Showing posts tagged “Neal Hunter”
Samiha Khanna ·
3 Nov 2009, 12:11 PM ·
2 Comments
The latest update from Durham’s planning Director Steve Medlin: His staff is still evaluating a protest petition filed last month by the Haw River Assembly and Southern Environmental Law Center, and is looking specifically at signatures.
It appears, he said, that one property owner signed the petition for himself, but also on behalf of the two other co-owners. One person can’t sign for all three, Medlin said, so his staff is trying to verify the validity of the signatures.
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Durham, Durham County, news 751 Assemblage, development, Durham County Commissioners, Durham planning department, haw river assembly, jordan lake, Neal Hunter, protest petition, Southern Environmental Law Center
Samiha Khanna ·
9 Oct 2009, 6:43 PM ·
5 Comments
A nonprofit group’s attempt to hinder a controversial rezoning case near Jordan Lake fell flat Friday, as Durham officials denied the validity of a petition filed by the organization. The petitioner, the Haw River Assembly, did not include signatures of enough landowners around the area to be rezoned, said Durham City-County Planning Director Steve Medlin.
With its petition, the group was hoping to influence the outcome of a vote by Durham County Commissioners, who on Monday will decide whether to redraw boundaries protecting Jordan Lake and its watershed. Shifting the boundaries would allow Southern Durham Development to build a 164-acre mixed-use development, 751 Assemblage, in an area many say should remain undeveloped. (View Monday’s agenda here.)
On Monday night, Commissioners need just a simple majority – three affirmative votes – to redraw the boundaries. Had the petition been valid, the rezoning would have required a supermajority, or four affirmative votes, to pass.
The petition is a small piece of a circuitous, four-year-old issue surrounding the rezoning of land around Jordan Lake, a drinking water reservoir that spans Durham and Chatham counties. Most of the disagreement among public officials, developers and other stakeholders is where exactly the critical watershed should be, and which methodology is best to evaluate factors that determine those boundaries. (Read more about the history of this issue here.)
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Durham, Durham County, Uncategorized, news, politics 751 Assemblage, development, Durham County, haw river assembly, jordan lake, Neal Hunter, planning, protest petition, Southern Durham Development
Matt Saldaña ·
11 Aug 2009, 1:55 PM ·
1 Comment
Update (4:23 p.m.): Head over to indyweek.com for an updated version of this story, and check back here for further updates on tonight’s hearing. Also, see below for a PDF of Southern Environmental Law Center’s motion.
One day before the Durham Planning Commission meets to discuss a contested boundary that protects Jordan Lake, two environmental advocacy groups have filed a motion to intervene (PDF, 160 KB) in a lawsuit that would force the county to re-draw the lake’s protected area without a public hearing. The motion, filed on August 10 by the Southern Environmental Law Center, seeks to allow the Haw River Assembly, a non-profit environmental group, to “participate fully as a party in defense of Durham County’s decision to commence a formal process for the proposed changes to the watershed boundary.”
Last June, Southern Durham Development, the would-be developer of a massive, mixed-use project that falls within a half-mile one-mile protected area of Jordan Lake, sued the county after commissioners voted to conduct a public hearing before implementing a survey, commissioned by company shareholder Neal Hunter, that would move the entire 164-acre project outside the lake’s protected area. Later that month, the Haw River Assembly released its own survey and hydrologist’s report that found the project was closer to the lake than on current maps, and within the half-mile one-mile boundary.
In an interview, HRA executive director Elaine Chiosso said the motion to intervene “is more about the process than the actual merits of a survey, but this step has to be taken first.”
“We would be supporting the Durham County Commissioners, and the action they took to say, ‘You can’t treat this like a simple map change. It’s affecting the entire boundary,’” she said.
The motion claims HRA has standing in the lawsuit, because its members “live, work, and recreate in the Jordan Lake watershed,” and, for at least 100 members, rely on it for drinking water. It also claims HRA’s interests “are not adequately represented by existing parties.” The suit states:
At the outset, Durham County may consider settlement with the developer out of Court because of liability concerns, rather than vigorously defend the rights of HRA and its members to participate in a public process for consideration of zoning changes that will promote development in a rural area of Durham County and the Jordan Lake watershed.
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Chatham County, Durham County, environment 751 Assemblage, haw river assembly, jordan lake, Neal Hunter, Southern Durham Development, Southern Environmental Law Center
Matt Saldaña ·
9 Jun 2009, 7:46 PM ·
5 Comments
Durham City-County Planning Commission Chair George Brine recused himself from discussion over a developer-funded survey of Jordan Lake tonight, saying the board’s deliberation on the matter “should not be clouded by my alleged impartiality, or lack thereof.” Meanwhile, the citizen advisory board delayed consideration of changes to the Comprehensive Plan and Unified Development Ordinance, based on the survey, until August 11.
Southern Durham Development is seeking to push through watershed map changes, based on a survey commissioned by Southern Durham Development shareholder Neal Hunter, without public review. The changes would move 240 acres of land that Hunter owns, or has a stake in, out of a protected watershed that severely limits development, and into an “urban growth area” that would allow for future re-zoning requests to permit dense development. Lawyers for Southern Durham Development recently accused Brine of holding a “personal opinion” on the matter, and said his participation in the hearing would “further taint this already deeply flawed process.”
Though they voted unanimously to recuse Brine, five of Brine’s colleagues on the Planning Commission firmly stood up for their chairman, and several accused Southern Durham Development of creating what Planning Commissioner Don Moffitt called “a chilling effect on the participation of any of us in the civic life of Durham.”
“I don’t think there is a legal reason for him to be recused,” Planning Commissioner Linda Smith said of Brine. “I think that, in fact, what we want on this commission are people who are informed of the issues. One of the things I feel about this particular amendment is that we haven’t been very well-informed.” Continue reading »
Durham, Durham County, environment 751 Assemblage, George Brine, jordan lake, Neal Hunter
Matt Saldaña ·
17 Apr 2009, 2:44 PM ·
2 Comments
In the lead-up to Monday night’s 3-2 vote in favor of requiring a public hearing for map changes that would benefit a proposed mega-development near Jordan Lake, we re-capped the Durham commissioners’ previous votes on the issue, as well as contributions they received from developers behind the project.
Going through our notes, however, we realize we’ve left one of the commissioners out: Joe Bowser. As noted in Monday’s Triangulator post, Bowser raised less than $3,000 in 2008, and was not required to disclose individual contributors that election cycle. However, in his losing bid for the County Commission in 2004, records show that he received $2,000 from Neal Hunter, the developer who funded the controversial survey behind the proposed map changes, and a minority partner in Southern Durham Development—whose proposed 164-acre project hinges on the maps being approved.
We found this contribution while digging through records for our original story on the Jordan Lake snafu, but left it out because though he had been elected commissioner in 2008, Bowser had yet to vote on Hunter’s survey. Yet, on Monday, Bowser–along with Commission Chairman Michael Page–voted against requiring a public hearing process for the map changes, which would have moved Southern Durham Development’s project outside Jordan Lake’s one-mile protective boundary. Citing language used by developers, Bowser also introduced an unsuccessful motion that would have required the map changes go forward without public review.
“Neal Hunter was not a principal in this. It was Alex Mitchell and that guy from Raleigh,” Bowser said in an interview, referring to Tyler Morris, who is a principal with Mitchell in Southern Durham Development. In 2008, Hunter—a minority partner in Southern Durham Development—sold approximately 164 acres to the company to build the high-density 751 Assemblage project, a complex of 1,300 dwellings and 600,000 square feet of office and retail space.
“I have forgotten all about that contribution from Neal Hunter,” Bowser said, adding that contributions “don’t matter” to him.
Bowser added: “It was not Neal Hunter that I was concerned about in this process, it was the other principals, who paid all that money for [Hunter’s] land, and are obviously going to lose their investment.”
At Monday night’s hearing, Hunter, his brother, Jeff; Alex Mitchell; Tyler Morris; and lawyers representing Southern Durham Development, claimed that their property rights would be violated by a public hearing process.
“The commissioners should put an end to this continuously moving target, and acknowledge the property rights that I have,” Neal Hunter said. “You have no right to change the rules on taxpayers and citizens. As landowners, how can we rely on anything in the future?”
Chatham County, Durham, Orange County, environment 751 Assemblage, Joe Bowser, jordan lake, Neal Hunter, Southern Durham Development
Matt Saldaña ·
8 Apr 2009, 4:30 PM ·
3 Comments
In an letter delivered to the Durham County Board of Commissioners, Friends of Durham Political Action Committee Chairman David A. Smith argues that a private developer’s survey of Jordan Lake should not face a public hearing, and the county should avoid a comprehensive, independent survey of the lake.
Smith writes:
While in general I agree with public hearings, this one seems to target a single property owner. Public hearings should be about gathering input so that the commissioners can make a policy decision, not about restricting an individual’s right to use his property as allowed by the current regulations.
That “single property owner” is real-estate developer Neal Hunter, who paid for a private survey of Jordan Lake in 2005. The revisions in Hunter’s survey, which was recently approved by state regulators, would remove development restrictions on land that he later sold to Southern Durham Development. The company, which is planning the 164-acre project known as 751 Assemblage, claims Hunter as a minority shareholder.
Smith insists that Friends of Durham, though advocating on behalf of Hunter, has no connection to him.
“Mr. Hunter has never been associated with or contributed to the Friends of Durham,” he writes.
While records support that claim, there is a connection between the 751 Assemblage and Friends of Durham. Campaign finance reports show that Patrick Byker–whose firm represents Southern Durham Development–has donated $700 to the Friends of Durham, including $100 in 2008. Bill Brian, another K&L Gates attorney representing Southern Durham Development, gave an additional $100 to the PAC in 2003.
Byker and Brian serve on the steering committee of the Friends of Durham, and they are both former chairmen of the PAC. When Byker ran for the City Council at-large seat in 1999, Friends of Durham donated $1,900 to his campaign, which it also loaned $1,600.
In an interview, Byker denied any connection between the Friends of Durham endorsement of Hunter’s survey, and his own association with the PAC. Continue reading »
Chatham County, Durham, Durham County, Morrisville, Orange County, environment 751 Assemblage, Bill Brian, Friends of Durham, Inc, Inter-Neighborhood Council, jordan lake, Neal Hunter, Patrick Byker, Southern Durham Development
Matt Saldaña ·
5 Mar 2009, 7:03 PM ·
8 Comments
Because Durham County Attorney Chuck Kitchen has insisted on conducting a public hearing before the county changes its watershed and zoning maps, a lawyer representing Southern Durham Development has accused Kitchen of a conspiracy to thwart his client’s efforts to build a mega-development that, much like Jericho, would be located on the shores of a body of water named Jordan.
“We cannot understand why you have adopted such a strained reading of the ordinances in question unless you are trying to delay or derail our client’s pending rezoning request,” writes William Brian of K&L Gates, the law firm representing Southern Durham Development, in a letter dated March 4 (PDF, 272 KB) . “The only reason for you to do this would be to assist those who oppose the proposed project in a manner which is outside the scope of your official duties.”
One other reason, which Kitchen cited in his reply to an earlier letter from Brian, would be to comply with state open-meetings laws and the Unified Development Ordinance.
As if accusations of conspiracy weren’t enough, Brian makes a bizarre analogy that compares the Unified Development Ordinance to the Bible, and the county’s zoning atlas to illustrations in a children’s version of the Holy Writ.
No, we’re not kidding:
By your analysis, a “land use map” that incorrectly showed the boundaries of a district or overlay which was described by metes and bounds in the ordinance by which it was adopted would trump those metes and bounds, or at the very least would require an extensive public hearing process before it could be corrected. This is like saying that the illustrations in a children’s Bible trump the Scripture.
By Brian’s measure, the children’s illustrations, or U.S. Geological Survey maps, “incorrectly showed the boundaries” of Jordan Lake, until a 2006 decision, by former planning director Frank Duke (who by the way, helped author the analogous Holy Book), revealed the light by ushering through Hunter’s survey without any bothersome public hearings, let alone state or local review. No matter that Duke’s approval was later found by the N.C. Division of Water Quality to be in violation of the state’s administrative code. It was nothing less than the Word of God. And Chuck Kitchen is trying to challenge that–with pictures?
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Durham, Durham County, environment 751 Assemblage, Chuck Kitchen, Frank Duke, jordan lake, Neal Hunter, Southern Durham Development, William Brian
Matt Saldaña ·
1 Mar 2009, 9:51 PM ·
3 Comments
Illustration by V.C. Rogers
The would-be developer of a controversial 164-acre development project within Jordan Lake’s protected area is pressuring Durham County commissioners to forgo a public hearing for a major watershed boundary change that would affect the property, documents show.
In a Feb. 26 letter (PDF, 332 KB) addressed to county attorney Chuck Kitchen, Southern Durham Development attorney William Brian argues that changing the county’s watershed maps to accommodate the development “is not a legislative, discretionary action of the type that the Commission must take.”
However, that view directly contradicts with public hearings provisions in the North Carolina General Statutes, and the Unified Development Ordinance’s procedures for changing watershed boundaries, according to Kitchen. In a Feb. 27 response (PDF, 328 KB) to Brian’s letter, Kitchen writes that sidestepping a public hearing “would allow wholesale changes to the zoning maps without the required public hearings and notice provisions of the General Statutes.”
In 2006, former planning director Frank Duke changed the county’s watershed maps without review, moving Southern Durham Development’s 164-acre plot, known as the “751 Assemblage,” outside the critical watershed area surrounding Jordan Lake. In 2008, state regulators determined the action–which did not come up for a public hearing–to be in violation of North Carolina’s administrative code. Continue reading »
Durham, Durham County, environment 751 Assemblage, Durham County Board of Commisioners, jordan lake, Neal Hunter, Patrick Byker, Southern Durham Development, William Brian
Matt Saldaña ·
6 Feb 2009, 4:34 PM ·
4 Comments
State regulators have approved a private developer’s survey that significantly re-draws the boundaries of Jordan Lake, and the protected areas that surround the drinking-water supply reservoir. In a letter to the Durham City-County Planning Department (PDF, 580 KB) dated Feb. 4, 2009, the N.C. Division of Water Quality announced that it “accepts and approves your proposed revisions to the critical and protected area boundaries around Jordan Lake.”
Julie Ventaloro, the state watershed program coordinator at DWQ, told the Indy that changing the maps is now “in Durham’s hands.” The County must conduct a public hearing, and vote to adopt the state-approved survey, which was commissioned by a private developer who owned land within the affected area. Adopting the change would effectively move a 164-acre tract that was owned by the developer–and now slated for dense, mixed-use development–out of Jordan Lake’s critical watershed area, which severely limits development within one mile of major water supplies.
Neal Hunter, a minority partner in the company that currently owns the property, was the principle owner when he commissioned the survey and submitted it to the Durham Planning Department for approval. He also is listed as an owner of the property in a pending request to re-zone the property from low-density residential and rural-residential, to mixed-use development. (The proposed development, known as the “751 Assemblage,” calls for 1,300 residential units, and 600,000 square feet of mixed commercial and office space.
Following a November 2008 decision by the Board of County Commissioners, Durham requested state approval to re-draw the boundaries of Jordan Lake, based on Hunter’s survey. In 2006, former planning director Frank Duke accepted the changes without informing the board, or state regulators.
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Cary, Chatham County, Durham, Durham County, Morrisville, North Carolina, environment 751 Assemblage, Durham County Board of Commissioners, jordan lake, N.C. Division of Water Quality, Neal Hunter
Matt Saldaña ·
13 Jan 2009, 12:21 PM ·
Comment
Alex Mitchell and Tyler Morris, majority partners in Southern Durham Development, the company seeking to develop the massive “751 Assemblage” project in the Jordan Lake watershed, contributed a combined $1,500 in November to Brenda Howerton’s 2008 campaign for election to the Durham County Board of Commissioners, according to fourth-quarter reports released Monday: brenda_howerton_12jan2009
Howerton reported receiving both contributions the same week that commissioners voted, 3-2, to endorse a survey submitted by Neal Hunter–a minority shareholder in Southern Durham Development–that re-drew Jordan Lake’s boundaries, effectively moving the 751 Assemblage out of the critical watershed and qualifying it for dense development. (Read Indy coverage on the issue here and here — and listen here.) That meeting, held on Nov. 24, was the last held by the 2008 Board of Commissioners, before Howerton joined in January of this year.
Mitchell’s check for $1,000, and Morris’ for $500, bring Howerton’s total contributions from Southern Durham Development partners to $3,000 ($1,500 total from Mitchell, $1,000 from Morris and $500 from Hunter). That equals one-fourth of all her contributions, which totaled $12,057 for the campaign.
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Durham County, environment 751 Assemblage, Alex Mitchell, Brenda Howerton, Durham County Board of Commissioners, jordan lake, Michael Page, Neal Hunter, Tyler Morris
