INC NEWS - water/sewer extension -- reducing to administrative decision is a bad idea

[Melissa Rooney]

I am also very concerned about removing city council
authority for water/sewer extensions, as I wrote to
gov't officials, the Herald Sun, and the INC listserv:

"As for "allow[ing] administrators to handle the
approval of most water and sewer extension agreements
on their own, without [requiring approval by]
council"
 The city council's ability to grant (or
withold) water/sewer extentions is what forced Jordan
at Southpoint's agreement to commit to the intention
of the conservation subdivision for which they'd
applied, including amendments under consideration. Had
administrators handled this on their own, such
progress (which is certainly in the best interest of
Durham) would not have been sought, much less made."

There seem to be 3 big 'streamlining'
suggestions/plans that should be removed from the
table, in the interest of non-developer citizen input:

1) Limiting the power of the PC wrt deferrals
2) Removing the requirement for council approval of
water and sewer extension agreements
3) speeding annexations at the expense of county
residents' input (via County elected officials)

Citizens should not have to figure out what's going on
behind the scenes in order to have some input.

Melissa

Melissa Rooney
mmr121570 at yahoo.com



--- Pat Carstensen <pats1717 at hotmail.com> wrote:

> 
> For all the virtual ink that has been spent on
> discussions about deferrals at Planning Commission,
> no-one has had anything to say about what I think
> could be an equally pernicious idea:  letting
> managers decide on proposals for developers to
> extend utilities to their projects.
> 
> Our side of town recently had a case of someone
> spotting, on the consent agenda (who looks at the
> consent agenda, maybe this is why the proposals are
> so rarely contested), a utility extension that would
> have gone through a park and adversely affected a
> neighborhood.  So we were lucky.
> 
> There may be some cases where it is appropriate for
> the manager to decide (e.g. the utility is going
> through what has been long preserved as right of
> way), but I think we need a LOT more discussion on
> what the appropriate conditions are. 
> 
> If the easy places to develop are already developed,
> sewer and water extensions are likely to be a big
> issues in parts eastern and northern parts of the
> county where the soil doesn't perk, so lack of past
> controversy isn't any reason to expect that we don't
> really need to have extensions as a LEGISLATIVE
> action.
> 
> Regards, pat
> 
>
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