Infill Debate and the Planning Commission

Does this say Bloomsbury to you?

For those of you following the game of dodge ball the city is playing on the teardown field, the ball was bounced out of bounds today.

The plays so far: the planning department made some strict recommendations, which were tossed to the city council, who sent the problem back to the planning staff, who came back to the Council with 3 more plays, who tossed the whole matter to the planning commission, who stopped play today, and then kicked it out into the netherlands. Last we saw, a City Councilor was trying to find the ball to get it back into play.

The WRAL report is here. They say the total is now 600 homes. Fallonia is within one mile of 2 dozen of these. Just this month the average teardown activity is one a week.

A exploratory drive on Runnymeade will show that there are 9 new houses in a row at the start of the street, then a scattered situation of new houses as the street continues. There is no doubt in my mind that once the activity begins, it trends through the area until the old houses begin to look like they do not fit. Soon these will be new very expensive neighborhoods.

This is a sad state of affairs. This issue will be revisited at the January 8 City Council meeting. If you are concerned about things on your street, the time is here for letting the City know how you see this issue.