Showing posts tagged “Southern Durham Development”
Samiha Khanna ·
16 Dec 2009, 5:50 PM ·
4 Comments
A superior court judge found in favor of Southern Durham Development on Wednesday in its major lawsuit against the county.
Superior Court Judge Howard Manning said that lines drawn in 2006 by a former planning director that outline the protective boundaries around Jordan Lake are binding and must stand.
This means that 146 of 165 acres on which Southern Durham Development was hoping to build a mixed-use community are no longer considered part of a protected zone that heavily restricts commercial and residential development, opening the door to broader development options.
In his ruling, Manning dismissed other arguments in the lawsuit against Durham County, including claims by Southern Durham Development that county officials were trying to undermine its development plans for the land (west of N.C. 751 in South Durham), and requests for $20,000 in damages.
Both parties seemed pleased with portions of the judge’s actions.
“We feel we’ve had the facts and the law on our side the entire time, and that’s what the court said,” said Alex Mitchell, president of Southern Durham Development.
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Durham, Durham County, environment, news 751 Assemblage, Alex Mitchell, development, Durham County Commissioners, Durham planning department, Durham politics, Howard Manning, jordan lake, Lowell Siler, protest petition, Southern Durham Development
Samiha Khanna ·
11 Dec 2009, 5:33 PM ·
Comment
Four property owners who signed a petition this fall to protest the rezoning of the protective boundary around the portion of Jordan Lake in Durham County filed a lawsuit late Friday against Durham County officials.
Attorney Jim Conner of the Ragsdale Liggett firm in Raleigh filed the complaint just after 4 p.m. Friday on behalf of Milagros Napoli and Jeffrey Napoli, the Kendrick Estates Investment Corporation, as well as Kristen Corbell. All own property in the area around Jordan Lake to be rezoned.
The parties filed a complaint for a declaratory judgment and injunction, asking a judge to look at the evidence surrounding the petition and rule that the 3-2 vote Durham County Commissioners took in October meant that the rezoning didn’t pass, as the petition was valid, Conner said. A valid petition would have required a “supermajority,” or 4-1 vote to pass, instead of the simple majority vote of 3-2.
“We think the protest petition is clearly valid,” Conner said. “The courts have already said in other cases that if there’s a valid petition and there’s a vote that’s not a three-quarters vote, then the rezoning doesn’t pass.”
The county has 30 days to file an answer to the lawsuit, which named Durham County and the Durham County Commissioners as defendants. Although the Southern Environmental Law Center and Haw River Assembly worked to file the initial protest petition, neither is party to the lawsuit.
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Durham, Durham County, environment, news 751 Assemblage, Durham County, Durham County Commissioners, environment, haw river assembly, jordan lake, Kendrick Estates, protest petition, Southern Durham Development, Southern Environmental Law Center
Samiha Khanna ·
19 Nov 2009, 12:34 PM ·
8 Comments
Durham County Commissioners met in closed session this morning to discuss next steps in the controversy around a debated petition that could have affected commercial and residential development around Jordan Lake.
County Attorney Lowell Siler told commissioners, essentially, that their hands are tied. If anyone wants to question a vote commissioners took last month to move the Jordan Lake watershed, it’s going to have to be an outside party in a lawsuit, he said. Commissioners cannot go back and revisit the vote they now believe they took, even though they have since learned they took the vote under now questionable circumstances.
“The central issue is, a vote has been taken and the only way to amend that is to go to superior court,” Siler told commissioners Thursday morning. “And we’ll defend that action.”
When Siler says the issue is to be resolved in court, he fails to fully explain, said Elaine Chiosso, director of the Haw River Assembly, which filed the petition. It means a small nonprofit group has to sue the county government and city-county planning department, which have broader resources and deeper pockets.
“We’re hoping to meet that challenge, but it’s a big challenge,” Chiosso said. Continue reading »
Durham, Durham County, news 751 Assemblage, Becky Heron, Durham County Commissioners, Elaine Chiosso, haw river assembly, jordan lake, Lowell Siler, Mike Ruffin, protest petition, Southern Durham Development, Southern Environmental Law Center, Steve Medlin
Samiha Khanna ·
18 Nov 2009, 8:44 PM ·
4 Comments
A memo sent from Durham planning Director Steve Medlin to County Manager Mike Ruffin last Friday shows that Medlin changed his initial ruling and has found a debated protest petition regarding Jordan Lake is valid.
The memo (PDF) was requested by the Indy and other media outlets and released Wednesday evening with personnel and other information redacted. It shows that petitioners actually did include the required percentage of signatures, although Medlin initially said the petition did not include enough.
It’s unclear what the next step for either the petitioners or the county is, but the findings will be the hot topic at a special county commissioners meeting tomorrow at 10 a.m. All or most of the discussion will likely occur behind closed doors. A meeting notice by the clerk to the Commissioners cited personnel privacy and a pending lawsuit against the county filed by Southern Durham Development as reasons the session is closed. Continue reading »
Durham, Durham County, news 751 Assemblage, Durham County Commissioners, Durham planning department, haw river assembly, jordan lake, Lowel Siler, Mike Ruffin, protest petition, public records, Southern Durham Development, Southern Environmental Law Center, Steve Medlin
Samiha Khanna ·
17 Nov 2009, 4:58 PM ·
2 Comments
Durham County Attorney Lowell Siler cited four laws today protecting a memo sent Friday from planning Director Steve Medlin to County Manager Mike Ruffin that details the status of a debated protest petition.
Siler responded to a request from the Indy for the document this afternoon, stating that four statutes related to confidential communications by legal counsel to a public board or agency, pending litigation and personnel privacy (specific citations listed on the jump) preclude the memo from being released to the public.
“We want to be open,” Siler said by phone. “We have no desire to withhold any information that can be released, but we have a mandatory responsibility to exercise some privileges by law as it relates to the disclosure of information.”
Siler said his department has been going through the “analysis” presented to Ruffin Friday and that he doesn’t know if any portion of it can be released. He did say that commissioners could vote to release some of the information (see citation on jump).
“It looks like the whole thing is privileged,” Siler said.
County commissioners are scheduled to meet in closed session at 10 a.m. Thursday, and it’s unclear whether they could take any action in open session regarding the memo, or the debated protest petition.
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Durham, Durham County, news 751 Assemblage, Durham County Commissioners, jordan lake, Lowell Siler, Mike Ruffin, protest petition, public records, Southern Durham Development, Steve Medlin
Samiha Khanna ·
13 Oct 2009, 12:06 AM ·
5 Comments
Durham’s Board of County Commissioners voted 3 to 2 Monday night to move a protected area around Jordan Lake on county maps, opening the door for a dense development being drafted for 164 acres in the southwest part of the county. Commissioners Ellen Reckhow and Becky Heron cast the opposing votes.
Though the vote approved just the zoning of Jordan Lake’s protective buffer — not an actual development plan — the change cleared a major hurdle for the much-contested development, 751 Assemblage, which would contain 1,300 residences and 600,000 square feet of office and retail space. (Read more about the proposed development and its history here.) Monday night’s change takes the land to be developed from protected and virtually unable to be developed to a less-protected designation that allows for the mixed-use vision of the developer, Southern Durham Development.
More than 70 people signed up to speak on the proposed shift of the critical and protected buffers around Jordan Lake, which is a drinking water reservoir for Cary and Chatham County, and could soon provide water to Durham’s residents, too. Most who spoke opposed the rezoning, saying it would allow development too close to the water source and would further pollute already tainted waters. Opposers included members of the Haw River Assembly, who attempted to petition the change (read more here) and residents of neighboring developments.
Supporters of the zoning change mostly were also supporters of 751 Assemblage who wanted this obstacle, which has loomed for three years, out of the way. They said the new development could bring jobs, possibly a land donation for new schools and a larger tax base for the county. Supporters included members of the developer’s cadre of lawyers and architects, city council candidate Donald Hughes and Lavonia Allison of the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.
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Durham, Durham County, Pittsboro, news, politics 751 Assemblage, development, Durham County Commissioners, haw river assembly, jordan lake, protest petition, Southern Durham Development
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 ·
10 Jul 2009, 6:41 PM ·
8 Comments
One of Lewis Cheek’s final actions as a Durham County commissioner was to reject an independent survey of Jordan Lake, saying the county should instead “take ownership of the issue” by relying on a private survey commissioned by developer Neal Hunter.
“I don’t think we should get into budget ordinances and amendments in order to spend $100,000 that we really don’t have right now,” Cheek said at the Nov. 24, 2008 meeting, in moving to defer action on the independent survey. “Frankly, and I’ll be very candid, I feel very uncomfortable getting involved with that, given that this is my last night as a member of the Board of County Commissioners.”
Less than one year later, Cheek has joined law firm K&L Gates as an “of counsel” attorney, K&L Gates attorney Patrick Byker confirmed in an interview. The firm represents Southern Durham Development, whose proposed mixed-use project, known as the 751 Assemblage, would directly benefit from Hunter’s survey. Southern Durham Development is suing the County to change its watershed maps, based on Hunter’s survey, without a public hearing.
In 2008, Hunter sold 164 acres intended for the 751 Assemblage to Southern Durham Development for $18 million and a stake in the company. (Hunter is a minority shareholder, and has argued on the company’s behalf at public meetings.) In February 2009, the N.C. Division of Water Quality accepted Hunter’s survey, which would move the property outside a one-mile area that prohibits such development. However, in April commissioners voted 3-2 to follow state law and conduct a public hearing process before changing its watershed maps accordingly. Last month, Southern Durham Development sued Durham County for allegedly acting maliciously to “attack” and “undermine” this map change by conducting a public hearing. Several of Cheek’s former colleagues, including County Attorney Chuck Kitchen and then-Commission Chair Ellen Reckhow, are named in the suit.
Cheek’s bio on K&L Gates indicates he will represent clients on “land use and zoning matters.” However, Byker declined to comment on whether Cheek would work on the lawsuit against his former employer.
In his 2004 run for the County Commission, Cheek received his largest contribution, $2,000, from Hunter.
Cheek did not respond to calls or e-mails requesting comment.
Durham, Durham County, environment 751 Assemblage, jordan lake, K&L Gates, lewis cheek, Southern Durham Development
Matt Saldaña ·
29 Jun 2009, 7:14 PM ·
3 Comments
Image Courtesy Haw River Assembly
According to a new survey and hydrologist’s report (PDF, 196 KB) commissioned by the Haw River Assembly, an environmental advocacy group, Jordan Lake’s easternmost point is “approximately 6,200 feet upstream” from the drinking-water source’s present location on official County maps. The survey, which according to a Haw River Assembly press release was paid for by donations from more than 100 citizens, is significant because it shows Jordan Lake extending in the opposite direction from a disputed survey now undergoing a public hearing in Durham County.
In 2005, Southern Durham Development partner Neal Hunter commissioned a survey that moved the easternmost point of Jordan Lake downstream from its present location, effectively removing 273 acres of property in Southwest Durham County from the protected area that extends one-mile from the lake’s boundaries in Durham County. Of those 273 acres, Hunter either owns, or has a stake in, 240–including a 164-acre project, proposed by Southern Durham Development, that calls for 1,300 dwellings and 600,000 square feet of combined office and retail space. Patrick Byker, an attorney for Southern Durham Development, has acknowledged to the Indy that the project, known as the 751 Assemblage, would be impossible if it remained within the protected area, which severely limits development.
In 2006, former planning director Frank Duke accepted Hunter’s survey, and changed Durham’s maps, without submitting the revisions to Durham’s elected officials, or to state regulators. Last year, the Durham County Board of Commissioners submitted the survey to the N.C. Division of Water Quality for the first time. In February 2009, the agency approved the survey on technical merit, after determining that Duke had exceeded his authority in changing Durham’s maps without review. Since then, Durham County has initiated a state-mandated public hearing process to reflect the survey’s changes in the County’s watershed maps. In response, Southern Durham Development has sued the County, calling its vote to initiate the public hearing an “unlawful attempt to strip Southern Durham Development of its rights to develop the Property” and demanding that Duke’s changes be implemented immediately.
Earlier this month, the Durham City-County Planning Commission delayed a vote on whether to recommend changes to Durham’s Comprehensive Plan and Unified Development Ordinance, based on Hunter’s survey, in part so they could consider the Haw River Assembly survey. The Planning Commission’s recommendation on the map changes is the first step in the public hearing process.
Byker, and Durham Planning Director Steve Medlin, were not immediately available for comment on the Haw River Assembly survey.
Durham, Durham County, environment 751 Assemblage, haw river assembly, jordan lake, Southern Durham Development
