Friends of West Point gain ally in fight over land beside Eno

But city still sitting on the fence

The Friends of West Point Park gained one endorsement this week for their campaign to conserve 60 acres on the park's southern border, but were put off another month on another.

Meantime, City Manager Tom Bonfield said he's waiting to see a public consensus form on the tract's future, as well as that of the park itself, before he puts it on the city's agenda.

"It really is their discussion," Bonfield said.

At issue are development or leaving to nature of two tracts between the city-owned park and the Argonne Hills and Horton Hills neighborhoods; and the state park system's possible acquisition of the tracts -- called "Black Meadow Ridge" and appraised at about $3 million -- as well as West Point Park itself.

On Monday, the N.C. Natural Heritage Program, an agency within the state Department of Environmental and Natural Resources, issued a statement of support for protecting Black Meadow Ridge as a natural area.

The Friends of West Point, a nonprofit support organization, hoped for a similar endorsement from the Inter Neighborhood Council's meeting this week. That group, however, referred the issue back to its member associations for the second month in a row.

"The INC meeting was difficult for me," Friends vice president Josie McNeil Owen wrote in an e-mail to The News & Observer.

Black Meadow Ridge became an issue in June 2007, when the Friends learned of Chapel Hill developer Keith Brown's plan to build a 325-unit subdivision there. They began a campaign of opposition, saying development would endanger the park's environment and sylvan ambience.

Adjoining neighborhoods also opposed the plan, saying such intense building would harm their property values and worsen traffic congestion.

Zoning in those neighborhoods allows no more than four dwellings to be built per acre, but zoning on Black Meadow Ridge allows 6.2. That zoning dates back to the 1960s or '70s, when a planned Eno Drive thoroughfare was expected to foster heavy residential and commercial development along its right of way.

The Eno Drive plan, made public in 1966 when the area was still largely rural, has since been abandoned. But several zoning anomalies remained. After Black Meadow Ridge came up, the city administration identified the anomalies and requested rezonings and changes of their land-use designations to bring them into harmony with their present surroundings.

Brown and the Black Meadow property's owner, former Durham resident Mildred Ray, oppose rezoning to lower density because, they say, that reduces the land's development value. Friends of West Point oppose it because it complicates their drive to have the city or state buy the land for conservation.

The advisory Durham Planning Commission has continued its hearing on rezoning and redesignation until December, but must hear the case and recommend approval or denial then and send it on to the city council. Owen has said her group is trying to get a state agreement to purchase within the current budget year.

Brown has said he is not against a conservationist purchase. However, whether either government has $3 million to spend, and wants to spend it on that property, remains to be seen.

State parks spokesman Charlie Peek has said his agency is open to the idea of taking in Black Meadow Ridge and, maybe, West Point, but it's not a high priority since the Eno State Park already covers about 4,000 acres.

City Manager Bonfield said he has met with several groups interested in what becomes of Black Meadow Ridge. "There are any number of ideas," he said.