it is a rebuild.

Ill give you a hint. Unless my memory is shot, and its possible it is, it was McCalls. How long ago was that?

 

if you are a resident of clayton why not file to run for town council next election since you have all the answers

 

Is that possibly why the Wendy's that is in the same plaza as Wal-mart closed?

 

Sorry Barney. Im not a resident.

Wendy's closed at Wal-Mart due to lack of business.

 

biscuitville??

 

Could have been Biscuitville, sure. That was back in 2004.

 

I'm curious as to why you say "aside from Wal*Mart", and then ask about free standing restaurants. Wal*Mart isn't a restaurant. If you're simply asking about (relatively) new construction that houses new restaurants, there's that strip mall across from Wal*Mart which has, I believe, four or five eating establishments. Then there is the strip mall behind Centura Bank (Hwy 70 and Shotwell) which has Little Ceasers.

 

Honestly I wish they would have kept that Wendy's open, however with the opening of the 70 bypass the traffic and business at that particular Wendy's dropped off a huge amount.

 

This still doesn't make sense to me...considering that Hardees (across the street) and Zaxby's (right next door) still seem to be doing well.

 

Zaxby's and Hardee's only have the single location in Clayton where as Wendy's had two and their operational costs were double while their business income was decreased.

 

There was a guy not long ago who wanted to build a church on Main Street, heading towards Garner, right before you get to Shotwell Road. It was an old house and the guy tore it down to make way for the new church. You may have seen it.

ToC said it was now a "change of use" (which it was) and then subject to a set of rules and regulations that needed to be abided by before this and that and so on.

All if this was mostly expected. What was not expected was the bill that the owner got from the ToC for around $37,500 for road improvements. Seems the Town was assessing the church owner that money because it was his part of the road improvements and to put in curb and gutter along the road in front of his property. Course, the Town didnt really want him t put the curb and gutter in because it would look stupid. There is no C&G in that area and it would be in front of his property only. Not next to him, not across the street, only his. So he had the option to install the C&G or pay the $37,500 which is what the ToC figured it would cost to put in. He was to pay that money to the Town so the Town could use it "one day" when the Town put in C&G all along the road in that area.

disclaimer: wether he paid that money, portions thereof or whatnot, i can not say.

Only the Town is never going to do that. Well i shouldnt say that. It could be 50 years, 100 years or whenever.

And really i guess thats not all that bad. The bad part was the Town didnt tell this to the owner until the property was bought, the house torn down, a new site plan drawn and construction ready to start on the new building.

These are the types of things that hinder development in the ToC.

 

The last time I stopped at that Wendy's was, well, the last time I was ever going to stop at that Wendys. It was before the bypass. If possible the service was actually worse than the other Wendys that they are rebuilding. If a business owner cares that little about their service then I go elsewhere.

This goes back to the Chick Fil A thing. It can be done, but for some reason many places can't figure it out.

 

Town of Clayton (Planning and Zoning Board and Town Council) can't make decisions on potential projects until proposal has been submitted with request to rezone, site plans. etc? At what point in the process (property purchase, demolishing house, etc) did the property owner talk to the Town of Clayton Planning Department in the example you cite?

 

The initial site plan was approved and then the owner sat on it for a year, maybe 2. Then went in with a new version of the site plan to allow for more parking and it was during that time when the new version of the site plan was being finalized that he was told about it. I believe he had already started work on the new building based on the previously approved site so the church was going up when he tried for a change in the site plan for more parking. So construction was under way and then he got the news.

 

I believe after 2 years you have to start over. In any event if changes made to approved rezoning, conditional use permit, site plan, including additional parking, etc it requires approval. The site you are referring to required a Conditional Use Permit because of the proposed "Place of Worship" use.