News

Council poised to OK Asheville Hiway Gas Express

By Bill Moss, Published: June 5, 2015

The Hendersonville City Council on Thursday is poised to approve plans that will enable Ingles Markets to add a Gas Express at its Asheville Highway location.

After a divided council voted to grant a new driveway cut and to reduce the store’s parking requirement, City Attorney Sam Fritschner pointed out to the council that a variance requires a two-thirds vote for approval the first time it’s taken up. The council can vote on the variance a second time and approve it on the same 3-2 vote, he said. The council agreed to do that, setting a second vote for its July 2 meeting.
Ingles resubmitted the same driveway request the council had rejected two years ago.

Council members Jeff Miller, Ron Stephens and Steve Caraker voted yes. Mayor Barbara Volk and Councilman Jerry Smith voted no.
Ingles plans four pumps and eight stations at the Gas Express on the southwest corner of the property.
“If we’re going to have 1,300 trips (to the gas station) we feel like it should have its own driveway,” Ingles development manager Preston Kendall said. “The DOT has approved the right-in only.”
As part of the design, Ingles has agreed to add a deceleration lane for the middle driveway that would include 35 feet of stacking length and 50 feet of taper.
The engineering “has been about customer safety, flow through our parking lot,” Kendall said. “This is something we’ve been working on for four or five years.”
During a public hearing two residents said a third driveway would make worse an already hazardous situation at the supermarket, which has no traffic light. (Kendall said the company has asked for one for three years and been turned down by the NCDOT each time.)
“There’s a traffic problem there but I don’t think this makes it worst,” Stephens said.
The Gas Express driveway will be a right-in only.
The council also granted a variance that reduces the total parking the grocery store must provide. The store will provide 227 parking spaces, 96 fewer than the number the city code requires for a store of that size.