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Family tired by library battle

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Staff

By Rose Laudicina
Staff Writer

Cray and Kathy Gunn feel as if they’ve just emerged from battle. The war they fought lasted four months and cost them their retirement savings and a summer spent with lawyers and county commissioners instead of family.

The Gunns were up against two substantial opponents, the Carrboro Board of Aldermen and the Orange County Board of Commissioners, and their joint decision to purchase the vacant lot adjacent to the Gunn’s property at 212 Hillsborough Road and rezone it for use as a library.

As the battle came to an end, it may appear that the Gunns emerged on top. The county commissioners came back from summer vacation and voted to decline the proposed Carrboro library site, restarting the search for a site.

While the Gunns were relieved to hear the commissioners’ decision, they were exhausted from the fight and felt no reason to celebrate.

“Basically, every waking hour of our family’s summer was spent dealing with this. Our children are tired of hearing about it now, and every resource we had spiritually and monetary was spent trying to defend this,” Cray Gunn said. “There was just nothing left at the end.”

At the beginning, when the site beside the Gunns was first proposed, the Gunns were in support of the location.

“We were initially enthusiastic, and at that point we still assumed there would be some sort of symbiotic relationship between the library and the school,” Cray said.

Soon though, the town began to discuss how the library’s access point would be a driveway approximately 17 feet from the Gunns’ house, which would produce a significant increase in traffic on Hillsborough Road.

It was at this point that the Gunns and many of their neighbors started to oppose the site and the rezoning of the property.

The property originally was zoned for residential use and also had a deed restriction on it. When Kathy Gunn emailed County Manager Frank Clifton to make him aware of the deed restrictions, Clifton replied that the restrictions did not “apply to a governmental use of the property under North Carolina law.”

This reply, coupled with the board of aldermen’s vote to rezone the property, prompted the Gunns to find a lawyer.

“We were furious,” Kathy Gunn said. “I was shocked … and out of all those aldermen only one voted against it … our representatives didn’t represent us.”

Board member Jacquelyn Gist was the only board member to vote against the rezoning, and was also the only member who visited with the Gunns on their property.

“I felt so bad for the Gunns; they went through so much,” Gist said.

Gist said she was aware the Gunns had spent a considerable amount of money fighting the county and “that is a lot [of money] to an individual family, maybe not to the town. But for one family to be treated so cavalierly, I found it very disappointing.”

Like the Gunns, Gist believes the county knew about the legal issues regarding the property while they continued to pursue the purchase before voting it down at the last minute.

Gist said she believes that while BOA members didn’t feel that the proposed site was the best place for the library, they decided to vote to rezone to prove to the county commissioners that they wanted a library in Carrboro.

The Gunns believe that if they hadn’t hired lawyers to represent their concerns and work with the county, the property would have been purchased.

“If we had done nothing, there would be a sold sign out there; it would have been a done deal,” Kathy Gunn said.

With the search for a new site now being launched, the Gunns say they are going to need a break from monitoring it, but they hope that efforts will be more collaborative between Orange County, Carrboro and residents.

Gist echoed this sentiment, saying she believes communication between every party involved will improve and that talks should begin about what the proposed library is going to look like.

“We need to consider what a library looks like now, and what the needs are now. We don’t need to build a 1950s library for 2020,” she said.

6 thoughts on “Family tired by library battle”

  1. Kimberly Willardson says:
    September 9, 2011 at 10:59 am

    I’m so sorry to hear about the expensive and stressful battle the Gunn family and their neighbors had to endure this past summer. I hope this story wakes up the community to the fact that we ALL need to pay more attention to the headlong, and often ill-considered, rush-to-development decisions our elected officials are routinely making. As high as property values go in these parts, the rights and concerns of property owners seem pretty low priority during development and zoning considerations.

  2. Greg Sherman says:
    September 10, 2011 at 6:00 pm

    I have never found the Board of Alderman to make ill-considered, rushed decisions in regards to development in Carrboro. Quite the opposite, the routine decision is to have little to no development at all. Think how much economic good we pass up as a community by choosing not to build a library in town. The visitors who would have patronized the library would have perhaps also eaten at restaurants in town, stopped for gas or food here, or visited any number of other local businesses. The proposed site was not in a purely residential area. There is already a school, church, daycare, and other businesses within a stones throw. Indeed the location was a very suitable as a place for a library. Although the Gunn’s obviously disagree with this view. I see no reason for the constant opposition to development simply because a few object to it, as opposed the the greater good that would benefit so many others. Hard-headed, perhaps, more than headlong is the apt description.

  3. Gwendolyn Harvey says:
    September 12, 2011 at 9:52 am

    This is a real live person working for Orange County government in Hilsborough. Thx

  4. Gwendolyn Harvey says:
    September 12, 2011 at 10:11 am

    My apologies – My intention in posting a comment was to only indicate I had read the article and appreciated the Carrboro Citizen for continuing to report on an issue of interest to the immediate – and greater – Orange County community. And “yes” I do work for Orange County and in my job seek to stay informed on local news and public response. Thx plenty

  5. Annemie Tonken says:
    September 13, 2011 at 3:18 pm

    I know that this is a difficult and complicated issue, and would like to see a new library in Carrboro as much as anyone else, but the proposed site off Hillsborough Rd. was a threat to the whole neighborhood, driving traffic not to local businesses (which are largely concentrated downtown) but rather to an already-congested school zone. I hope the BOA is able to figure out a way to repurpose one of the existing buildings in Carrboro for a library, preferably downtown. In the meantime, kudos to the Gunns for investing so much in the neighborhood and the town!

  6. Lindsay Griffin says:
    September 28, 2011 at 11:45 am

    I am relieved that the Orange County Commissioners rejected the Hillsborough Rd. site for the the sake of the Gunn family and surrounding residents, though it is incredibly disconcerting to think of the expense that the Gunn’s have incurred to protect themselves .

    For those of you who do not know the Gunn’s they are incredibly kind, generous and reasonable people. This project would have destroyed the space they have created for their family. I am not sure area residents really understand that the proposed road into the library would have been on their property line, literally next to the house. Would you like a public two lane road under your bedroom window? I wouldn’t.

    There other options for this library, ones that could have an extremely positive impact on surrounding neighborhoods. Property owners of a wooded lot off Jones Ferry Rd – zoned commercial, centrally located and on J bus line – are willing to work with the county and town to sell the lot for the library. This space would provide a much needed boost to this side of Carrboro where many children and elderly residents are highly concentrated.

    I would like to urge all Carrboro residents to stay tuned to news surrounding this issue and get involved.

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