Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/55404
LETTERS Letter From the 'Hood' by SHARON VALENTINE Dear City and County Officials: Listen up! The neighborhoods are on the move — the organizational move if you have noticed the letters to the editor, newspaper reports and new faces in the city-council and county-commissioner meetings. The move will show up in the ballot box for as much as infl uence money will try to buy the candidate it still takes a majority of individual votes to win an election. And neighbors who are concerned, angry and downright passionate about huge apartment complexes, major thoroughfares and proposed plant sites suddenly cropping up in subdivisions designed for single family homes are taking action. Gone are the days when planning and zoning boards can ignore 10-Year Use Plans and Unifi ed Development Ordinances to make an exception for a developer. Gone are the days when N.C. Department of Transportation regional engineers can use computer matrixes to install medians rather than driving into the real world where medians create gridlock and traffic patterns that make businesses inaccessible. No local- median cheerleading about median U-turns can correct years of poor traffic planning. Gone (we hope) is the present DOT secretary who considers it an insult when approached by local constituents trying to make him aware of local problems with the roads. And gone are the days when homeowners stand by and allow the building of apartment complexes and condos in neighborhoods. Summerhill was one of the fi rst subdivisions to endure the incursions that resulted from spot rezoning, bad planning and a city councilman that consistently voted in his own rather than is constituents interests. Now Cottonade, Ramsey Street, Grays Creek, Murchison Road, Glensford Drive, Gillis Farm and Bingham Drive are "skirmish" names in the wars to save community neighborhoods. WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM The battle has now returned to Summerhill with a proposal to scrape clean the trees that border a stream near meandering Fillyaw Road and build a 120-unit, 200 parking-space apartment complex. Forget that there is no infrastructure to support this kind of development — no schools, no streets, no greenspace —and no exit access except onto already overburdened Fillyaw or through neighborhood backstreets with children and school buses. Forget that constantly packing people into smaller spaces create stress and a move to more rural areas. Forget that there is a downsizing looming in the Army that will impact these large multi-family complexes as the housing collapse did single-family homes. But do remember that low occupancy and vacant buildings are the breeding nests of drugs and crime. Summerhill may have lost the fi ght to keep the commercial camel's nose out of our residential tent on Reilly Road. But not this time — not the battle looming on the Fillyaw-Yadkin border. Summerhill rallied to support our fellow neighbors when we were isolated for three days during the April tornado. We have lost our beautiful trees but we are repairing our homes and replanting our yards. We know each others struggles that got us through that time and we know the support that a neighborhood can offer to the families who live there. We know how to organize to protect our investment and dreams — whether in retirement or as young families. We may live close to Fort Bragg but that is not justifi cation for commercial vandalism. Not in our neighborhood — not in our backyards. Listen up elected officials because we will see you in your chambers. Sharon Valentine Summerhill Subdivision Beasley Broadcasting Group, Inc. FEBRUARY 15-21, 2012 UCW 5 at February 24th - 26th, 2012 SEMINARS DAILY (Check seminar schedule online) Kids 10 & under FREE (Jason Cameron at the show ALL DAY!) For more information visit: www.CarolinaHomeandGardenShow.com Presented by: Saturday meet Jason Cameron. Three live demos on stage and available to sign autographs!