INC NEWS - Letter of notification to Fairfield re. Herndon Road rezoning

[Duke, Frank]

Durham's notification procedures vastly exceed those required by State
law. We provide mailed notice far in excess of what is required and
provide notice well in advance of what the State requires. We do provide
notice to all property owners within 600 feet of a proposed zoning map
change and to all neighborhood organizations within 1,000 feet of the
site that are registered with us. If the neighborhood is not registered
or does not provide a current address, however, we cannot send any
notice out to them. No other local government in North Carolina comes
anywhere close to ensuring this extent of notice.

You also need to realize that by the time grading on any site occurs, it
is too late to have any public input. The last step in the process where
the public can raise their voice is the zoning stage; potentially years
before any site work is done. Once the zoning is established, North
Carolina law requires that the process be administrative only
considering only ordinance requirements.

Frank Duke, AICP
City-County Planning Director


-----Original Message-----
From: Melissa Rooney [mailto:mmr121570 at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, February 13, 2007 1:45 PM
To: Duke, Frank
Cc: inc-list at rtpnet.org; rcyoung4 at verizon.net
Subject: RE: Letter of notification to Fairfield re. Herndon Road
rezoning

Thank you, Mr. Duke. I realize that the Herald-Sun is
Durham's newspaper, and I went with them until it got
too expensive (I can get the N&O for ~$90/year). 

At any rate, it doesn't seem fair that the normal
citizen/neighbor of Durham often can ONLY get their
information (regarding rezoning and public hearings)
via the newspaper. A good number of my neighbors don't
read ANY newspaper -- sad but true. And it seems that
the county/city spends a good deal of
time/paper/postage getting appropriate information to
the landowners/developers who apply for rezoning. Why
is it that such information is not, by default, also
sent to the nearby Durham homeowners? Rather, the
impetus is on us to go looking for it. And while
developers and landowners have a monetary incentive to
do their research, we normal citizens do not and must
make unpaid, voluntary use of our time to fish out
such information. Oftentimes, neighbors don't know to
be concerned until they see mass grading occuring in
their neck of the woods, and then it's clearly too
late in the process to do anything about it.

It seems that the system is set up such that it
unfairly communicates with one side (the
developer/landowners) over the other (the durham
constituent/neighbor).

I realize that, for many rezonings and public
hearings, legislation/ordinance only requires
advertisement of the event in the local newspaper. But
that doesn't make it fair. 

I hope that planning and local gov't will consider
directly informing neighborhoods of ALL rezoning
issues near them, at least in so far as it is done for
the developers/landowners applying for the rezoning.

Thanks for hearing/reading my concerns with an open
mind.

Cheers,
Melissa

--- "Duke, Frank" <Frank.Duke at durhamnc.gov> wrote:

> I have no way to confirm whether a notice was sent
> out on a case that
> long ago. Sorry.
> 
> As for the legal notice, the Herald-Sun is
> considered the newspaper of
> general circulation in Durham so it is the one that
> reaches the majority
> of the citizens in Durham, not the N&O.
> 
> Frank Duke, AICP
> City-County Planning Director
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Melissa Rooney [mailto:mmr121570 at yahoo.com] 
> Sent: Monday, February 05, 2007 1:49 PM
> To: Duke, Frank
> Subject: Letter of notification to Fairfield re.
> Herndon Road rezoning
> 
> Dear Mr. Duke,
> Hi again. I am also trying to assess whether Bill
> Ripley sent a letter notifying Fairfield
> Neighborhood
> of the rezoning application for the property across
> the Herndon Road from us (now being developed by
> South
> Hampton). A friend from INC told me that the
> planning
> department should have a record of this.
> 
> The contact person/address should have been:
> Fairfield Homeowners Associaton
> c/o Kelly Decker (ext 29)
> Talis Management Group 
> 570 New Waverly Place, Suite 240 Cary, NC 27511
> 919 319 3450
> ksdecker at talismgmt.com
> 
> I believe this was Rezoning Case P01-77
> 
> In addition, I noticed that the public hearing was
> advertised in the Durham Herald Sun. I (and many of
> my
> neighbors) get the News and Observer so would not
> have
> seen this advertisement. Many do not even receive
> the
> newspaper and could certainly have missed this
> advertisement. Is there any way that you would
> consider emailing or snail-mailing notification of
> such public hearings to the neighborhoods within
> 1000
> feet of the development and those homes within 600
> feet (as required by the UDO for those rezonings
> that
> require neighborhood meetings).
> 
> Thanks for your help, input and consideration of
> this.
> Sincerely,
> Melissa 
> 
> Melissa Rooney
> Fairfield Community Watch
> Fairfield Communications
> Fairfield INC representative
> 
> 
> 
>  
>
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