Morganton City Council approves land swap with Western Piedmont | #citycouncil

The council agreed at its meeting Monday, Feb. 5, to convey about 28.67 acres of property it owned on Vine Arden Road near the city’s waste water treatment plant to Western Piedmont Community College in exchange for about 6 acres of property on Patrick Murphy Drive off Enola Road.

An exchange of properties between two public bodies does not require the same procedures a public body would typically need to follow if it wanted to acquire or dispose of property, according to information from the city.

Both the city and Western Piedmont have agreed that their properties are similar in value. While the property acquired by the city is smaller than the one acquired by Western Piedmont, the city’s new property is more valuable because of its location.

One of Morganton’s major thoroughfares will likely get a facelift soon after council members agreed to contract with McGill Associates for design, bidding and awarding for a streetscape project.

Council members approved a contract worth $355,600 with McGill Associates for the design, bidding and awarding phase of the North Green Street Streetscape Project.

The city has received a $450,000 Rural Transformation Grant to help pay for the project, but total project costs, for both the general fund and utilities, are expected to be around $4 million. This initial phase of the project will help better determine the actual cost of it, and allow city staff to make decisions on the project’s scope and how to fund it.

AT&T customers in the western end of the city soon may have better cellphone service after the council agreed to enter a lease agreement with the telecom company to add some of their antennas to an existing monopine tower.

The tower, on Steeple Heights Lane in Morganton’s Riverside Drive neighborhood, has been used exclusively by the city for Public Safety and other city business.

The city encourages telecommunications providers to use existing towers when possible instead of building new, leading to an agreement with AT&T.

Council members agreed a 10-year lease with AT&T with a rent of $1,400 per month, increasing by 2% each year. All of the equipment required will be located on the existing monopine tower on Steeple Heights Lane.

A property on the corner of South Sterling and Moose streets was rezoned at the meeting in a move city staff say lines up with desired future uses for the area.

Wendy Smith, the city’s director of development and design, said the property is undeveloped and currently used for parking at Momentum Car Care, 1908 S. Sterling St. That lot is next to the property that was rezoned.

Smith said Momentum Car Care plans to pave part of the lot and continue using it for parking and will be adding in some landscaping, but the property needed to be rezoned before that could be done.

She said rezoning that property to high intensity district corridor overlay fits in with the rest of the zoning for that portion of South Sterling Street.

Several other items were approved by the council, including:

• A resolution of intent to close a portion of the former course of Romarco Road
• Minutes from the Jan. 8 meeting
• Setting March 6 as the date for advertisement of unpaid real estate taxes
• A contract with Tyler Technologies for new HR technology

Approval of a budget amendment to receive funds from the sale of timber on Williams Road, which was accidentally forgotten at January’s council meeting

The council will meet next on Feb. 23 at 8 a.m. for its annual workshop. The event is expected to last most of the day and will see department heads outline their funding wish lists for the upcoming fiscal year.