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

Tue May 13 11:34:02 EDT 2008

Randy wrote: ". 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..."

I disagree that there may be 'some' bad developments.
Come to South Durham and see the damage for yourself
-- the potential for Cary-like urban sprawl is
blinding. And Ellen Reckhow stated, at the recent
Forum on Drought and Development, that most of the
checks to repay developers for Durham's impact fees
went OUT OF STATE. Those developers should have to
live in the living environment they create. I hate to
think of what it would be like if concerned citizens
weren't pushing back.

Yes, we need to accommodate growth, and I know that
development is an inevitability....but Environmentally
and Economically RESPONSIBLE development should be the
goal, and for this we need oversight -- both by city
and county ELECTED officials and by citizens,
themselves. The changes proposed would only reduce the
ability and effectiveness of such oversight. 

I think that those millions who move here would want
to know if they are moving into hastily (and often
shoddily) built homes built on a tree/shade-less
excavated and mass-graded pit that becomes a swamp
when the rains do come...not to mention the effects of
ground/clay settlement on their 'new homes' as a
result of drought followed by heavy storms.

We need to take the TIME required for the checks and
balances to ensure ENVIRONMENTALLY RESPONSIBLE
development in Durham, regardless of how much it costs
developers. Perhaps when they see that we are serious,
they'll start submitting the most environmentally
responsible developments they can, which will surely
speed the development process more than any
bureaucratic changes currently being discussed.

With deep concern,
Melissa

Melissa Rooney
mmr121570 at yahoo.com

--- RW Pickle <randy at 27beverly.com> wrote:

> 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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