Chatham Park will destroy us all!!!

Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2013 14:33:10 -0500
From: “Sonny Keisler”
Subject: RE: Chatham Chatlist #4823

From: Blair Gallagher
Subject: Chatham Park

Those interested in the proposed Chatham Park development may wish to read the following editorial printed in the Wilmington area newspaper known as the Star News:  http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20131216/ARTICLES/131219763/1108.  The editorial strongly encourages the following. (1) Local governments should embrace long-term land use planning and require developers to adhere to the plan rather than vice-versa, (2) All planning efforts should involve active citizen participation. (3)  Planning  should incorporate a range of values including good-paying jobs,  affordable housing,  environmental protection, public recreation  and  the governmental tax base.

In our discussion concerning Chatham Park, we would be well advised to follow the advice of our fellow citizens in Wilmington and New Hanover County.  We would be well advised to put Chatham Park on hold until both the Pittsboro “Plan Development District†(PDD) ordinance and the Chatham Park Master Plan have been sufficiently improved so that a full range of public values have been fully protected.

As of now, neither the PDD ordinance nor the Chatham Park Master Plan will protect Chatham citizens from the many negative consequences of Chatham Park. These include an increasingly polluted Jordan Lake and Haw River, degraded recreational opportunities in Jordan Lake, increased costs for a range of public services leading to increased public taxes, no guarantees of good-paying local jobs and business contracts, traffic jams rivaling those on Interstate 40 between Raleigh and Durham, and the destruction of the rural lifestyle most people now have.

Blair Gallagher