LAPEL — The Lapel Town Council approved a zoning change to allow the Pleasantview Apartments project to move forward at a special public hearing March 7.

The meeting was attended by three of the five sitting board members and about 20 residents.

The project is planned on the north side of Old State Road 132 on the east side of town and includes one- to three-bedroom apartments with attached garages; it will now continue forward but with fewer units than originally planned, according to board member Deb Wainscott.

“It was originally going to be 65 before, now it’s down to 30,” she said. “They wanted six variances that we weren’t willing to concede to.”

The board approved the request to rezone the land from agriculture to R-3 for the apartments. Wainscott said the next step is for engineers to submit plans for review, followed by a groundbreaking with an eye toward 2018 for completion.

“They’ll send civil engineering plans for us to go over,” she said. “(Completion) won’t be until next year, but they’re hoping to break ground in the spring.”

She added that no further action is necessary by the board until those plans are completed.

“Our next thing is to bring the plans to the Planning Commission,” she said. “The civil engineer plans and the building plans will either be approved or not approved by the planning commission.”

Council president Michael Cates added that, in a town of 2100, the handful of speakers at the meeting was not a representative sample.

“My thought process was that 20 people, that was a small amount to show up,” he said. “I think three or four were in favor and maybe five or six were against. Our population is over 2,100 and less than 20 people showed up.”