Large Scale Development Wins Council Approval

The Land Use Committee of the DCDA is still reeling from the recent approval by our City Council of the two rezoning petitions for developments by Blue Sky Partners. These developments encompass the last two blocks on Ideal Way; one is the block between Marshall Place and Euclid Avenue, and the other is the block between Euclid Avenue and South Boulevard. Both petitions were requesting MUDD zoning.

Despite the fact that both of these rezoning requests violate both the spirit, intent and restrictions imposed by the Dilworth Land Use Plan and the Transit Station Plans, that the DCDA board unanimously opposed the rezonings, AND that the city’s own planning staff did NOT support them and very clearly explained to council members why they didn’t), the following six City Council members voted for them anyway: John Lassiter, Warren Turner, George Mitchell, Don Lochman, Michael Barnes and Andy Dulin. The five City Council members that did not support them were: Patsy Kinsey, Patrick Mumford, Susan Burgess, Anthony Foxx and Nancy Carter. We thank them for that.

On the block bounded by Ideal Way, Marshall and Euclid Avenues, the development will consist of a 4-unit townhome that will be 44 feet high on Marshall and about 50 feet high on Euclid Avenue.

On the block bounded by Euclid Avenue and South Boulevard, the development will consist of a large-scale condominium project that will contain 200 condo units and 15,000 square feet of retail space. Overall height of the building will be about 90 feet. On just 1.2 acres, this works out to a density of 166 dwelling units per acre. To put this in context, the Summit Grandview apartment building on Morehead Street is about 88 dwelling units per acre.

The unprecedented density of this project so close to our residential neighborhood and sited a good distance from a transit station (the New Bern Station) made it seem to all of us a curious anomaly that simply would go away once it was put under the city’s microscope. Silly us. Once again, it seems that good city plans have been foiled and Dilworth has another oversized development to absorb.

Extreme density such as this is supposed to occur adjacent to a train station. That’s what all the plans call for. Since all the train stations between downtown and New Bern do not have parking lots, the idea was to encourage developers to build their densest projects next to the stations and build them with a minimum of parking spaces, thereby increasing passengers on the rail line.

This project will absolutely not support the city’s efforts to get riders on the train. First of all, it is almost a half of a mile from the New Bern Station. How many people are going to cross South Boulevard at Ideal Way and walk that far every day? And, since the New Bern Station doesn’t have a parking lot, they won’t even be able to drive their car to it. So not a lot of riders will be coming from this human filing cabinet.

The Land Use Committee can only do so much. We work on the plans to safeguard the Neighborhood. We work with the developers to make sure their projects are the best they can be for Dilworth. We work with planning staff to understand projects and register concerns. We work with City Council to explain our positions on projects. At some point through all of this we have to assume that some level of reason will prevail. With City Council’s approval of this particular project we can only say that something is truly broken. Reason was left in the dust.

If any of this resonates with you, please know that there are some things you can do. Once our web site is complete (and that might be by the time you read this), take the time to catch up with what is going on in Dilworth. We will be able to post information there. City Council needs to hear and see a substantial neighborhood response before they will consider changing their vote. We will be asking for you help in the future.

Dilworth is changing so fast!