Jordan Lake boundary splits county board

From the N&O archives: April 18, 2009.

When all was said and done -- for the time being -- Durham County Commissioner Ellen Reckhow was overheard to say, “It’s the greatest show in town.”

The commissioners’ Monday hearing on the Jordan Lake watershed boundary had been quite a show indeed; but Commissioner Brenda Howerton summed up the evening with other words:

“A mess.”

No one who was there could argue.

The commissioners voted 3-2 to follow the prescribed process to move the boundary line from its original position to a new one. That move could help clear the way for a mixed-use subdivision on N.C. 751 just above the Chatham County line.

The vote came, though, only after a hearing that went on for two hours and 36 minutes, before a standing-room audience, at which 51 citizens signed up to speak, in which tempers rose and voices were raised and the commissioners’ own deliberation came down to barbed exchanges that continued even after the voting was done.

And the vote was tied when Howerton, reserved all night, said “Aye,” aligning herself with Reckhow and Commissioner Becky Heron against Commissioner Joe Bowser and board Chairman Michael Page.

Page and Bowser wanted to reset the line right then and there, avoiding the rezoning process and public hearings that County Attorney Chuck Kitchen and Planning Director Steve Medlin had said both Durham’s Unified Development Ordinance and state law required.

“Why do we have a process, a UDO, if we’re not going to follow it?” Howerton said.

New boundary

The new boundary would leave most of the proposed subdivision outside of Jordan Lake’s critical watershed area.

The 164-acre project is itself in the UDO’s process for approval. Approval depends on the critical boundary, and the new boundary that Page and Bowser favored is based on a survey commissioned by Neal Hunter, the land’s former owner who is now a partner in the proposed “751 Assemblage” subdivision.

Former Planning Director Frank Duke had moved the boundary based on Hunter’s survey in 2006. In 2008, though, after the 751 project was announced, County Attorney Chuck Kitchen concluded that Duke had no authority to move the line without state approval.

In February, state authorities decided Durham could use the Hunter survey to move the boundary, but environmentalists called for an independent survey to remove any appearance of a conflict of interest. The developers’ attorney argued Duke did have authority to move the line as an administrative correction and that no rezoning or public hearings were required.

Howerton said she read the UDO section in question. “There’s unclarity in that,” she said.

So what was on the table Monday night was how to read a vague law, and how to go from there.

Supporters on both sides talked on their own agendas. Environmentalists called for a new survey, finding faults in the Hunter survey, warning of a threat to Jordan’s water quality. The developers’ side talked of how eco-friendly their project would be, and the tax revenue and jobs it would bring the county.

“Property rights are not subject to change due to people’s personal agendas,” developer Alex Mitchell said. His partner, Tyler Morris, said they had bought land and invested heavily in planning their project “in good faith, relaying on information provided by Durham’s planning department.”

Neal Hunter said, “How can we rely on anything in the future?”

On the other side, Durham resident Tom Miller, an attorney, called moving the line without public hearings “unlawful and unconstitutional.”

“The public trust is reposed in these ordinances,” he said.

Later, Reckhow reminded her colleagues of their oaths to uphold the laws.

“Now we’re sitting here and we’re ready to throw them right out of the window. I’m not going to be a part of that,” she said.

“Don’t really put us down to say we’re not abiding by the law when we try to represent the best interest of all our citizens,” Page replied.

And so it went.

To watch the show in its entirety, go to the Durham County Web site and click the link for “BOCC Live & Archived Meetings.”

As for whether a new survey is taken, where the boundary will go, whether the 751 Assemblage will be built or not, whether anybody gets sued and the consequences of Monday night for the commissioners’ political futures --

Stay tuned.

What’s next

As for setting the boundary, the next step is a neighborhood meeting yet to be scheduled.

Then, after review and drafting in City Hall, a formal rezoning request would go to a public hearing by the Durham Planning Commission, a citizens’ advisory body.

That can’t happen before June, said Planning Director Steve Medlin. Following a planning commission recommendation to approve or deny, the request may or may not undergo revision before going to the county commissioners. They could receive it in July, Medlin said, though the planning commission has authority to continue the request up to three meeting cycles.

This story was originally published April 18, 2009 at 12:00 AM.