[Durham INC] Fw: heraldsun.com article

Wed Aug 12 10:04:31 EDT 2009

Good morning :)

Below this email is the Herald Sun article regarding the Planning Commission Public Hearing on the Jordan Lake Map Changes last night. I have also included links to the Durham News, NBC-17, and BCR write-ups. 

The Commission voted 12 - 0 against changing the maps based on the Hunter/Puckett survey, and requested that the city and county define the methodology to be used for surveying lakes and commission their own, independent survey of the entire lake w/in Durham County lines.

Please write your planning commissioners and thank them for looking out for the best interests of all Durham (and all Triangle) residents:
durhamplanningcommission at durhamnc.gov

Thanks for your involvement in this important issue!
Melissa (Rooney)
____________

News Stories --

http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1191429.cfm? 

http://durhamcounty.mync.com/site/durhamcounty/news/story/39979/planning-commission-says-no-to-development-around-jordan-lake

http://www.newsobserver.com/news/durham/story/1643839.html

http://www.bullcityrising.com/2009/08/bcrs-daily-fishwrap-report-for-august-12-2009.html#more

http://heraldsun.southernheadlines.com/durham/4-1191429.cfm? 

Planning panel backs existing Jordan zoning

By Ray Gronberg : The Herald-Sun 
gronberg at heraldsun.com 
Aug 12, 2009 

DURHAM -- A unanimous Durham Planning Commission has urged county leaders to maintain the present zoning of land near Jordan Lake and join the city government in obtaining an independent survey of the lake's boundaries. 

The 12-0 vote voicing the advisory board's opinion came as the County Commissioners prepare for an upcoming hearing that could end with a vote that would change zoning near the lake along N.C. 751 in a way opening the possibility of dense development there. 

A Raleigh company, Southern Durham Development Inc., controls a 165-acre parcel next to the lake's swampy headwaters along N.C. 751 and claims that administrators conceded the legality of dense construction on the site more than three years ago, when they accepted a survey that pegged the artificial reservoir's edge farther west than officials had placed it. 

Environmentalists earlier this summer released a survey of their own suggesting the lake's border properly belongs more than a mile farther east than local officials had placed it. Under Durham law, the boundary determines whether land qualifies for dense development. 

Planning Commission members said the problem is that neither state nor local law spells out what methods surveyors should use in marking the lake's edge. And the survey the developers are relying on and the one environmentalists came up with used completely different methods. 

Given that, "both surveys are completely correct," said Jarrod Edens, a commission member and professional engineer who announced at the meeting's start that he'd once worked on other things for the N.C. 751 site's former owner, Neal Hunter. 

Edens -- who disclosed he'd also worked in the past with Hunter's surveyor, Stephen Puckett -- said the only thing that would provide a "true outcome that decides this is for the city and county to get together, provide some leadership on this issue and commission a survey that correctly identifies the normal-pool location for Jordan Lake, for the entire lake." 

"It's too important an issue to have these all these black clouds floating around," he added. "Let's do it correctly, one time, field-survey the entire lake, and then move on." 

Other Planning Commission members agreed, though they said it's also important that officials consult professionals in the field and use "sound science" in deciding on a methodology for a new survey. 

County Commissioners, however, have already considered and brushed aside the idea of ordering their own survey of the lake. They regarded the idea as too costly. 

One of Southern Durham Development's attorneys, K&L Gates staff lawyer Craigie Sanders, attended Tuesday night's meeting and noted that the company is suing the county to get the 2006 ruling based on the Hunter/Puckett survey upheld. 

He said his clients considered the meeting illegitimate because the company had already secured its property rights through the earlier ruling. 

Sanders otherwise made no attempt to defend the accuracy of the Hunter/Puckett survey or the validity of its methods. 

The hearing also saw Planning Commission Chairman George Brine back away from his previously announced decision to sit out the debate. K&L Gates lawyers had demanded he sit out because they thought he wasn't objective on the issue. 

Commission members had disputed the reasoning for that. 

At the start of Monday's meeting, members Jackie Brown, Don Moffitt and LaDawnna Summers joined Brine in saying they'd contributed money to the Haw River Assembly's effort to hire a countering survey. 

Edens disclosed his ties to Hunter and Puckett, member Jarvis Martin said he'd worked in the past as an expert witness for K&L Gates clients, and member Wendy Jacobs said she or her employer have employed Puckett and K&L Gates lawyers. 

Away from the meeting, a N.C. Division of Water Quality regulator said Tuesday that her office is willing to "consider any additional surveys submitted by the county." 

The regulator, Water Supply Protection Program Coordinator Julie Ventaloro, had previously told county officials a survey based on water-surface elevation -- the methodology the Hunter/Puckett survey used -- was the right way to settle critical and protected lake boundaries. 

But in an e-mail to south Durham activist Melissa Rooney, Ventaloro said Tuesday it "was not our intent to exclude from consideration surveys performed using other methods to locate the normal pool elevation in New Hope Creek or in other streams." 

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