[Durham INC] 751 Ass. -- Protest Petition filed, BOA appeal withdrawn

[Melissa Rooney]

Here's the latest:

http://www.indyweek.com/triangulator/archives/2010/05/24/residents-file-protest-petition-in-751-south-case-in-preparation-for-june-1-public-hearing

Though I was not the one behind this protest petition (a CR resident obtained the sigs and filed the petition), I have reviewed the contents and wanted to point out a few things.


There are a total of 33 eligible properties (whose owners' signatures go toward validating the protest petition) to sign the protest petition on the Eastern side. Of these, 5 are United States Army Corps properties. Another 5 are owned by 751 Investments (who have a vested interest in the success of the 751 Assemblage). These leaves 23 properties. And 3 belong to Mary Turner, who is not a Durham resident (she is an investor who lives in Charlotte) and throughout this case (including the watershed rezoning) has been unreachable. This leaves only 20 properties that would be reasonably expected to even consider signing a protest petition. Of these 20, the protest petition contains 19.

18 of the 19 eligible signatures from Chancellor's Ridge neighborhood residents (immediately across the street from the proposed 751 Assemblage site) were obtained. The nearby Bailes' property at 9415 751-Hwy also signed. 

I don't think you could ask for a more complete list of protest petition signatures, given these circumstances.

Of course, now that the developers no doubt know that a protest petition has been filed, I would not be surprised if they ask for a deferral, themselves, in order to have time to 'convince' signatories to remove their signatures and/or to manipulate the legal process in order to fight the protest petition. If the shoe were on the other foot, I've no doubt the developers would insist that the public hearing move forward on June 1, in order to prevent time for citizen reaction. The only difference is that the developers would get what they ask for without all these games.

Of course, the development team could have originally offered to request a deferral back when the deferral date (from May 24) was being decided, in order to postpone the meeting until the second regular meeting in June, but they didn't. Instead, I'm told that they brought up the concern that "The second regular meeting in June would be five weeks from the originally scheduled date and as month, by definition, is a measure of time corresponding to four weeks or 30 days or 1/12 of the calendar year (30.4166 days) would violate the provisions of the UDO.” Now they have waited until the filing of a citizen protest petition was forced (a week before the still 'officially' scheduled June 1 public hearing, the date of which I expect they sanctioned during the deferral considerations) in order to do so. Coincidence? I think not.

It will certainly be interesting to find out what the outcome of the commissioners' suspiciously closed-session meeting is tonight...

Melissa (Rooney)



      
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