[Durham INC] More News on the Jordan lake Survey Saga -- PC mtg tomorrow evening!

[Melissa Rooney]

Please see the news stories below, the first in the N&O today, the second (at the bottom of this email) in the Durham News (of the N&O) on Saturday (two days ago).
 
The Durham Planning Commission meets at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the City Council chamber, City Hall. Hope you can make it, or at least email your planning commissioners with your concerns. Their email addresses are readily available here:
http://www.durhamnc.gov/departments/planning/planning_commission_roster.cfm
 
Keeping the Faith (for now),
Melissa (Rooney)






Melissa has sent you the following story:


 
Posted on Monday, Aug. 10, 2009

Jordan Lake 'critical area' border may be moved
By JIM WISE 

When 2009 began for the city and county of Durham, the costly problem of polluted lakes was in the public policy cards, along with the related issue of restricting future growth to protect those waters.
On Tuesday, the Durham Planning Commission will play a hand that will test local officials' willingness to say "no" to developers in the interest of cleaner water.
The lakes in question are Falls and Jordan, reservoirs that supply water for more than 1million people who don't live in Durham. But those reservoirs are fouled by what flows in from streams that run through Durham County and other jurisdictions.

Read More...







 


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Meeting sets stage for showdown over lake boundary


City keeps eye on county’s decision


By Jim Wise
Staff writer

Three cards in the Jordan Lake boundary deal are due to turn up for the Durham Planning Commission on Tuesday. But several wild cards remain in the deck, and some of the players are not yet at the table.

For example, the City of Durham. Right now, the high hand belongs to the Durham County Board of Commissioners. But that play “will have a ripple effect throughout the city jurisdiction as well,” City Council member Mike Woodard said Wednesday. “That affects hundreds of thousands of people.”

What is at stake, bottom line, is the “751 Assemblage” — a proposed 164-acre subdivision with about 1,200 residential units and 500,000 or so square feet of shops and offices off N.C. 751, just north of the Chatham County line, and, depending on your point of view, inside or outside the “critical” area around the Jordan Lake reservoir. If it’s inside, no go for Southern Durham Development Inc. If it’s outside, maybe.

What’s on the table Tuesday night — unless the game is put off until September — are Durham County’s requested rezoning and land-use changes that move the critical boundary so as to let the developers proceed; and a new survey that indicates they shouldn’t.
“It’s a very complicated issue,” said City Council member Diane Catotti.

 
Meanwhile, Southern Durham Development is suing Durham County for allegedly delaying its project, among other points. The county has yet to respond to the suit, but as of Monday it had already cost County Attorney Chuck Kitchen his job. (See story, page 3.)

Whatever and whenever the Planning Commission — which is a citizens’ advisory body — and the county commissioners decide about rezoning, land use and the conflicting surveys, the City of Durham has to eventually get involved.

 
“That has not happened,” said City-County Planning Director Steve Medlin. But the city is not obligated to accept the county’s decisions on zoning and land use, and the city has no obligation to supply water and sewer service the Assemblage would require.

“I think there’s a lot of transit issues around it” as well, Woodard said. And then there’s the matter of siting what is, in practical terms, a new small town close to an already-polluted water source under state and federal mandates for cleanup. Now, Durham drinks from Jordan Lake only in emergencies like the 2007-08 drought, but the city water department expects Jordan to be a regular water source as the city grows and is in the process of enlarging Durham’s capacity to tap into it.

 
“I think the implications of the Jordan Lake rules and the new Falls Lake rules, and water quality as a whole,” Catotti said, “we’re going to have to look very, very carefully.”

Jim.wise at nando.com or 932-2004

What’s next:

The Durham Planning Commission meets at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday in the City Council chamber, City Hall.

Agendas are available at
www.durhamnc.gov/departments/planning/planning_commission.cfm under “Schedule.”

Planning commissioners expect a lengthy meeting.





      
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