Author: marynewsom

Counties seek revenue. But not here.

Eleven N.C. counties will ask voters in November to let them impose a new, quarter-cent sales tax. The N.C. legislature in 2007 gave counties a blanket to add the tax if county voters OK’d it. In a 12th county, Watauga County (home of Boone) voters yesterday rejected the idea, apparently with some help from the John Locke Foundation.

While quarter-cent sales tax votes have had mixed results for the last three years, interestingly, seven of nine counties that have already voted this year passed it. (In addition to Watauga, Davie County voters in February, nixed it.) Here’s a rundown from the N.C. Association of County Commissioners.

The measures had a generally mixed record in 2007 and early in 2008. None of the ones on the ballot in November 2008 passed – remember, the financial world had just collapsed.

Harnett County (home to Lillington – corrected 1:51 p.m.) is even going for a third try this November. Well, hey, the third time (last May) was the charm for Onslow County (home to Jacksonville. N.C.).

The 2007 legislation also offered counties the option to impose a land transfer tax – paid when a home is sold – if voters OK it. Of course, the state’s Realtors erupted like Mount St. Helens when that one passed the legislature. A number of counties put it on the ballot right away, without taking time to build community support. Not surprisingly, given the hot opposition from Realtors and developers, none of the land transfer tax measures to date has passed.

Mecklenburg hasn’t opted to try either one, though it has eviscerated its public library system and its county park and recreation budget, and county cuts played a role (state budget cuts did, ) in massive public school teacher and staff layoffs this year and last. Whether the local pols disinclination to put either option on the ballot is a result of sticking a finger into the political winds, or sane tax policy, or is a response to pressure from Realtors, to whom our politicians pay close heed – I’ll let you take your pick of those options.

In general, compared to property taxes, sales taxes go down easier with voters, although economists tend to point out that compared to property taxes they’re more regressive and less stable. But usually you pay sales taxes in small amounts, so people don’t notice them as much as those big propery tax bills.

Watch Cabarrus sprawl! And Catawba too!

OK, I’ll admit my bias. I thought Union County would be the biggest sprawl-zone in the Charlotte region. Turns out the honor may go to Lincoln County. (It depends on how you’re measuring, of course.) Here’s why I say that. As I was adding the link to my post about mountain development, I spotted something interesting on the UNCC Urban Institute website: an interactive set of maps of the counties in the Charlotte region that depict visually the development from 1976 to 2010, and projecting forward.

So I did some exploring. I started with Union County, home to Weddington, Marvin, Indian Trail and numerous other one-time crossroads just over the Mecklenburg line that have become full-fledged towns. Here’s the link. (Click on the option for interactive map.) A county that in 1976 was almost completely undeveloped (shown in green) by 2010 was fully a third covered in development. From 1976 to 2006 its population increased 171 percent, but its land area that was developed increased 878 percent. What that means, of course, is that the land was developed in a low-density pattern. And here we go again, a tidbit for fiscal conservatives: Multiple studies show lower-density, spread-out development makes delivering of government services (police/fire protection, streets, water/sewer lines and so on) far more expensive per person than a more tightly knit developmental form – you know, the way things looked before about 1970.

But then I started looking at some of the other counties in the region. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a Mecklenburg interactive map. That one would have been eye-popping, I expect. (Update 1:55 p.m. Thursday: Thanks for the help, commenters. Here’s the link to the Mecklenburg map, which was working when I checked it at 1:53 p.m. Thursday. And yep, it’s eye-popping. Interesting also, besides seeing the green disappear, to see the “protected lands” increase.)

But of those I checked (Anson, Iredell, Lincoln, Catawba, Cabarrus and York) Catawba probably had the most visibly dramatic change. Cabarrus was dramatic as well.

But this Lincoln County stat blew me away: While its population increased 86.2 percent from 1976 to 2006 its developed land area increased by 1,450 percent.

The inequities of NCDOT board

Dear Gov. Perdue, House Speaker Hackney, Senate President Pro Tem (corrected, with apologies) Basnight:

Your state Board of Transportation is ridiculous. Got your attention? Good. Here’s why I say that:

I just received an e-mailed press release from my friends at the N.C. Department of Transportation, about committee assignments for that august body, the N.C. Board of Transportation. I had lost track of who my local representatives on the board are, so I decided to check it out. I popped up the online roster for the state transportation board, a body that has major sway in allocating state transportation money. Guess what I see. Charlotte – by far the state’s largest city and largest urban area – has only one member: Developer John Collett.

Of the 14 divisions, we in Division 10 (Mecklenburg, Anson, Stanly, Cabarrus and Union counties – population 1,374,357) have exactly the same number of NCDOT board members as Division 14 – Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Haywood, Henderson, Jackson, Macon, Polk, Swain and Transylvania counties – population 338,405. Notice how that’s a little more than a third of the population of Mecklenburg alone (913,639).

Now obviously Division 14 needs representation, too. I’m not saying it doesn’t. Rural areas shouldn’t be overlooked just because they’re small. But that doesn’t make it right, or smart, to overlook urban areas just because they’re big.

So let’s take a look at the at-large members of the board, who are supposed to represent various interests. Let’s see, there’s an at-large member for State Ports and Aviation Issues. So it makes sense for that rep to be Leigh McNairy (again, corrected, with apologies) from Kinston, right? Sure, Kinston has no port, but at least it’s on the Neuse River, isn’t it? Only thing is, the state’s ports are in City and Wilmington, neither of which has a rep on the DOT board.

Is it because of Kinston’s vast airport – the state’s busiest, and US Airways’ largest hub and all that? Oops, I forgot! That would be Charlotte. There’s even a Ports Authority Inland Terminal in Charlotte, ahem.

(If you give up on that Kinston mystery, here’s a clue. The state-funded Global TransPark – a yet-to-bear-fruit effort that attempted to revive all of Eastern North Carolina by building a big airfield – is in Kinston. Well, now there’s a parts factory there, too. Whew. I was starting to get worried that that Kinston appointment didn’t make any sense.)

There’s an at-large member for “rural issues.” The position appears to be unfilled. Hmm, I wonder who’s the at-large member for “urban issues.” Guess what. There isn’t one. But don’t cities have urban-style issues in much the way rural areas have rural-style issues? Don’t they deserve some attention too? Gov. Perdue, please hop on this.

There’s an at-large member for environmental issues. Good! That’s forward thinking. That member is from Raleigh, Nina Szlosberg-Landis. So the cities in the Triangle (Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill) get two board slots, because the District 5 member, Chuck Watts, is from Durham.

There’s an at-large member for government-related finance and accounting issues (huh?). He’s Ronnie Wall from Burlington.

Aha. Here’s an at-large member for mass transit. Since Charlotte has the only light rail transit system in the state, and is the only city with funding to build the state’s only streetcar system, and has the largest bus system and the only dedicated sales tax for transit in the state, it makes all kinds of sense that the at-large member for transit is – Andrew Perkins, from Greensboro?

And that gives the cities in the Triad (Greenboro, Winston-Salem and High Point) two board members as well, since the District 9 member is Ralph Womble from Winston-Salem.

Throwing aside the ridiculous way in which the DOT districts are configured (dating to where the state prisons were located, and I am not making that up), it’s fair for all sections of the state to have voices on the board. But it isn’t fair for people in cities to be disproportionately voiceless.

Charlotte and the state’s other cities are the economic engines of North Carolina. When they sink, the state’s economy sinks. That should be reflected in all state policies, not just transportation. It simply makes no sense that they get disproportionately tiny attention when it comes to transportation representation, or any other forms of representation.

I’m guessing the legislature can change those silly DOT districts. But when it comes time to make appointments, Gov. Perdue, Rep. Hackney and Sen. Basnight, could you please notice that your largest city – you know, the one with the busiest airport, the biggest traffic problems, the biggest mass transit system – might need a little more representation on your state transportation board?

Planning commissioners get tough

Here’s a heartening (well, sort of, as you’ll see) little event that took place at a little-heralded government meeting this week. It involves planning commissioners pushing to get a better outcome on a proposed rezoning.

The rezoning in question involves a highly visible corner at East Boulevard and Scott Avenue, in the heart of the Dilworth neighborhood’s commercial district. If you’ve lived in Charlotte for a long time, you’ll remember it as the site of the still-missed Epicurean Restaurant, home of fabulous steaks and The World’s Best Biscuits, small morsels of buttery heaven which perfectly trained waiters brought around to your table throughout the evening, so you ended up consuming several thousand calories in biscuits alone, along with your steak and potato.

The Epicurean closed about 12 years ago. The Castanas family that’s owned the property since 1959 tried to redevelop the site in the late 1990s but couldn’t get the financing, owner George Castanas told me on Wednesday.

They want to put a parking lot at that key intersection. (Actually, people have been parking there already, in violation of existing zoning, NS, which doesn’t allow parking lots.) So they’re seeking a rezoning. It’s complicated, involving something called a “Pedscape Overlay” for East Boulevard. But the upshot is that the new zoning category they seek would require an improved, wider sidewalk along East. The owners want to keep the same old sidewalk, which a Charlotte DOT staffer estimated at 5 feet with a small planting strip, or none, depending on where you look.

The planning staff is OK with letting the rezoning go forward without an improved sidewalk. Indeed, because the rezoning would be to something called “optional” – B-1 (PED-O) instead of B-1 (PED) – the better sidewalk wouldn’t, technically, required. The “optional” means you can do pretty much what you want as long as the city will let you get away with it. (Some optional options are more palatable than others, of course.)

Throwing aside the larger question of why you’d have a supposedly pedestrian-friendly zoning standard (i.e. PED) at one of the key intersections in the main commercial area of one of the city’s most historic neighborhoods that allows a surface parking lot — after all, can you say “pedscape”? – why didn’t the planning staff at least push the owners to improve that bad sidewalk?

At Wednesday’s meeting of the Zoning Committee (which is a sub-set of the appointed Planning Commission, the one that makes recommendations to the City Council on rezoning petitions) several commissioners began pushing the staff on this very question. Nina Lipton, Tracy Dodson, Greg Phipps and Claire Fallon all chimed in, diplomatically, of course, to suggest that something better for the public could be accomplished. The planners’ point had been that the parking lot isn’t likely to be the permanent development at that corner, so whatever happens now is likely just interim.

But commissioners Lipton and Fallon both questioned how long “interim” might be, since the lot’s been sitting undeveloped for 12 years already.

With the property owner really wanting that parking lot, and really needing a rezoning to make the parking lot legal, the planners actually have some leverage in this case. Yet they didn’t appear to have tried to use it.

In the end, the Zoning Committee voted to delay making their recommendation on the rezoning until September to give the property owner time to “work with the neighborhood” – i.e. the Dilworth community association – to come up with an idea that’s closer to the spirit of the pedscape designs.

Unlike Charlotte, Durham nixes digital billboards

Just spotted this article in the Raleigh News & Observer – the Durham City Council has turned unanimous thumbs down on a proposal to allow digital billboards.

Interesting. Charlotte, of course, allows them, having voted 8-2 in 2007 (council members Michael Barnes and Warren Turner were the “no” votes) to loosen the city’s already loose billboard standards to allow the large and distracting TV-screen like signs.

The article about Durham says Durham’s “City/County Planning Department recommended against the change in a strongly worded presentation that raised concerns about digital signs as motorist distractions and costly litigation that could be invited by tampering with an ordinance the city has already spent more than $1 million defending against industry challenges.”

Other cities that ban digital billboards include Chapel Hill, Morrisville, Cary and Raleigh.

Remembering a designer who made a difference


Touring the soon-to-open greenway along Little Sugar Creek on Wednesday “Long-ignored creek debuts in starring role,” (slideshow here) my guides pointed me to some carved inscriptions in the pavement at each end of the pedestrian bridge that allows people to walk from Harding Place over the creek to the greenway. They were put there by the folks at LandDesign, in memory of the late Brad Davis.

Brad was a champion for parks, as well as good design. I met him shortly after I started writing my columns on city matters, and I respected the care he put into his work and designs. He was a long-time member of the county’s Park and Recreation Commission and helped found its nonprofit Partners for Parks. He died of cancer in 2007.

His colleagues at LandDesign, where he was a partner, donated money for a small memorial to him at the greenway. If you walk across the bridge you’ll see his words. I particularly liked those on the Harding Place side:
“Attaining good design is a real struggle between the idea of creating great spaces and meeting the regulations for public health, safety and welfare. When in doubt, do great design.”

Why conservatives should love streetcars

“‘For cities, conservatives’ banner should read, ‘Bring Back the Streetcars!’ ”

Read on. It’s from an article in The American Conservative, “What’s so conservative about federal highways?” by William S. Lind, director of The American Conservative Center for Public Transportation and coauthor of Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation. Reader Mason Hicks, who grew up in Lancaster County, S.C., but now lives in Paris (France) shared it with me recently.

Lind’s piece talks about the folly of a national transportation system that requires us to depend on foreign oil, and on only one transportation mode, and points out how it was government intervention in the marketplace (via billions spent on highways) that helped kill the passenger rail business.

And here’s another provocative excerpt: “The greatest threat to a revival of attractive public transportation is not the libertarian transit critics. It is an unnecessary escalation of construction costs, usually driven by consultants who know nothing of rail and traction history, are often in cahoots with the suppliers, and gold-plate everything.”

He writes of the importance of “avoiding the foxfire allure of high technology,” and says, “All the technology needed to run electric railways, and run them fast, was in place 100 years ago. It was simple, rugged, dependable, and relatively cheap. In the 1930s, many of America’s passenger trains, running behind steam locomotives, were faster than they are now. (After World War II, the federal government slapped speed limits on them.)”

It’s a provocative piece, especially in light of the Charlotte debate over whether the city should accept a $25 million Federal Transit Administration grant to help it start building a proposed streetcar line. Here’s what the Charlotte Observer’s editorial board said in today’s newspaper:
“Think streetcar vote was hard? Just wait.”

Weak mayor? Pat McCrory opines. In California.

Hmm. Ex-Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, a Republican who’s almost certainly running for governor again in 2012, has written an opinion piece for, of all things, the Sacramento Bee:
“Strong mayor or not, it’s still the bully pulpit.”

It seems Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is pushing to turn the office, in California’s capital city, into a full-time, strong mayor form of government. And the local paper there (a McClatchy Co. sister paper to the Obs) requested the opinion of another non-fulltime mayor.

For those of you not deeply into local politics, here’s a primer on strong/weak mayor systems: In cities such as Charlotte that have a “council-manager” form of government, the mayor’s doesn’t hire or fire anyone or run any city departments. A professional city manager does that. The council makes the decisions such as policy, and hiring/firing the city manager. In Charlotte the mayor doesn’t even have a vote on the council, except in a few instances (ties, rezonings with protest petitions, etc.) Charleston’s Joe Riley, Boston’s Tom Menino, Chicago’s Richard Daley are all “strong mayors,” – they function as the chief city administrator.

McCrory concludes: “Regardless of the powers to the mayor’s office it will be the mayor who will get the blame or the credit for what happens in a city. Deserved or not.”

There are pros and cons to each type of government. Strong mayors can be more effective in changing city policy – witness Daley’s success at and worldwide acclaim for repositioning Chicago as a “green” city. City managers tend not to want to be strong enough leaders to get out in front of those who hire/fire them, which can lead to a sense that no one is leading the city – which was a recurring criticism during McCrory’s tenure. And with the job being a (wink-wink) “part-time” one, the post is only going to attract people who are wealthy, retired, self-employed, have very understanding bosses or have a job or whose pay is so low the mayor’s pay is a step up.

On the other hand, strong mayors can use their power to reward political allies and punish foes, even to a greater extent than “weak mayors.” (They can all do that, believe me.) And an inept or crooked strong mayor can do a lot more damage than an inept or crooked weak mayor.

My conclusion is that I’d like a strong mayor system if we had a mayor I liked and I’d hate it if we had a mayor I didn’t. And that’s not really all that helpful.

Streetcar, more tree protection before City Council today

City Council members today get to deal with some controversial stuff. At tonight’s 6:30 p.m. meeting they’re to vote on whether to accept the $25 million federal grant to start building a streetcar line. At their 5 p.m. dinner meeting they’ll hear a briefing on the controversial tree ordinance revisions, five years in the making. And at a 3:30 p.m. committee meeting, the panel will hear about the controversial urban street design guidelines, which have been in the works for eight years. (Memo to government staff: If you have the temerity to propose something developers don’t like, be prepared to spend many, many years on it.)

For all you local government aficionados, here’s a link to what the council will be asked to vote on for the streetcar. And here’s a link to two pro-con pieces that ran Saturday on the Observer’s op-ed page, from council members Edwin Peacock III (he’s voting no, he says) and David Howard (why he’ll vote yes). And here’s what the Observer’s editorial board said about the streetcar on July 18, in “Streetcar is sound strategy, not silly frill.”

Tree ordinance: At its 5 p.m. dinner meeting the council’s to be briefed on the proposed strengthening of the city’s tree ordinance – the part of the ordinance that applies to commercial development, including multifamily housing, but not the part for single-family subdivisions. Just to show you how things work, here’s a list of the members of the stakeholder committee that has been hashing out the tree ordinance for FIVE YEARS.

I’ve put in red the members who represent developers or businesses whose major clients are developers. (Granted, just because you get paid by developers, or are one, it doesn’t mean you’re not sometimes environmentally minded. But I’m just saying.) I’m not sure how to categorize Henry Wallace from Duke Power, a utility company. It’s a subsidiary of Duke Energy, which also co-owns Crescent Resources, which was a major developer around here until it had to file for bankruptcy.

I’ve put in blue the members who are government staff, and therefore are expected to be responsive to ALL members of the public, i.e. not say things that may tick off developers.

In green are the stakeholder members who aren’t affiliated with the real estate and development industry and aren’t local government staff.

Don McSween (City Arborist), Mary Stauble (Mecklenburg County Solid Waste), Lisa Hagood (ESP Associates, Designer), Lee McLaren (DPR Associates, Subdivision Steering Committee), Henry Wallace (Duke Power, Utilities), Tim Morgan/Andy Munn (REBIC, Home Builders Association), Bob Miller (Camas Associates, Architect), John Porter (Charter Properties, Developer/ Charlotte Apartment Association), Chris Buchanan (Moore & Van Allen, Tree Advisory Committee), Rick Roti (Sierra Club), Christa Rodgers (Parks and Recreation).

Even more revealing is to check out the cost-benefit analysis subgroup, whose mission was to apply the proposed changes to some development sites to see how much they might add to the cost of development. (It’s amazing anyone was left at the Crosland or Childress Klein offices while this group was meeting):

Jon Morris (Beacon Partners), Clifton Coble(Bissell Development), Chris Kirby (Carlson Real Estate), Tom Lannin(Chestnut Consulting), Tricia Noble (Childress Klein), Sue Freyler(Cole Jenest & Stone), Bill Daleure (Crosland), Mike Wiggins(Crosland),Scott Henson (Crosland), Steve Mauldin(Crosland), Ju-Ian Shen (Design Resource Group), Al Harris (LSG), Debra Glennon (LSG), Jay Banks(Kimley-Horn), Ed Schweitzer (Land Design), Jeff Orsborn (OSG), Kavita Gupta (Perkins and Will) ,Brandon Plunkett(The John R. McAdams Co), Brian Crutchfield (Timmons Group), Terry Brennan (Trinity Partners), Paul Devine (Childress Klein), Landon Wyatt (Childress Klein), David Haggart (Childress Klein),Chris Daly (Childress Klein),
Trey Dempsey (Lincoln Harris).

Does it make sense to have plenty of site-plan, run-the-numbers expertise on a cost-benefit analysis group? Of course. But if you’ve ever wondered why run-of-the-mill Charlotteans think the city’s government processes are dominated by developers, that’s why.

Street designs: At 3:30 p.m. today the council’s Transportation and Planning Committee (David Howard, Patsy Kinsey, Warren Cooksey and Michael Barnes) hears presentations on the Urban Street Design Guidelines, and the Centers Corridors & Wedges Growth Framework. The committee is being asked to make a recommendation to the full council on the CC&W Framework. If you haven’t heard much about it, you’re not alone. It’s not been getting many headlines. Probably because it doesn’t really change things very much. Or if it does, I haven’t been able to find that section in it.

The street design guidelines have been controversial. Developers (who’ll have to pay to put more streets and sidewalks into their developments, which takes away from developable land) contend the street requirement will raise costs. They’ve also acquired a sudden concern for storm water runoff (a concern they didn’t seem to feel very powerfully when the city and county were trying to adopt watershed protections and floodplain regulations in the 1990s) and they’re noting that all those sidewalks and extra streets will create more impervious surfaces. As if all the rooftops and driveways and surface parking lots they’re building don’t.

Short block lengths are a huge help to people trying to get around the city on foot. The city’s attempt to shrink the allowable block lengths in its new development is admirable. Further, the USDG policy that was adopted in 2007 already compromised the transportation experts’ earlier proposal, after developers complained. Here’s hoping the City Council, as it deals with the staff’s current project to codify the policy into the local ordinances, doesn’t force yet another “compromise” of the already compromised guidelines.

Here’s a link to the PowerPoint presentations that show the Centers Corridors & Wedges Growth Framework, and to the Urban Street Design Guidelines.

Art, Avett Brothers and “Freemore West”

A quick update on last week’s posting about the arts grants to Winston-Salem and Greensboro, “Winston-Salem gets artsy on its interstate.” I wondered whether Charlotte had tried for any similar arts grants. I heard back from Robert Bush at the Arts & Science Council: “ASC applied to the NEA but didn’t make the cut.”

He said the UNCC School of Art & Architecture was a partner along with Charlotte Center City Partners in the application. “Our application,” Bush said in an e-mail, “was to support the Cultural Action Plan that we will be launching and specifically to support an international design competition for the Main Library/Spirit Square Block and the block immediately north on Tryon as a mixed use redevelopment project focused on innovation and creativity. ”

Another public art tidbit: I’m just back from a couple of days of student/parent orientation at the University of Tar Heel, and I noticed on the wall in the Frank Porter Graham Student Union building, some clay disks that had a familiar look to them. Sure nuff, they’re the work of Raleigh-based and UNC-educated artist Thomas Sayre, whose red-clay-colored disks on South Boulevard (“Furrow”) have drawn plenty of attention (a lot of it negative). He’s also the artist who crafted the so-called Onion Rings (“Grandiflora”) at Wendover and Randolph, a work I have confessed to feeling fond of.

The Gaston Gazette tells us that the Gaston Parkway is likely to be delayed until 2015, because so many roads projects in the area are keeping contractors too busy to work on the parkway, too. Hmmm.

And a press release from the city of Charlotte’s Neighborhood and business Services Department, about a celebration 10 a.m.-1 p.m. on Thursday at Wesley Village apartments (2715 Wet Stone Way, Charlotte, NC 28208), tells me that part o town has been “newly named and branded” as “Freemore West.”

And if you’re with me this far, here’s a link to a cool video that NPR has posted to go with the Avett Brothers’ Head Full of Doubt/Road Full of Promise.” It features an animated painting by Jason Ryan Mitcham. “The video shows the rise, fall and inevitable decay of rampant urban development,” says NPR. Let’s just say it’s an artist’s view, not a planner’s.