Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Council Members Dulin and Cooksey Lead Vote to Approve Poorly Planned Parking Lot

In an epic failure while cozying up to developers, Charlotte City Council members Andy Dulin and Warren Cooksey lead the vote to approve an ill conceived parking lot for the Four Mile Greenway, despite the objection of the Charlotte Zoning Committee and Piper Glen residents.

The County's original concept was to provide a "local" greenway for neighborhood residents and not a "destination" greenway. The difference between the two concepts seemed to be lost on Andy Dulin. Dulin who has repeatedly mentioned via twitter that he often uses the Four Mile Greenway, despite living miles away. Dulin offered little comment about the plan in the last few weeks, an indication that he would vote in favor of developers.

Council member Warren Cooksey, who made the motion to approve the rezoning petition, had his council buddy Dulin quickly voicing his approval as well, giving in to pressure from Trader Joe's, Starbucks, and CVS as well as developer Lat Purser Associates.

More details on Charlotte City Councils approval from Susan Stabley and the Charlotte Business Journal here.

Cedar's Take: Approval of the band-aid fix does little to correct a design flaw created by Mecklenburg County Park and Recreation and Charlotte Traffic Engineering.

The design of the parking concept, the trail head and placement of the proposed "new" parking lot entrance is amazingly counter intuitive as Cedar pointed out in a prior post here.

The suggestion of using a larger area off of Elm Lane was also discarded in favor of the quick fix.

Complete lack of common sense and basic understanding of traffic flow have been trumped by councils willingness to "suck up" to developers.

The approval should serve as a major focal point when Park and Rec moves to expand the Four Mile Greenway further east along the 10th and 11th fairways of the TPC at Piper Glen golf course. Park and Rec should expect strong objections and even class action lawsuits to enforce promisses made via the "South District plan" back in 1993. Construction on the extension is slated to begin in 2012.

Dulin and Cooksey who have a long standing record of supporting developers should be prepared to defend their record during the next election.

5 comments:

Adam Butler said...

Cedar, you got a better idea?

Anonymous said...

Adam Butler read the link to the prior post. Cedar points out what any moron (even you) should be able to figure out.

The Park and Rec idea is about as bad as it gets even doing nothing is better.

Dulin and Cooksey bow to the big bucks and again shaft the citizens.

Either one of them could have voted no and sent the plan back to the drawing board which was the only smart choice.

But stupid is as stupid does, and you know I'm talking about you or maybe you don't know.

Adam Butler said...

Cowardly anonymous poster,

I read it. It says a different idea for a lot on Elm was abandoned for the "band-aid fix." It didn't say that was the better idea.

I was asking for details. I know, blah, blah, blah Cooksey and Dulin are with the develpers. A better idea wasn't presented. But then again I'm stupid. I also use my real name.

Michael said...

Adam, he was talking about the embedded link in CP's comments to this previous post which does spell out a better idea:

http://cedarposts.blogspot.com/2010/06/four-mile-greenway-parking-mess-at.html

Adam Butler said...

Thanks Michael, I'll give it a look.