By an 8-1 vote following little discussion, the Greensboro City Council approved Roy Carroll’s rezoning request to build apartments at Interstate 40/85 and McConnell Road. Council member Mary Rakestraw was the lone ‘no’ vote on the final motion.

The majority of the opponents were members of the Clapp family, which has been farming the land out there for generations. They were just protecting their interests, and I respect that. But if there’s ever a case for “the area’s going to develop anyway,” this is it. But the area’s got to develop the way city staff sees it, not private developers.

Council member Robbie Perkins specifically mentioned the taxpayer-funded UNCG-N.C. A&T nanotechnology (which, by the way, will take up a prime piece of open space) as the type of development for which east Greensboro is prime. Yes, the city planning staff wants jobs in that area, just like the Piedmont Triad Airport authority wants jobs in the northwest Greensboro once Fed Ex is up and running. But neither wants to give the people working those jobs a nearby place to live. When you look at it that way, the council did the right thing.

I did have to laugh, though, when Carroll’s attorney, Henry Isaacson, threw the smart growth guys a bone when he said that bus service hopefully would run down McConnell Road. Nice touch.