The message sent to the Greensboro City Council by an overflow crowd attending a public hearing on the Land Development Ordinance rewrite at Melvin Municipal Office Building tonight was, “Whoa.” The predominant sentiment from speaker after speaker was, beware of unintended consequences to changes to zoning designations, don’t increase street connections in residential areas and be careful about increasing urban density.
Kathy Hartsell of Frazier Road and Sharon Hightower of College Park sounded separate warnings against increasing street connections in residential areas.
“The neighborhoods are deteriorating,” Hartsell said, who said a recent “cut-through” in her area has caused problems. “If you’re looking at sustainability in housing, people don’t want to live there. It’s not a positive. People are not walking. You’re not building neighborhoods. They’re not walking their dog. The assisted-living people are not walking anymore. Neighbors are not walking anymore. That’s going to happen in neighborhoods that are going to be connected, so I really hope you take a look at that. (Some back story here.)
Richard Franks, vice president for design and planning for the Koury Corp., argued that residents feel more secure in neighborhoods with limited connectivity. “It’s another case of unnecessary government control,” he said. “I would prefer that you strike this part of the ordinance.” (Last year, Koury Corp. was able to close a street and rezone property to build an apartment complex over the objections of neighbors who complained about increased traffic congestion.)
Mark York, a homeowner and student at Elon Law School, summed up the feelings of many when he said, “You as elected officials are very smart people. That’s why we elected you. If you don’t understand it, rewrite it so you can understand it.”
David Wharton, a member of the citizen advisory team that worked on the ordinance rewrite with staff for three and a half years, urged council to resist the temptation to tell itself the current ordinance was working fine, and implementing a new one would only create unnecessary controversy.
“ If I could make an analogy with the auto industry, that is exactly the rationalization General Motors used for years,” Wharton said. “They stuck with the same engineering and business practices that had served them well in the past, they ignored the changes that were going on around them, and we all know what happened to GM in the end. If we ignore the changes in land-use practices that our competitor cities are responding to and adopting and simply stick with the old and familiar, we risk becoming the General Motors of southeastern American cities.”
A proponent of new-urbanist design, Wharton is a frequent critic of the Triad Real Estate & Building Industries Coalition, or TREBIC, and one of the advisory team members who is not a member of the real estate profession.
TREBIC’s president, Marlene Sanford, indicated that the Land Development Ordinance rewrite is a rare opportunity for cooperation.
“We should all go out and buy lottery tickets because David Wharton and I agree on hardly anything,” she said. “His analogy about General Motors is really spot-on.”
Sanford said TREBIC is not ready to endorse the rewrite because she has not had an opportunity to review the final document, but “generally speaking, we do support the ordinance and want to adopt it as soon as is prudent.”
She described street connectivity requirements as “a sticking point.”
Donna Newton, advisor to the Greensboro Neighborhood Congress, indicated her organization is also generally supportive of the ordinance rewrite.
Former Councilwoman Goldie Wells, a member of the Citizen Advisory Team prior to her election to council in 2005, spoke in favor of a new requirement for developers to plant one canopy tree in each new residential lot that has come under attack by the developer industry and from some council members. Wells ticked off a number of benefits from trees: enhanced property value, energy efficiency, shade, privacy, food production and animal attraction.
“Research indicates communities with more trees report lower crime rates and lower levels of anxiety,” she added. “There’s a real difference between east Greensboro and west Greensboro when it comes to trees. So I want you to remember: We need the trees. Please keep this in the ordinance.”
The ordinance rewrite appears to be running into political trouble that has nothing to do with its merits.
District 5 Councilwoman Trudy Wade asked how the Citizen Advisory Team was formed, and then answered her own question: The members were selected by the city manager, with input from council. In fact, then-City Manager Ed Kitchen appointed the members in 2005. Wade ran for council in 2007 on a platform of holding the city manager more accountable. In 2009, she succeeded in having Kitchen’s successor, Mitchell Johnson, fired.
Bill Burckley, a political consultant who worked on the campaigns of every sitting member except for District 1 Councilwoman Dianne Bellamy-Small, complained that the rewritten land development ordinance would result in three of his properties becoming nonconforming. Burckley is also a former council member.
“This whole process is a staff-driven process,” he said. “This is not a city council-driven process.”
Burckley called himself the “daddy of the UDO,” referring to the current ordinance, whose formal name, Unified Development Ordinance refers to the fact that it is uniform to Greensboro, High Point and Guilford County.
“We’re throwing away 20 years of mutual cooperation. If it’s such a good ordinance, why didn’t we bring in High Point and Guilford County? The answer is, it’s not a good ordinance.”
UPDATE: More from Triadwatch.
UPDATE 2: Councilman Danny Thompson called me to clarify some matters about Bill Burckley's involvement in his city council campaign last year. Thompson says he doesn't dispute Burckley's assertion that the consultant worked indirectly on the candidate's campaign, "but it was not so much directly like you would a campaign consultant."
Thompson said he did write a personal check for $100 to Burckley on the weekend before the general election. (The expenditure is not reported in Thompson's final campaign finance report; he said he would check with his treasurer to see whether it should be amended.)
Thompson said that on the Friday before the general election, he received a phone call from fellow candidate Mary Rakestraw, informing him that the Guilford County Democratic Party was sending out a mailer promoting Democratic candidates. Rakestraw told Thompson, who is a registered Republican, that Burckley wanted to send out a counter-letter emphasizing that the council elections are nonpartisan. Thompson called Burckley, and agreed to write a $100 check to help cover the cost of mailing the letter out.
10 comments:
Great coverage, thank you! (Although, the detour into Wade getting Johnson fired was completely irrelevant.)
Did Burckley work on the Perkins and Kee campaigns?
Yes. The information that Burckley worked on all but one prevailing candidate's campaign comes from the man himself. Burckley told me in December that he was paid directly by Bill Knight, Nancy Vaughan, Zack Matheny, Mary Rakestraw and Trudy Wade. He said he worked indirectly on Robbie Perkins, Danny Thompson and Jim Kee's campaigns, and received payment for his services to the three through an independent political action committee that he declined to identify. I asked Kee about this, and he said he was not aware of Burckley working on his campaign, but did not dispute the assertion.
Roch, I have to make a slight correction. Rereading my notes from 12/09 and recollecting our conversation, Burckley DID tell me that he worked indirectly on Perkins, Thompson and Kee's campaigns. He DID tell me that he was paid indirectly paid by a third-party PAC for his work on Kee's campaign. My correction is this: I'm not clear that he was paid for work on Perkins' and Thompson's campaigns through a third-party PAC. Thompson called me to clarify his relationship with Burckley. See update to this post.
So some unnamed PAC paid Burckley for his professional work on behalf of Democrat Jim Kee's campaign and Burckley sends out a mailer to counter a mailer promoting Democratic candidates. Is that about right?
Yes. It stands to reason that they would be separate services.
Not quite Roch. The mailer was to protest the Democratic Party from pushing partisan politics into a non partisan race.
I'll spell it out. Burckley was paid by a PAC to promote a candidate and then Burckley worked against the efforts of that candidate's party to get him elected.
Burckeley played both sides of the fence.
Not exactly. There were only Democrats running in that district. A Democrat had to win.
And the mailer in question did not protest against any specific candidate.
A friend of mine wanted to use Burkley's services this year, but noticed that his company was suspended from the Department of Revenue in 2003.
http://www.secretary.state.nc.us/corporations/Filings.aspx?PItemId=4885704
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