Category: Charlotte City Council

Foxx reels in big-name backers


At-large City Council member Anthony Foxx announced today he’s running for mayor next year regardless of whether incumbent Mayor Pat McCrory wins the governor’s race.

Foxx, a Democrat, told me he’s rounded up enough early support to go for it. Among those supporters, he said — and I was prying, he wasn’t just tossing out these names — are retired Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl Jr. and local Democratic Party bigwig Cammie Harris. McColl usually — but not always — backs Democrats.

Foxx told me he had decided just within the past few weeks, although he’s been thinking about running for months. But he sent letters to supporters or potential supporters late last week. “I would defind that as the point of no return.”

He’ll probably face impressive opposition, likely Republican council member John Lassiter (if McCrory is ensconced in Raleigh) and possibly Democratic state Sen. Malcolm Graham, who’s also been thinking about running for mayor for some time. Both are generally well-regarded and, in my experience, do a good job as elected officials, as does Foxx.

“Why now?” I asked Foxx. He gave a thoughtful and even visionary answer, which in a politician is refreshing. (Note: Lassiter and Graham could probably do the same. Many elected officials can’t.) Part of it was a discussion of the current problems the city faces and how many of them are, in fact, regional problems: The economy. Transportation. The environment.

“When I ask people where the city’s going, it’s a microcosm of the country,” he said. “People don’t know where we’re going.”

Foxx grew up in Charlotte, went to Davidson and NYU law school. He’s been on the council since 2005.

South End tower wins swift OK

Reporting live, from City Council:
(See previous post, also from council meeting, about a first — a developer urging council to reject his own rezoning petition.)

The City Council launched the vote-on-rezonings part of its meeting at roughly 6:25 p.m. By 6:39 p.m. it had finished its rezoning decisions. They ripped through 18 rezonings, all except one of them approved unanimously with no discussion on any, except for about 30 seconds on the one that was approved 7-2 (for a day care center at The Plaza and Barrington Drive).

That proposal to allow a 250-foot high-rise tower in South End? The one that was in violation of the South End Transit Station Area Plan, which set a 120-foot height maximum? I didn’t have a stopwatch, so I couldn’t tell you whether it was 5 seconds or 10, but there was no discussion, nothing. Unanimous approval, and on to the next agenda item.

Sure, the council’s rezoning meetings can drag. The public hearing part of the meeting tends to bring out developers and neighborhood opponents. It’s 7:34 p.m. and they’re just on No. 6 in a 15-item public hearing agenda. And council member Michael Barnes just pointed out that there have been numerous violations of the Northeast District Plan in recent years. So why didn’t he — or anyone else — think it was worth maybe a little public discussion about why they were violating the South End station area plan, adopted in 2005?

Maybe there were good reasons. Maybe the 120-foot maximum height limit adopted as part of the Transit Station Area Principles isn’t a good idea after all. You, the voting public, have no way to know why the council members decided to treat their own adopted plans as virtually irrelevant.

They’re on auto-pilot. The biggest issue facing the city for decades has been growth and how to deal with it and pay for its impacts. You’d like to think your elected officials are thoughtfully debating the pros and cons of different growth proposals. Guess what. I’m watching them tonight, and it’s pretty hard not to conclude they’ve abdicated that responsibility.

Developer wants own project nixed

Reporting live from City Council:

This has got to be a first. Bailey Patrick, the dean of local developers’ lobbyists, just got up and urged the City Council to vote against his own rezoning petition.

It’s a rezoning proposal from Crescent Resources, a subsidiary of Duke Energy, which wanted to change its plans, approved in 2005, for the Piedmont Town Center development near SouthPark. They wanted to change approvals for retail and office space into residential space.

The planning staff opposed it. Neighbors opposed it and signed a protest petition against it which means it would need a super-majority vote from the City Council.

The proposal would have wiped out a stand of immense old trees. During the 2004 rezoning — after some publicity from yours truly — the developer agreed to leave a large wooded buffer, giving the trees a reprieve. I visited those trees — immense white oaks along a small stream. The new development would have cut them all down to form a retention pond along the creek.

The real crime here is that it would have been perfectly legal. If you think the city’s tree ordinance protects trees, may I suggest you probably also believe that the U.S. found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that Saddam Hussein was behind 9-11.

It appears Crescent decided to cut its losses. Council member Andy Dulin, generally a good friend to developers, made a motion to deny the petition even before the public hearing opened. Which would have been illegal. “I gotta have a public hearing,” Mayor Pat McCrory reminded him.

At which point Bailey Patrick got up and urged the council to reject the rezoning. His client, Crescent, would have withdrawn it, he said, but because the protest petition wasn’t withdrawn it couldn’t legally do that.

Surely it was a first. I happened to be sitting next to 23-year Keith MacVean — who has, as the joke goes, gone to the dark side and now works for developers (one of his new clients made that joke so I figure it’s OK) — who couldn’t remember it happening before.

He also confirmed that the rejection by council means the developer can’t come back with another proposal for two years — unless it seeks a more intense zoning, such as UMUD.

At 9:27 p.m., after hearing a negative recommendation from the zoning committee of the planning commission, which met quickly after the regular council meeting, the council did as Patrick asked — they voted down the rezoning.