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It has been a long time since Pete
Hendricks and I stood around a bonfire
in a field out on Jenkins Road, back
when there was only one house on the
dirt road. He was on the county soil and
water conservation board, I was on the
county planning board, and we both had
concerns about sprawling land use, water
pollution and soil and environmental
degradation. We did not agree on
everything then and still do not, but we
were and are in accord about the need to
plan carefully and keep our water, air,
trees and institutions healthy.
Last week Pete listed his 10
wishes for 2006 in The Wake Weekly. This
week I am adding an emphatic amen to two
of them, with at least one caveat.
His first wish was that
everyone in town would take $10 and a
bag of food to the DuBois Center. I
think it would be better – and make the
money spread farther – if they took $10
plus the cost of a bag of food. My
grocery purchases average out to $15 per
bag, excluding the ones where the
baggers only throw in a bottle of nail
polish remover.
The cans in those bags cost
69 cents or so. If you take that money
to Tina Horton, the director of outreach
programs at DuBois, she can buy the same
cans for 9 cents at the food bank.
Stretch that money; give cash and let
Horton use it.
Most families in town can
afford $25 a couple times a year or even
once a month. Think how many children,
parents and grandparents could have food
and heat if even half of the 8,000-plus
households donated $25 or $50 a year.
Pete’s number five wish was
that Bob Neeb and Steve Gould would
abandon their plans for a 63-unit
townhouse development down in the bottom
of Richland Creek on the north side of
Durham Road.
I agree with Pete that the
town board’s decision in October of 2004
– a 3-2 vote with Commissioners Stephen
Barrington, Rob Bridges and Chris Malone
voting for the project – was one of the
reasons Bridges and Malone were not
returned to the board this November.
Another reason was their vote for
Raleigh’s ownership of the water and
sewer systems for which town ratepayers
have shouldered a $19 million debt.
The town board’s narrow
decision to allow Neeb and Gould to
build in a critical floodplain was made
despite pleas from Mayor Vivian Jones
and Town Manager Mark Williams and
against the recommendation of the town
planning staff.
And, of course, later that same night
all the commissioners voted to spend
$12,000 in matching funds for a Clean
Water Management Trust Fund grant in the
first step of restoring Richland Creek
from the Franklin County line to Stadium
Drive. The vote for the Neeb/Gould
project may jeopardize future CWMTF
grants and state assistance with
greenways.
All five commissioners voted
earlier in 2004 to rezone Tom Cornett’s
land on Durham Road for townhouses over
neighbors’ protests and the planning
board’s recommendation not to do so.
When planning board member Einar Bohlin,
a Durham Road resident, resigned in
protest, the town board appointed
Cornett to his seat.
Cornett’s Magnolia Woods has
been an eyesore for months, a visual
amen to the neighbors’ objections to the
project, and a preview of the Neeb/Gould
development.
The Neeb/Gould townhouses
would be worse, tucked in between the
Progress Energy power lines and denuded
right-of-way and a dirt bank along the
future greenway along the creek. With
little room for landscaping – because
they were allowed to include the power
line right-of-way in their density
calculations – the chances of making the
project truly attractive are slim.
My anger is directed at the
town commissioners who voted for the
three measures, not at the three
developers, who were just doing what
comes naturally to developers.
But I really do not believe
either Bob Neeb or Steve Gould want to
make such an unattractive,
environmentally damaging project part of
their legacy in this town.
I suggest they deed the land
to the town to be preserved as part of
the green space we will need more and
more as Wake Forest grows. It could be a
nice tax write-off, making everyone a
winner. |
