HAMLET — City Council will consider Tuesday whether to rezone the former Resource Recycling property on Battley Dairy Road to allow what City Manager Jonathan Blanton calls “a strip mall of consignment shops” or “indoor flea market.”
The squat brown building at 234 Battley Dairy Road sits on a plot zoned “light industrial,” which does not allow for retail sales. The mall developer must seek B2/general business or B3/neighborhood business zoning instead.
When the matter came up before the city’s zoning board a few days back, it voted 4-1 to recommend rezoning, with member Kim Lindsey as the sole opponent.
Neighbors Herbert Bruce and Jerry Smith, who have homes on Battley Dairy Road, across from the Resource Recycling site, oppose the rezoning.
Council members also will consider demolishing an abandoned and collapsing house at 302 W. Hamlet Ave.
The city can afford to demolish only one or two hazardous or crumbling buildings a year, Blanton said Friday. Late last year, it cleared away one at the corner of N.C. 177 and Monroe Avenue.
The yards of both houses sit on well-traveled thoroughfares.
Council members also will honor Therafirm, recently named top rural exporter by Gov. Roy Cooper. Therafirm has a factory in Hamlet’s business park.
The council will meet at 7 p.m. Tuesday in chambers at 201 Main St., Hamlet.