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Tempers fly over council’s Aydan Court decision

Posted on March 26, 2009 by Staff

By Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

By the time developer Carol Ann Zinn reached the microphone at Town Hall Monday night, she already knew the fate of her proposed Aydan Court project.

Moments before, the council had ended a tense discussion and decided not to make changes to the town’s Residential-Special Standards-Conditional zoning district that would have made possible Zinn’s plan for 58 condominiums on six acres off of N.C. 54 near the Upper Little Creek Waterfowl Impoundment. Without the change in the zone, which would have allowed greater density in the area, the project was effectively stopped.

To Zinn and her supporters — including fellow developers and merchants from nearby Meadowmont — the council’s decision to deny the change prior to a full hearing on the merits of Aydan Court was an outrage, and she let them know so.

“I think it’s a discredit to the trust we put in you for a fair process with integrity and transparency,” Zinn told the council of their decision to deny the zoning change prior to the hearing on Aydan Court. “I want you to know that what you’ve done tonight will reverberate far beyond the walls of these council chambers.”

The council, she said, did not approach the project with an open mind and had come to its conclusion before the evening began.
“People are already talking about it. This council had made their mind up. It was rigged.”

Zinn said that when the process began two years ago, the council did not raise concerns about density. Since then, she said, she had spent about $600,000 on the project.

Her charge that the council had broken faith and not approached the issue with an open mind rankled Mayor Kevin Foy, who displayed an uncharacteristic flash of anger.

“I understand that you’re upset, but I am not going to let stand your characterization of this council, because you are wrong,” Foy said. A zone for the project did not exist when the project was first proposed, he said, and there were no guarantees that the town would adopt one.

“You took a risk,” he said. “Nobody invited you to do that. You are a businessperson. And this process is not rigged, because we are taking our responsibility to direct the growth of this community.”

Foy disagreed that Zinn had been led to believe the changes to the zone would happen.

“Don’t act like you were misled into something that a sophisticated developer like you who has developed in this community for 25 years knows better. And you’re misleading people if you say that,” he said. “I object, today, to being force fed a zone that is not appropriate for this community. When it is, we’ll decide, and tonight we decided that it’s not.”

The rest of the hearing on Aydan Court didn’t get much cozier, as supporters of the project and those opposed made their respective cases and offered comments on the council’s actions.

The council later voted to deny a permit for the project. Zinn has said she would develop the property for single-family homes.
In other action Monday night, the council:

• increased the town’s motor vehicle tax from $20 to $30. The additional $260,000 in revenue will be used to buy new buses for Chapel Hill Transit; and

• adopted a dog-tethering ordinance that makes it unlawful to tether dogs and sets requirements for kennel sizes. The ordinance takes effect in 15 months.

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