We have received some great news from the Planning Commission staff regarding the proposed development of the wooded area off Guess and Bivins. As the developers have not provided all of the documents required, and have not addressed the many issues identified regarding environmental, traffic, water and other concerns, the application for rezoning has been voided. This means if the developer wants to continue, they will have to start all over from the very beginning of the process, including a new community meeting. In the letter to the developers, the Land Use staff suggested “A new neighborhood meeting will need to be held (and Planning highly encourages additional community engagement around this project due to the intense public interest before submittal).” Read the full letter is here.
This result is partly because of the many issues inherent in the land. But it is also due to the active engagement of you, the neighbors who understand the importance of maintaining the character of north Durham and not starting down the slippery slope toward over-development. The staff did an excellent job analyzing the proposal from all angles, but the many, many emails that were received definitely had an impact. So, thank you, thank you, thank you!
We hope that this is the end, but we cannot be complacent. We recommend that people take down their yard signs now (including any you might have put up in public areas), as we don’t want to clutter up the area, but hold on to them, in case this does reappear. Keep reading the Planning Commission weekly report (sign up here https://durhamnc.gov/list.aspx if you want the Durham Planning Notification Service). And, of course, sign up for our newsletter if you haven’t already.
We will continue to monitor any developments and provide updates via the newsletter.
Again, this was a group effort, so thank you for all you have done to get to this result!