Planning Director J.B. Culpepper and senior planner Rae Buckley provided the report in preparation for the town Planning Board's Aug. 19 meeting.

Glen Lennox residents and their neighbors submitted a petition to the Town Council this spring to initiate the first informal phase of the Neighborhood Conservation District (NCD) process.

The purpose of the first phase, which includes a neighborhood meeting the Planning Board will set, is to explain the process so residents know "what a Neighborhood Conservation District can and cannot accomplish," according to the planners' memo.

If after the neighborhood meeting 51 percent or more residents support forming a conservation district, the work would actually begin.

Grubb Properties, which owns the Glen Lennox apartments and the shopping center off N.C. 54, has already withdrawn its plans to raze the historic neighborhood.

President Clay Grubb apologized for a "hastily done" plan but asked the town to hold off on the NCD process to see if the developer and neighbors could work out a compromise. The council vote to initiate phase one anyway, telling Grubb he could work with the residents as part of the NCD process. The company plans to submit a new redevelopment plan but has not said when.

The town has six neighborhood conservation districts now, each of which was facing its own development pressures. They are Northside, Greenwood, Kings Mill/Morgan Creek, Pine Knolls, Mason Farm/Whitehead Circle and Coker Hills.

To become a district, a neighborhood must be primarily residential, be at least 40 years old and have unique characteristics related to building scale and materials, lot and street layouts, landscaping and landmarks, among other features.

Once the Planning Board makes its recommendation, the Town Council would hold a public hearing before voting.

If approved, the conservation district becomes an "overlay" set of rules on top of the existing zoning. When there is a conflict between what the original zoning and the overlay zoning allows, the overlay rules.

Previous NCD processes have taken one to two years.