Friday, January 24, 2020

Charlotte City Council Blind To Taxpayer Fustration

The potted plants on Charlotte City Council again proved their ignorance approving numerous re-zoning petitions this past Tuesday night. 

Charlotte City Council continues to increase density and traffic across Charlotte regardless of the continued infrastructure fails. This seems to be the never ending goal of Charlotte's elected zombies.

Charlotte City Council Zombies and MLS Charlotte Reps doing their "happy dance"

Pandering to developers money grab and "best use" anthem Charlotte City Council even approved Novant's plan to build a hospital on 521 Johnston Road and Marvin Road in Ballantyne. The 40 acre site will soon be home to a $154 million dollar project that will include a whopping 36 bed hospital. The hospital will transfer beds from their Elizabeth location.

(People on the inside know that Novant has struggled to keep beds full with entire floors empty at the Presbertian location. So lets fix that and build a micro-tel hospital. Brilliant!)

With the rezoning approval Novant will build the 163,000-square-foot hospital as well as a 60,000-square-foot medical office building with a helicopter pad on 521 Johnston Road, as if the area needed any more traffic.

This on top of re-zoning requests to build more office and residental space on what is currently the Ballantyne Resort Golf Course.

If you think Johnston Road is a bitch now just wait.

Less green space more traffic longer commuter times sounds good to lead South Charlotte potted plant Ed Driggs who never saw a re-zoing request he didn't like.

The Providence Road, Johnston Road and South Tryon Corridors are at gridlock. 485 spends most of the day at a crawl. But as with the never ending I-77 nightmare Charlotte City Council is totally impotent to fix the problems. 

The South County Connector is a failure because someone didn't tell the developer of Lantower Waverly not to put an apartment tower in the middle of Ardrey Kell Road. 

Right now you are asking what is the "South County Connector"? The once proposed road has gone by many names, SMCC, Southern Connector and so on. But at one time the 
idea behind the limited access parkway style road was to allow traffic to flow along the southern end of Mecklenburg County unimpeded. 

Studies had shown the 485 traffic would quickly become unmanageable as local residents known as "two mile users" or hop on hop off traffic, would use 485 to move from one main artery to another which would substantially add to the traffic volume and because of the short use increase the "merge dely" thereby hampering the flow of a normal interstate highway.  

The section from Providence to Tom Short was required of developers of Providence Country Club prior to zoning approval in the early 90's. 

The idea was to connect 521 to 74 via a low speed two lane parkway with limited neighborhood access and retail development. In the beginning it was a good idea. 

Except the goal posts kept moving. Today Ardery Kell is a crazy mix of highway types curb and gutter styles and sight distances. It is void of city street lights and barely navigable at Marvin Road thanks to a retail development built on the sidewalk. The road is burdened by Ardery Kell High School where a school zone speed limit is in effect 6 hours each day. 

Which translates in to AK having somewhat limited use compared to nearby Pineville - Matthews Road. 

But the final "coup de gras" took place at Waverly where the developer Childress Klein apparently didn't get the memo. 



Ardrey Kell dead ends at a roundabout just after crossing Providence Road
Childress Klein decided a "grand round-a-bout" would be the perfect landscape addition to their Lantower Project.

Meanwhile Plute built as directed their section of Ardery Kell and with the help of NCDOT adding another "grand round-a-bout" the only trouble is the two roads don't connect.

Plute built Ardrey Kell Road to Tilly Morris. 

The State of North Carolina completed this elaborate roundabout last year.

Oops?
This is what happens when democrats run city/county guvcorp. 

But back in 2016 the project was the talk of Charlotte From The Charlotte Business Journal:

PulteGroup Inc. (NYSE: PHM) has closed on at least a part of its purchase to develop single-family homes on Tilley Morris Road. 

The homebuilder recently acquired 38.5 acres from Marsh Realty Corp. for $4.3 million, according to the Mecklenburg County property deed. The transaction closed July 15. Documents — including a grading permit application and pre-construction materials — filed with the City of Charlotte indicate Pulte seeks to build up to 100 single-family homes in a development called Castleford, previously called Kellmoor, on the acquired site. 

A Pulte spokeswoman confirmed its plans for the site on Friday. The project is one of several announced or underway along the Interstate 485 interchange near Providence Road. 

Castleford is adjacent to Crescent Communities’ Providence Farm project, expected to break ground soon. That development will add 404 residential units, an 80-unit for-sale community with single-family homes and townhouses, up to 30,000 square feet of retail, and a 180-room hotel. 

Pulte’s Castleford project is anticipated to help advance the extension of Ardrey Kell Road to Tilley Morris Road and add a roundabout, methods aimed to alleviate traffic volume as a result of the area’s growth. Ardrey Kell runs through Waverly, a 90-acre mixed-use development by Childress Klein Properties and Crosland Southeast under construction off Providence Road. 

The problem is road construction contingent on development vs development contingent of road construction. Well managed cities have zoning that is permanent and they build roads to accommodate future development. See Dallas and Denver as examples.

Yes it costs money to build 4 lane limited access roads to no where and wait for developers to build projects to help recover the costs but the end result is worth the wait.

By using developers to complete highway and street infrastructure projects taxpayers are at the mercy of developers and the economic whims of the housing and retail markets. It also gives developers the upper hand in forcing re-zoning. Which is what killed East Charlotte.

In a worse case example you end up with Ardery Kell at Waverly and the nightmare that is Providence Road at 485.



23 comments:

Anonymous said...

Never have figured out how developers get the dirt on these cltcc members. But Ed Griggs and a goat wouldn't surprise me.

Anonymous said...

The Fountains at Ardrey Kell and Tom Short never did take off, and much of that I assumed was because the developer was a crook. But it would also seem in part to the lack of civic oversight. Not unique to Mecklenburg County same is true in Union where the state keeps backing off on the funding of road projects.

Anonymous said...

WHERE IS OUR SENIOR OFFICER PAY RAISE?? DONT MAKE ME STEAL A STEAK FROM HT.

SMOOCHY XOXO

Chip Starr said...

9:42 I think you mean Driggs

Anonymous said...

I’m not far from Ballantyne golf course that will be developed. It’s hard to go south now on Johnston in the evening. It’s gonna be a real crap show when they add all the apartments and shopping along with all the apartments on Community House that are about done. I moved here 41 years ago and the roads have always been an afterthought

Anonymous said...

Chip Starr = Chip Bean


That name is too rare around this neck of the woods. Every sicko wants to get caught, eventually.

Anonymous said...

State DOT has pretty much suspended all spending on road projects due to lack of funding. Storm related projects milked the fund dry and they must keep a minimum amount of money available in case of future emergency repairs. A friend of mine who is an engineer with a private firm recently lost his job due to the lack of projects due to these suspensions.

Anonymous said...

Senior officer pay II: Whats up with all the classes now mandatory for next raise? Who the f decided to make us take tac med and CIT? The city has been screwing us for years, I am sure city council had a big push for these loser classes. Want to empower an organization? Then let us decide what classes we want to take to better our careers instead of mandatory crap like that to satisfy whatever current social problem is going on...

Anonymous said...

5:33....Stop crying about the SPO classes. Shut up and take them. Atleast you are getting paid to take the SPO classes. The last time we had the SPO program we had to take the classes and do the ride-alongs on our own time and we had to do a lot more for each step. Be greatful for the money.

Anonymous said...

You don't want to take tact med and get a med kit that could save a brothers life? Just one day losers.

Anonymous said...

Chip Bean....lol. Pinto bean more like it. Chip has always been a psycho

Anonymous said...

What’s the deal with the in custody death Metro CRU had?

Anonymous said...

It was Harold Easter! That dude was a no body, and old Diekhaus and Fat Sue got scared when he fell on the floor RIP. I hope they didn't take CIT training.

Anonymous said...

Cedar you are right the roads around Charlotte are a mess. There is not standardization no method to the madness and speed limit on 485 is 70 yet I-77 is 55 Park Road is 35 but the traffic is going 60. WTF Charlotte.

Anonymous said...

RIP Harold Easter. Black Lives Matter!!!!!
Hope those internal affairs police do their jobs and get rid of these racist pigs

Anonymous said...

208pm

Fuck you, N-word. Sue and Pat didn't know that fucker was a nut. Hopefully, they squash this shit.

Anonymous said...

The morons in IA are licking their chops with this one....another church going black man who was getting his life together (after 60+ arrests) has died while in CMPD custody. Someone needs to be made an example of and the fine investigators in IA are just the ones to make sure that happens. Thank goodness CMPD has well qualified people up there who are there because they know policy and have the public’s best interest in mind.

SteveN said...

Only little people pay taxes......

Anonymous said...

3:11. Let me guess. Sue & Pat are the 2 female white officers that killed him!? Why is it everytime someone dies in custody it’s a black man?!

Anonymous said...

An eye for an eye. The system does not care about the law biding citizens. Yes, defend yourselves and carry a gun. The RNC meetings are ramping up. No days off, 12 Hr shifts, and Comp. time for your extra hours. Also no off-duty. Fun times ahead.

Anonymous said...

It’s downright criminal what city council does. They approve, approve and approve just to collect the tax base. Then they misappropriate funds for the dumbest things (light rail, trolley, arena, ball parks). Money is rarely spent on infrastructure in South Charlotte and never spent to hire the true amount of Officers needed to service the explosion of population all over Charlotte. Doesn’t Ballantyne (28277) pay like 52% or more of the county taxes? Funny where the money gets spent.

Remember way back when when the tax payers voted against the Ardrey Kell Road residential zoning and expansion. It was done with good reason. City Council went ahead with it anyway. Look at the traffic now......

Anonymous said...

1851HOURS: You are a fucking dope and not part of CMPD. Just get off this thread. This is for CMPD only. Pat and Sue are both men(kinda), and we don't even know the entire situation. Let IA get the facts and make appropriate decisions/suspensions. I know Sgt. Goergian won't let us down. He is no badge collector.

Anonymous said...

The dumbass swallowed dope. He overdosed. He knew the risks of the game.