Community groups are working to thwart a developer's plan to build a new subdivision on a plot of land adjacent to the Duke Forest. The groups claim that building on the land will be harmful to their neighborhoods and to the environment.
Community groups are working to thwart a developer’s plan to build a new subdivision on a plot of land adjacent to the Duke Forest. The groups claim that building on the land will be harmful to their neighborhoods and to the environment.
The University has a contract to sell 42 acres of land at the corner of Pickett and Erwin roads to Crosland Properties Inc. The company plans to develop the area with 49 upscale houses, ranging in price from $350,000 to $500,000.
But the Erwin Area Neighborhood Group, a coalition of 19 neighborhoods, is objecting to the sale and working to block the county and city approvals that Crosland needs to proceed.
Since the land straddles Orange and Durham county boundaries, Crosland needs to obtain permission from both counties to build. Before construction begins, the city of Durham must also annex the land and extend water and sewer lines to the property.
Groups opposing the project persuaded the Durham County Commissioners to claim their right to reserve land being considered for purchase. The commissioners voted Monday night to hold the property for 120 days while they decide whether the county wants to buy it.
The county does not have room in its budget to purchase the land, but private groups have offered to raise the money, interim County Manager Wendell Davis said. “It will hopefully boil down to the ability of those individuals to raise the money to purchase that land,” he said.
Neither the University nor Crosland would reveal the exact cost of the land, but both groups said it was more than $1 million. University officials told the Erwin Area Neighborhood Group it was welcome to bid on the property.
The resistance startled developers, who said they took care to keep their plans environmentally conscious. “When we first came up with the proposal, we kind of thought we would be welcomed with open arms,” said Jim Anderson, vice president of Crosland Development in Raleigh. He noted that the opposition may hinder the company’s plans, but Crosland would continue to pursue them.
As part of the sale’s terms, Duke required that the company maintain some of the land as natural park-like space. Crosland’s plan leaves 21 acres of open space, most of it in Orange County.
Anderson questioned the legality of the county’s intercession, which invokes a relatively obscure state statute. Usually when the county reserves land, it must do so within 45 days of the time the site plan is submitted. Based on when Anderson said he delivered the plan, that deadline expired Nov. 5.
Erwin Road resident Jeff Fisher, Nicholas ’00, said a housing development would threaten New Hope Creek Corridor, a partially constructed walking trail between the Forest and Jordan Lake.
“We’re concerned about that, period: that they’re decommissioning areas of Duke Forest and selling them off for development,” said Fisher, who has represented the Erwin Area Neighborhood Group at several city and county meetings.
Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said the tract is not part of the Forest and has been “for sale for a very long time.”
The Board of Trustees commissioned a study in the late 1980s to classify sections of Duke Forest that have minimal academic use and recognize them as sections with the potential to be sold in the future. Those areas were officially separated from the Forest, and several of them have been sold over the years.
“We’ve had some tracts over the years that we would rather have had the money than the land,” said Jeffrey Potter, director of real estate administration for Duke.
Trask noted that the land was misclassified on Durham city maps as “open space,” leading people to believe the land was a conservation area. The designation, he said, is being changed.
Before going to the county, Fisher said his group went to Crosland and asked the company to halt plans for 18 months to give citizens a chance to raise money to buy the land and compensate the developers for sunk costs. When Crosland declined, he said, the Erwin Area Neighborhood Group went to the county.
The group may be able to prevent construction even if Crosland buys the land, developers said. “To the extent that elected officials and staff listen and manage their policy in accordance with the vocal few,” Anderson said, “it does influence policy more than you would expect.”
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