
{"id":5337,"date":"2009-03-26T10:06:17","date_gmt":"2009-03-26T18:06:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=5337"},"modified":"2009-03-26T10:06:17","modified_gmt":"2009-03-26T18:06:17","slug":"tempers-fly-over-council%e2%80%99s-aydan-court-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/03\/26\/tempers-fly-over-council%e2%80%99s-aydan-court-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"Tempers fly over council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Aydan Court decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Kirk Ross<br \/>\nStaff Writer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Moments before, the council had ended a tense discussion and decided not to make changes to the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Residential-Special Standards-Conditional zoning district that would have made possible Zinn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>To Zinn and her supporters \u00e2\u20ac\u201d including fellow developers and merchants from nearby Meadowmont \u00e2\u20ac\u201d the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a discredit to the trust we put in you for a fair process with integrity and transparency,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Zinn told the council of their decision to deny the zoning change prior to the hearing on Aydan Court. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I want you to know that what you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done tonight will reverberate far beyond the walls of these council chambers.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The council, she said, did not approach the project with an open mind and had come to its conclusion before the evening began.<br \/>\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153People are already talking about it. This council had made their mind up. It was rigged.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I understand that you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re upset, but I am not going to let stand your characterization of this council, because you are wrong,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d 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.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153You took a risk,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nobody 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.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Foy disagreed that Zinn had been led to believe the changes to the zone would happen.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t 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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re misleading people if you say that,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I object, today, to being force fed a zone that is not appropriate for this community. When it is, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll decide, and tonight we decided that it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the hearing on Aydan Court didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get much cozier, as supporters of the project and those opposed made their respective cases and offered comments on the council\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s actions.<\/p>\n<p>The council later voted to deny a permit for the project. Zinn has said she would develop the property for single-family homes.<br \/>\nIn other action Monday night, the council:<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 increased the town\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u00a2 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Residential-Special Standards-Conditional zoning district that would&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5337"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5338,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5337\/revisions\/5338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}