I personally asked the VP (how he introduced himself) of Smith Douglas Homes in the face-to-face meeting conducted back in August, “Do you have children?”  His response was, “Yes, I have four.”  My retort, “How would you feel if you lived where this kind of development was being done with one access point?”  His response was, “I would be terrified.” 

Why are the lives of this community’s children any less important than that of the VPs? 

Is greed more important that the safety of our community?SMITHDOUGLASBUILDERS TO REACH A BILLION IN REVENUE

The Promised Land 

TRAFFIC CONCERNS
The City of Dunn's current infrastructure cannot support the traffic patterns that are currently in place and with adding 64 homes to the Canterbury Subdivision, it might possibly implode. I sent a text and emailed the builder asking him if there was going to be an entrance/exit off of Susan Tart Road with no response. I mean how long has Watauga's road construction lasted, almost every driver that goes across it experiences whiplash? How many bumpers are going to be taken off by the Canterbury Entrance? How many construction vehicles are possibly going to be coming in and out? As with any builder, subcontractors of subcontractors are not often the most trusted individuals either. What if an emergency vehicle needs to get through Cumberland's sludge of 18 Wheelers headed to the most dangerous highway in NC? As a mother, my fear is already in an elevated place even when we are out walking, riding bikes, or simply checking the mail.

 

In 1975 the North Carolina Attorney General rendered an opinion that the subdivision enabling statutes pre-empt the regulatory field and that local ordinances must conform to the statutory framework, including the scope, coverage, and exemptions of the statutes. 44 N.C. A.G. 251 (1975). More recently, the North Carolina Supreme Court ruled in Three Guys Real Estate v. Harnett County, 345 N.C. 468, 480 S.E.2d 681 (1997) that the general authority of a county to regulate subdivisions (G.S. 153A-331) is insufficient to allow a county to regulate a division that is expressly exempt from regulation. As a result, unless a city or county is the subject of a local act that diverges from the scope of coverage of the general statutes in some way, one may expect that a local subdivision ordinance definition must mirror state law.

 

•TRAFFIC CONGESTION in Dunn is not caused by any one factor. It is usually the result of many influences, one of which is the helter-skelter location of new residences such as the proposed building of 64 slab-built homes to be built in the Canterbury Subdivision a stone's throw away from Interstate 95.

 

There are 20 lots that 64 homes are proposed to be built on, so that doesn't even seem feasible to me??? 

 

This proposed development can be detrimental in two ways: 

(a) it may increase the volume of traffic beyond the capacity of existing streets and the existing entrance’s infrastructure will not allow construction traffic without severe road damage. Currently, the Canterbury subdivision has approximately 75 cars/trucks/constructions vehicles per day going in and out of Canterbury Increasing this traffic to almost 300% will destroy home values and will certainly endanger our children 

and 

(b) it may interfere with the free flow of such traffic without increasing the volume, there is rarely a free flow of traffic now with Cumberland’s massive pathway to Interstate 95.

The first major problem that Dunn already has is the matter of volume which equates to having too dense of a concentration of traffic-generating land uses for the streets and highways to handle. Of course, this can be stated the other way—it is also a matter of having insufficient highway facilities to accommodate the transportation needs of the existing land uses.

 

The second detrimental effect of land development—interference with the free flow of traffic—is more a matter of arrangement of the land use pattern than its overall density. 

 

For instance, if several roadside businesses have driveways too close together, the interference from turns into and out of the driveways creates a bottleneck even though the highway otherwise has plenty of capacity to handle the traffic. The congestion in such a situation is not due to the number of vehicles that use the road but rather to the manner in which the road is used. Such congestion could have been avoided by the wider spacing of the businesses or different arrangements of the access facilities.

 

So it is seen that highway facilities can get out of balance with the density and arrangement of land use and that the imbalance leads to traffic congestion.

 

No matter how wide and straight a road is built, uncontrolled development of the land it serves can turn it into a congested and ineffective facility.

 

Another approach would be to locate the road and then force the land use to conform to a pattern that would not interfere with the road or increase traffic on it. 

This would be objectionable because it would amount to building our cities to fit the streets when actually streets and highways should be a means of meeting the changing needs of people.

 

Since neither extreme is feasible, the answer probably lies somewhere in between. Neither land use nor highway location will be considered as constant or absolute. The governmental powers to locate highways and to control land use must be exercised with due regard to the effect that each has on the other. This paper is concerned with the degree to which highway problems have been and could be taken into account in one phase of land use control—the regulation of Canterbury subdivision.

 

Research is a powerful thing, this information I found is based on a study of all State enabling legislation and about 150 subdivision regulations and ordinances. It consists of the regulations available in libraries in Washington, D. C. Statutes and ordinances are cited in the footnotes only to illustrate the types of provisions discussed in the text and do not represent the only examples of the provisions.

 

SUBDIVISION CONTROL

Subdivision regulations, unlike zoning, are not prohibitive. They do not say that a developer may not use his land in a certain manner, rather they say that if a developer is going to use his land in a certain way he must meet certain conditions imposed by the community. Examples of requirements involved are that land be dedicated to the city for streets, schools, parks, and other public purposes; that street be properly laid out, and that acceptable pavement, drainage, water supply, and sewage disposal facilities be installed by the developer.

These requirements are clearly restrictions on the private developer's use of his own property if the builder for Cantebury has already purchased the land is unknown to me. The restrictions are justified, however, by the fact that the developer is not only engaging in a private business deal but also determining the character of a portion of the community. If the new development is poorly planned and constructed, it may give rise to traffic congestion, high maintenance costs, cramped school areas, and slums. It seems only fair that the community should be able to regulate subdivisions to protect itself from the imposition of such burdens at the whim of the private developer. The constitutionality of subdivision legislation has only been challenged in a few court cases and the courts have held that the inherent power of the State to legislate for the public welfare includes the power to make reasonable demands on a private land developer.

 

STATUTES

The first phase, the delegation of authority to local governments, is embodied in statutes passed by the State legislature. Such enabling legislation does two things: it defines the authority that is given and it designates the officials or bodies to whom it is given.

The existing statutory provisions concerning the amount and type of authority given vary widely from State to State in the degree to which they refer to highway matters. Some go into very little detail and just say that the reviewing body shall approve the street system; others are much more specific and set out factors that are to be considered by the approving authority in passing on proposals. These factors are often stated in the form of objectives that are to be sought in the exercise of the power to regulate subdivisions. A fairly common statutory provision is that subdivision regulations shall provide for

1. Proper arrangement for streets, roads and highways in relation to other existing or planned streets or highways, and

2. Adequate and convenient open spaces for traffic, utilities, recreation, light and air, and access of fire apparatus.

Some other examples of highway-oriented objectives are as follows:

To provide an adequate and convenient system for present and prospective traffic needs

To coordinate streets within subdivisions with other existing or planned streets

To lessen congestion on subdivision streets and adjacent public ways; and to coordinate subdivision streets with each other and with streets of the town and neighboring subdivisions.

A few statutes expressly state that the relationship between land use and traffic shall be taken into consideration. For example:

In making street width and location requirements, the municipality shall consider the prospective character of the development...®

In establishing subdivision regulations regarding streets, due regard shall be paid to the prospective character of different subdivisions, whether open residence, dense residence, business or industrial,and the prospective amount of travel upon the various ways therein...

 

REGULATIONS

 

The second level of the subdivision control process involves the standards that the local body determines and applies to proposed subdivision plans that come under its authority. These standards are usually adopted by the local government or one of its agencies and are termed "subdivision regulations." They may be adopted as ordinances by the local government or as administrative regulations of the planning commission or another agency. Some states make it mandatory that local governments establish standards and regulate subdivisions. Some State statutes say that local governments may do so but the statutes do not make it compulsory and I am sure that I should researched all of this prior to today, but life if pretty busy around my house as it is with everyone.

In some States,13 local governments may restrict a subdivider's activity only to the extent of making him comply with officially adopted standards. On the other hand, at least one State statute14 provides that approval of a subdivision shall be based on its compliance with municipal ordinances and its general reasonableness.

The North Carolina statutes provide that the division of a “tract or parcel of land into two or more lots, building sites, or other divisions when any one or more of those divisions are created for the purpose of sale or building development (whether immediate or future)” and all divisions involving the “dedication of a new street or a change in existing streets” are subdivisions subject to regulation.

Local Streets

Highway-oriented subdivision requirements are aimed at both minor streets within the development and major streets in or near the development. The function of the minor streets is to provide satisfactory access to the adjacent land uses and a satisfactory pattern for community development. They do not carry heavy traffic and the more important design considerations are safety, easy circulation, discouragement of through traffic, low maintenance cost, and proper drainage.

Almost all subdivision ordinances have detailed design specifications in this area.

Maximum widths, grades, and curvature are usually designated. Intersection design has a considerable effect on accident rates18 and specifications for the number and angle of intersecting legs and rounding of corners are common.

 

CHILD SAFETY 

The Basic Rights and Definitions Adjoining landowners are those persons, such as next-door neighbors, who own land that shares common boundaries and thus have mutual rights, duties, and liabilities. The reciprocal rights and obligations of adjoining landowners existed at common law but have been invariably altered or expanded by various state laws and court decisions. A landowner’s use of his/her property becomes unreasonable and unlawful if it constitutes an appropriation of the adjoining land and if it deprives the reasonable enjoyment of the adjoining owner of his/her property to a material degree. How does traffic congestion affect child pedestrian injuries? • Congestion can be a source of traffic crashes and child pedestrian injuries and deaths. • Child pedestrian injuries due to traffic are more likely to occur in settings with high traffic volume and on-street parking, with children's often emerging "masked" from behind parked cars.

 

Questions you need to ask yourself as a parent of not only the Canterbury Subdivision but our community as a whole include:

 

                    What is the nature and type of the construction work?

  How heavily populated is the area?

  Who will need to visit the site during the work?

  Will the site attract children?

 

The following specific steps are particularly relevant to child safety:

 

  Secure sites adequately when finishing work for the day.

  Barrier off or cover over excavations and pits.

  Isolate and immobilize vehicles and plants and if possible lock them in a compound.

  Store building materials (such as pipes, manhole rings, and cement bags) so that they cannot topple or rollover.

  Remove access ladders from excavations and scaffolds.

 

Everyone in this neighborhood knows how protective I am of my children and whether you like my views, like me or my two annoying Aussiedoodles, this has nothing to do with popularity and everything to do with keeping our children and property safe.

 

--Cheryl