The two boards will tour Southern Village and Meadowmont, two large residential developments on the outskirts of the municipality. They were built by different companies but are examples of large planned unit developments, similar to one proposed by developers of Pine Needles Village in Southern Pines.

The developer of Pine Needles Village had asked Southern Pines to create a new zoning district called Planned Unit Development and then to rezone nearly 1,000 acres between U.S. 1 and Camp Easter Road to the new classification. Pine Needles Village would have more than 1,100 residential units along with retail and office uses.

Town Manager Reagan Parsons arranged the trip as he announced he would do during a meeting of the Planning and Zoning Board last week. The board held a public hearing on the Pine Needles Village requests. The developers agreed to withdraw temporarily the requests to give the town time to study planned unit developments.

LandDesign Inc. of Southern Pines is hosting a luncheon and presentation at its office in downtown Southern Pines at about noon and will help guide the council and planning board on the tour of Meadowmont, which it designed.

The purpose of this trip is to help members of the council and advisory board better understand planned unit developments before it considers the requests from Pine Needles Village.

Sara Lindau can be reached at 693-2473 or by e-mail at slindau@thepilot.com.