By Catharin Shepard • Staff writer • A subdivision that could have up to 600 new houses, built in phases over time, is in the works for the Rockfish area.

The Hoke County Board of Commissioners last Tuesday night approved a preliminary plat request for the first of what was proposed as multiple phases of development for a subdivision called New Westgate.

The subdivision plat request submitted by Moorman, Kizer and Reitzel Inc. was for a 110-lot major subdivision. The developer plans to conduct the construction in phases of about 100 lots each, ultimately ending up with potentially as many as 600 new homes in New Westgate, a spokesman for the project told the board.

The first phase of New Westgate is set to go on about 31.46 acres of land located in the area of Pittman Grove Church Road and Will Monroe Road in the vicinity of the current Westgate subdivision, which itself contains about 800 houses. The property for New Westgate is already zoned as Residential (R-8), allowing for higher density housing on lots of a minimum of 8,000 square feet each.

The developer will invest in utilities work to be able to tie the subdivision onto Hoke County water and sewer, a representative said. The work will include putting in a lift station to tie in with the existing force main on Pittman Grove Church Road. The developer, not the county is paying for the work.

The board held a public hearing for the preliminary plat approval request. No members of the public spoke during the hearing. The board closed the public hearing and voted unanimously to approve the preliminary plat request for New Westgate.

Other business

Additionally, the county approved an agreement with LKC Engineering to furnish professional engineering services on the second phase of a planned push to expand county sewer service into the Rockfish area.

The board approved the agreement for LKC to complete the engineering work to run sewer to the “commercial district,” the downtown area of the Rockfish community. The commissioners also approved a preliminary budget for the project, which is expected to cost around $3.1 million in total. That includes funds for a primary 12^th force main from Koonce Road to Walters Road; a pump station in the Rockfish commercial district; and a gravity sewer extension to business parcels; plus $362,000 for the engineering work.

The engineering design will take approximately seven to nine months to complete. At some point after that, the board will need to send out a request for bids and select a company to do the construction work.

The county already awarded the first phase of the two-phase Rockfish sewer expansion project to Metcon. The first phase will extend sewer service to the area of Rockfish Hoke Elementary School. The school is currently on a septic tank system and has been struggling with issues with its system, officials have said. 

In other business, the board approved a three-item consent agenda including an invoice from the Charleston Group for providing legal services to the Hoke County Department of Social Services. Hoke DSS has a contract for services with the Charleston Group which includes funds for legal expenses. The total requested amount from May 2022 for months of “extraordinary litigation cases” was $1,624.

The county approved a plan to re-advertise a bid for surplus property, located off of Old Farm Road, due to multiple upset bids that were placed by the deadline. The commissioners recessed the meeting until last Thursday in order to meet with Sheriff Roderick Virgil about his concerns regarding flooding in the Northwoods subdivision