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

[Mike - Hotmail]

All,

This dialogue is a good one.

But for many of us (as neighborhood representatives) there's a desire to be 
involved or at least just informed of your (read developers, investors, 
speculators, mixed use builders, and big box installers) project early on in 
your thought processes.

We want you to know that it's much more economical for you (i.e. list 
mentioned above) to do so at the front end of the 'planning process'.

If a developer wants to spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on 
additional legal fees, architect plans and resultant duplicitous trips to 
the Development Review Panel, Planning Commission and/or elected officials 
in multiple public hearings,  just continue to ignore the residents who live 
where you want to envision your next project!

Including nearby residents (and business owners) in any new project should 
be the first step in the process,  not the last!

Leaving the opinions out of those who will be most affected by these new 
projects by 'streamlining the Development Review Process' is both costly and 
time consuming, with or without a new Neighborhood Advocate.

Mike Shiflett



----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ronnie Griffin" <res1m28r at verizon.net>
To: <inc-list at durhaminc.org>; "RW Pickle" <randy at 27beverly.com>
Sent: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 11:25 AM
Subject: Re: INC NEWS - Letter: effort to "streamline" development process


> 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
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> INC-list mailing list
>> INC-list at rtpnet.org
>> http://lists.deltaforce.net/mailman/listinfo/inc-list
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> INC-list mailing list
> INC-list at rtpnet.org
> http://lists.deltaforce.net/mailman/listinfo/inc-list
>