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Site work starts on parcel at Smith Level/15-501

Posted on December 13, 2007 by Staff

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Lee-Moore Oil Company, owners of a 63.3-acre parcel off U.S. 15-501 and Smith Level Road have started clearing and grading work on part of the property, but aren’t saying what they intend to do with it for now.
Chatham County Planning Director Keith Megginson said according to an erosion-control plan filed with the county, the company will clear roughly 20 acres along the section of the property nearest U.S. 15-501. But Megginson said he has yet to see a proposal for what might be constructed on the site.

The county has received a copy of a letter sent to Lee-Moore by state Department of Transportation engineers on requirements for a driveway at the Starpoint intersection across from the existing intersection of U.S. 15-501 and Smith Level Road.

According to a schematic in the DOT letter, the company requested particulars to convert the three-way intersection to a four-way intersection with an entrance to the Lee-Moore property on the western side.
The company has not responded to phone and email inquiries about what it intends to do with the property, which is located mostly in Chatham County but would have an entrance in Orange County.

The schematic used notes from the previous design for the site, which included a Lowes Home Improvement store in the interior of the property and three outparcels along U.S. 15-501. That proposal was successfully challenged in court by a group of neighbors in the area led by Robert Murdock, a ruling that was recently reaffirmed.

Murdock sued Chatham County over the way it handled the 2005 rezoning of the property. Earlier this year, Chatham’s board of county commissioners opted not to pursue the case further, but Lee-Moore stepped into the case and filed a motion to overturn the ruling.

After a hearing in Wake County On Dec. 3, District Court Judge Kenneth Titus upheld the ruling. James Exum Jr., Lee-Moore’s counsel in the case, said the company intends to continue its fight.

“We were, naturally, disappointed in the ruling. Lee Moore Oil does plan to appeal,” Exum wrote in an email response to The Citizen regarding the judge’s ruling.

Murdock said he’s pleased with having the decision reaffirmed.

When he bought his property, the plans for the parcel included 20 acres for businesses along the highway and four 10-acre residential lots.

“We thought we knew what we were buying into,” he said.

Though he won his case, it came at quite a price when the judge opted to not award Murdock the $80,000 in legal fees he and his neighbors incurred pursuing the challenge.

Unlike some states which have automatic recovery of legal fees, under North Carolina law judges have the option to grant or not grant legal fees.

Meanwhile, as another appeal looks possible, Murdock says he and his neighbors remain keenly interested in the activity at the site and what the owners have planned for it.

“We’ll just sit and wait,” he said.

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