[Durham INC] Council extends growth line for 751 South (HS)

[Melissa Rooney]

See HS article below -- it does a pretty good job of summing things up. I 
believed Mayor Bell in 2002 and I want to believe that he will stand by his 
statements now, when the development pressure on him is heavy again. This is an 
election year, and I trust that, when its time to vote for the 2012 city council 
members, everyone will remember the council's actions regarding the upcoming 
decisions on annexation, water-sewer, and rezoning for this 751 South 
development... 


Melissa (Rooney)

______________________________________________

Council extends growth line for 751 South
The Herald Sun  
The Herald Sun, January 4, 2011   

By Ray Gronberg

gronberg at heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM  -- City Council members on Monday put the 751 South project on the path  
to getting their stamp of approval, voting 5-2 to move Durham's urban  growth 
boundary south and west to cover the project site.

The  boundary move was a necessary first step if the 1,300-home, mixed-use  
development is to receive the city services, water and sewer especially,  it 
needs to be economically viable.

Developers have asked the  city for a water and sewer deal, a request council 
members last month  agreed to put off deciding until City Manager Tom Bonfield 
and his staff  report on whether it makes business sense for the city also to 
annex  the site.

That report is expected to reach the council within 30 days, Bonfield said.

Proponents  and opponents for the most part used Monday's hearing as a dress  
rehearsal for the arguments they will deploy as a water deal, annexation  and 
eventually a zoning application come to the council.

Supporters  generally argued the project's employment benefits, while opponents  
focused on the project's potential to harm nearby Jordan Lake, a  regional 
reservoir Durham already uses as emergency water supply.

But  a couple of critics of the project also argued Monday that the  council's 
willingness to change the growth boundary would signal to more  developers than 
just 751 South's that they have a green light to  organize big projects between 
the city and Chatham County.

Already,  developers emboldened by the 751 South team's success are "lining up  
along [N.C.] 751 and Fayetteville Road ... putting deals together from  
Renaissance Parkway south," said Councilman Mike Woodard, who joined  
Councilwoman Diane Catotti in voting against the move.

Most of  the current members of the council have indicated in the past that they  
favored allowing only low-density development along the southernmost  reaches of 
the N.C. 751 and Fayetteville Road corridors in Durham.

But  in practical terms, if 751 South goes through, "there is no line"  barring 
denser construction all the way to the border with Chatham  County, said Melissa 
Rooney, a critic of the project.

Rooney  noted that Mayor Bill Bell, a south Durham resident like herself, said  
early in his tenure that he favored "preserving the remaining rural  character 
of southern Durham as much as possible," by sticking to  established land-use 
plans and at some point drawing "a line in the  sand" to say "this is where we 
are and this is what we'd like to take  place."

Bell acknowledged that Rooney had accurately summed up  his views as of about 
2002, when the controversy over a past council's  approval of the Streets of 
Southpoint mall was still a big issue.

"I don't step away from those," Bell said, adding, though, that he was going to 
vote for moving the boundary.

He  joined fellow council members Eugene Brown, Howard Clement and Cora  
Cole-McFadden in reversing the positions they'd taken in 2005, when they  voted 
that year on Durham's present land-use plan, which decided how  far south city 
services should go.

Catotti stuck to her 2005  position. Woodard joined the council after the plan 
had been adopted, as  did Councilman Farad Ali, who voted Monday to move the 
growth boundary.

Bell  indicated that he voted for changing the boundary because of its  
entanglement with the issue of where a buffer for Jordan Lake should  fall. 
Other issues, he said, are up for debate on "another day."

A  Superior Court judge, Howard Manning, sided with 751 South's developers  on 
the survey-driven buffer question late in 2009. Administrators and  City 
Attorney Patrick Baker said the city's normal practice is to make  buffers and 
the growth boundary line up with one another.

One of  the lawyers for Southern Durham Development Inc., Lewis Cheek, said his  
clients believed Manning's ruling had settled the location of the growth  
boundary along with buffer issue.

Baker disagreed, contending  Manning's decision wasn't binding on the city 
because it wasn't party to  a lawsuit by the developers that'd targeted the 
county government.

Cole-McFadden  acknowledged the threat implicit in Cheek's point. "Seems like 
there is  a possibility of a suit against the city," absent a move of the growth  
boundary, she said. 


Read more: The Herald-Sun - Council extends growth line for 751 South

________________________


      
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://rtpnet.org/pipermail/inc-list/attachments/20110104/d1481ac3/attachment.html>