INC NEWS - Letter: effort to "streamline" development process

Tue May 13 11:25:04 EDT 2008

Randy,

As always, I appreciate your perspective providing insight and informative 
detail for some local developers, planning, growth impacts and taxes.  The 
"streamline" process in the current form is not acceptable because there are 
severe limitations for neighborhood involvement and input with the planning, 
rezoning and development processes.

The Planning Department (PD) and other city-county-state departments, in 
most cases, perform their roles with excellence.  The primary mission of the 
PD is to review and ensure the minimal compliance with existing governmental 
standards and ordinances.  The PD cannot deny any submitted plan on the 
basis of poor design or other impacting matters if it complies with these 
standards and ordinances.

The existing authority of the Planning Commission (PC) is limited to a 
recommendation and should not be further circumvented for either political 
or developer expediency.  This is the only governmental approved body 
comprised of non-public servants or elected officials within the development 
review and approval processes.  PC membership should be limited to citizens 
without a vested interest in development, real estate, construction and 
politics.  Most developers desire the shortest process path for review and 
approval for their project.

The existing PC authority and process is all too often the first and last 
opportunity for the neighborhoods to convey their recommendations, concerns 
and become involved in the development process.  The "streamline" process 
will be unfair and unbalanced in favoring developers with their expert team 
of lawyers, land planners, realtors, contractors, lobbyists, engineers 
(traffic, civil, etc.).  The PC role with neighborhood and conservation 
input is vital in identifying and ensuring further protection of the many 
environmental, historical and archeological locations remaining throughout 
Durham.  The current process also supports the application of neighborhood 
common sense and not always the financial cents sought by developer 
interests.  Please understand that there are many good developers but 
without continuing the current authority to encourage dialogue and debate, 
many developers will not have the interest or incentive to communicate with 
or involve neighborhoods in their filing process.

In addition to maintaining the vital role of the PC, Durham city-county 
should fund an independent and non-affiliated Citizen Advocate (CA) staff to 
represent and protect the (short-medium-long term) planning and development 
interests of the public without influence from politicians, developers, 
lobbyists, government administrators, realtors, contractors. etc.  The CA 
would serve as a resource for all in Durham and our Region without a vested 
or direct interest in any single development.  In concert with the PC, the 
CA will facilitate a fair and equitable citizen representation and 
communication process among the other vested parties, bodies and 
organizations.

Ronnie Griffin

North Garrett Road Committee

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "RW Pickle" <randy at 27beverly.com>
To: <inc-list at durhaminc.org>
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 1:11 AM
Subject: Re: INC NEWS - Letter: effort to "streamline" development process

>I beg to differ with the opinion that all developers have bottomless
> pockets. Many developers are your neighbors, not some
> national-publicly-traded-stock-selling group trying to make investors
> happy. They do not have all of the resources you might think. In fact,
> it's more development on a shoe string than the luxury that seems to
> thought of by some. Development at any level is just speculation. Market
> forces, population shifts, jobs, all create a demand for development.
> There are a number of cities across this country that have plenty of empty
> housing stock; none of it as new as those in LV or AZ. In fact, some of
> the places in Ohio I am thinking of may have vacant historic homes just
> waiting new owners. But that's not to be since there are no jobs to even
> get folks to consider moving there. So development ends up being built
> where people/jobs/ corporations want to be and where economic forces will
> smile on them. And here we all are...
>
> In AZ and LV, it was the need to drive stocks in the right direction for
> investors. Not something I see a great deal happening around here. You
> don't see new development being built here for that reason because people
> are moving here every day. We're fortunate to live in such a desirable
> place that consistently finds itself on the top of someones list. We can't
> be this good, or continue to be this good, without the things that make it
> so good. And development is part of that good. It's not bad. Sure there
> may be some bad developments, but in general, it all grows to meet the
> needs of the people who live/move into an area. And like I said in the
> earlier email, we have a million more people coming here in the next 20
> years. So if development is bad and it is not going to happen, someone
> needs to get the word out to these folks who are coming so they'll go
> elsewhere...
>
> To think that communities, any community, looks 50 years down the road at
> anything, must be a joke. Our long-range transportation  planning, which
> is critical to moving all of the folks here and coming, looks at 20 years.
> The longest date out ahead of us I have ever heard is 2035 (still just a
> 30 year plan). And if you even look back 50 years, here or in LV, who
> would have ever thought our populations would have grown so much. In 1958
> LV had 22% of the states population on only .02% of the land. It seems
> unlikely, as it grew, that everyone wanted to live that close to city
> center. So LV started spreading out. Today, LV is just not LV, it's North
> LV, South LV and so on. From 1990-2000 some of these areas grew by 145% in
> population (ie: North LV grew from 47,707 to 115,488 in population; in
> 2006 it had grown to 197,576). In the same period of time here in Durham
> (1990-2000), we grew by 36.9% (from 136,611 to 187,035). Today, I believe
> the figure that is generally tossed out is a quarter of a million. So this
> is why development has to happen. We continue to grow! But the downside of
> all this growth (in residential units) is that this is the worst kind of
> development to have. Residents demand many services but rarely pay for
> them in additional taxes. So our entire tax system gets more costly for
> all of us. We need a healthy mix of industrial, commercial and then
> residential to keep it all at some sort of sustainable level. And as bad
> as they may seem to some, we need impact fees. Otherwise we'll all end up
> paying for the services these new residents will want...
>
> Barry said:
>
> "And don't you think that a public policy that encourages farmers to keep
> their land
> in production makes a certain amount of sense? With food and fuel prices
> at all-time
> highs, minimizing our reliance on food produced 4,000 miles away or more
> seems like
> a good idea to me."
>
> We do this already. They are called farm subsidies. Our government pays
> farmers to grow (or not to grow in some cases) all sorts of our food
> chain; milk, wheat, soybeans, cotton, corn and the list goes on. In
> addition to routine cash subsidies, the USDA provides subsidized crop
> insurance, marketing support, and other services for farm businesses. The
> USDA also performs extensive agricultural research and generates
> statistical data for the industry. These indirect subsidies and services
> cost taxpayers about $5 billion each year, putting total farm support at
> between $15 billion and $35 billion annually. In recent years, it has
> risen to $121 billion. So more than encouragement is happening already.
> But most of the subsidies go to large producers (because small producers
> are just that and their addition to the food chain is marginal at
> best...). For example, the largest 10 percent of recipients have received
> 72 percent of all subsidy payments in recent years. Even late-night talk
> show host David Letterman gets some. I read an article where the
> government sends him an $8K check for his farming efforts. The extensive
> federal welfare system for farm businesses is costly to taxpayers and
> creates distortions in markets. It's a bad idea whose time has come to be
> changed. Let markets decide what something costs. The downside to this is
> shortages as farmers quit growing a crop because it's no longer
> profitable. And in the end, it'll only hurt us as we'll no longer be able
> to get something we once were or that milk goes to $23 a gallon. So it's a
> fragile line... We can't grow all of our food here anyway. So that's why
> we buy it cheaper in foreign countries and bring it here. We have just
> become accustomed to having our blueberry pancakes year 'round I guess.
> Otherwise, if there wasn't a demand for them (blueberries are just an
> example), they'd rot on the grocers shelves.
>
> RWP
> 27 Beverly
>
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