INC NEWS - Morreene Road development

Fri Oct 26 16:40:16 EDT 2007

Though I, too, found the "guest opinion" piece
informative and felt empathetic with D&L, I can't help
but agree with Pat. The writers would have done well
to omit the last sentence. 

It may be a reality check, and one that should prompt
neighbors and gov't officials to preventative action.
Nonetheless, it sure sounded like a veiled threat to
me. We heard the same thing with Jordan at Southpoint.
During initial talks with S. Durham neighbors, the
developer/contractor told us that they 'could always
submit the same plan as a conservation subdivision'--
this might sound to some like a good thing, until they
find out that submitting as a 'conservation
subdivision' avoids the need for DRB and BOCC
approval, and thus any public hearings.

It sounds like D&L is a good NC business. I am
empathetic to their frustrations and agree that, at
the end of the day, it isn't their fault. 

But replacing a small eatery with a larger (by 62%)
commercial store like this should have prompted
gov't/planning's communication with immediate
neighbors, particularly since it involved ordinance
interpretations hidden to the common layperson. 
Certainly, these neighbors shouldn't have been stroked
and told not to worry, as they have reported. This is
all the more disturbing, since it appears that the
planning department made some judgment calls that were
not in keeping with the intent of the long-standing
zoning of the property.

I certainly welcome what the D&L's article refers to
as "the Planning Department's evolving discretion,"
and I hope that it will prevent another situation like
the one at hand.

Melissa Rooney
(I have attached the initial HS article (by neighbors)
below)

_________________

Column: Controversial Morreene warehouse mocks real
planning
By Will Robinson, 21 Sept 2007, Herald-Sun

Dirt roads and farmland were about all that you would
have found at the intersection of Durham's Morreene
Road and American Drive in the 1930s. That and a
little barbecue joint. This was the Turnage Farm owned
by Woodrow Turnage, the cotton buyer for Erwin Mills.
The farm and the barbecue joint were perhaps more a
hobby for Turnage, who entertained business associates
there from time to time.

Durham resident Jim Warren grew up working at the
barbecue joint, and after returning from WWII, Warren
came back to work for the restaurant, bought the
business and moved it just down the street to the lot
at 608 Morreene Road, where he ran a popular
restaurant called "Turnage's" for almost 30 years.
This was the same "Turnage's" that made headlines by
becoming Durham's first integrated restaurant in the
early 1960s.

During those 30 years, the restaurant and neighborhood
were incorporated into Durham's city limits and zoned
accordingly. While the neighborhood was rightly
designated as residential property, all the neighbors
agreed that Warren, who also lived in the neighborhood
himself, be given a "Commercial Neighborhood" (CN)
zoning to continue his business. His barbecue was
certainly a welcome part of the community that had
been developed on the old Turnage Farm acreage.

Unfortunately for the residents of the Turnage
Heights/University Estates neighborhood, today, no
such enthusiasm exists today, in part because the
restaurant that used to share the neighborhood's name
no longer exists. And in part because of what is going
up in its place. When the old restaurant was torn down
earlier this year, neighbors who called to inquire
were told by city planning officials that a retail
store was going up, which was in keeping with the
property's CN district, and not to be worried.

Maybe they were naive; maybe the name "city planning"
actually led them to believe someone downtown was
looking after the best interest of the neighborhood
and planning accordingly. It was only when the
bulldozers came in to grade and the steel girders were
off-loaded on the site that folks realized something
terrible was happening. In place of the old
restaurant, plans had been approved by the city for an
appliance and appliance parts company to build a
13,000-square-foot store and warehouse -- smack dab in
the middle of their neighborhood.

Calls to the store's owner and to the city only
produced disillusionment. As a result, neighbors now
find themselves fighting against the city over what
appears to be an obviously bad example of city
planning and are being told that not much can be done.
The parcel of land zoned CN is only about an acre and
the old restaurant fit nicely on that property. But
apparently, somewhere in the 900-page (read "not
user-friendly") Unified Development Ordinance (UDO)
governing development in Durham, exceptions allow for
a builder to purchase adjacent residential
(RS-district) lots and allocate their acreage to meet
the buffer/yard requirements for his commercial
property.

This permits the builder in this case to more than
double the size of his new commercial building going
up. And thus a 5,000-square-foot restaurant becomes a
13,000-square-foot monstrosity in the blink of an eye.
What's even more befuddling is that the city seems
perfectly comfortable that this new appliance and
parts store and warehouse will "complement and satisfy
the needs of the surrounding neighborhood" as the UDO
states, even though no one in the neighborhood wants
it.

The UDO is 900 pages because development exceptions
are bound to arise in a county growing as fast as
ours. The problem is that those exceptional clauses
are intended to permit favorable development in cases
where the standard requirements of the UDO would
normally inhibit such positive growth. However, in
this case, Durham City Planning has simply taken the
UDO, with all of its exceptions, and "cherry-picked"
it to permit decidedly bad development, which leaves
us to scratch our heads and wonder whose interest is
really being served here? It is certainly not the
citizens of University Estates and Turnage Heights. 

The UDO was implemented to help steer growth in
positive ways in Durham -- to "protect existing
neighborhoods, preventing their decline and promoting
their livability," and to "encourage an aesthetically
attractive community."

Permitting this warehouse makes a mockery of the real
spirit of the UDO. In this case, what the citizens of
Durham are left with is a City Planning Office with a
gutless UDO in hand using the letter of the law to
justify serving every commercial development interest
that darkens its door. And in so doing, they lose
sight of the forest for the trees, and the vision of a
better Durham for our tomorrow. Must we stand by and
watch our neighborhood being pockmarked with
unscrupulous commercial development? Stay tuned for a
warehouse coming soon to a neighborhood near you.

The writer is a former resident and current property
owner in Turnage Heights.

--- Marge Nordstrom <mnordstrom at nc.rr.com> wrote:

> I came away from reading the article with the same
> impressions as Kelly.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org
> [mailto:inc-list-bounces at rtpnet.org]
> On Behalf Of Kelly Jarrett, DISC
> Sent: Friday, October 26, 2007 11:40 AM
> Cc: listserv, inc
> Subject: Re: INC NEWS - Morreene Road development
> 
> Pat--
> I actually found their opinion piece to be
> informative and persuasive. 
> It sounds to me as if they've followed procedures
> and are willing to try
> 
> to address some of the neighborhood concerns. I took
> their concluding 
> remark less as a threat that as a reality check. I
> agree with you that 
> there may be a problem with how various types of
> zoning are defined and 
> with the planning/development process, but they
> aren't to blame for 
> those problems.
> 
> Kelly
> 
> pat carstensen wrote:
> > I just happened to see the following "guest
> opinion" piece in the 
> > Herald Sun.
> >
> >
>
http://www.heraldsun.com/opinion/columnists/guests/68-892019.cfm
> >
> > by the folks trying to build a "commercial
> neighborhood" building in 
> > the Morreene Rd. neighborhood. 
> >
> > It concludes:
> > "At the end of the day, if the Planning
> Department's evolving 
> > discretion and our immediate neighbors' passions
> won't allow D&L to 
> > become operational at the site, we will be forced
> to sell to the 
> > highest bidder. The highest bidder could be a
> late-night convenience 
> > store or a night club serving folks who stay up
> much later than we
> do."
> >
> > I find the threatening tone appalling.  Behavior
> like this is why 
> > neighborhoods treat any development in their area
> as a threat.  It 
> > also shows why all Durham neighborhoods need a
> type of zoning that 
> > permits useful commercial enterprises that will
> serve the neighborhood
> 
> > while controlling the size, lights, traffic, and
> so on that keep it at
> 
> > a scale appropriate to a neighborhood.
> >
> > Regards, pat
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Shuffle:  the word scramble
> 
> > challenge with star power. Play Now! 
> >
>
<http://club.live.com/star_shuffle.aspx?icid=starshuffle_wlmailtextlink_
> oct> 
> >
> >
>
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