Thursday, May 11, 2017

Town RAP wins Sustain Charlotte award, but please keep them away from our parking

Davidson's Planning Department has won another award.

Local non profit, Sustain Charlotte, has granted Davidson its most recent "Land Use Award" for the town's recently implemented Rural Area Plan.  You know the one, the plan whose implementation generated some intense pushback from citizens and a petition with over 700 signatures in opposition.

According to the Town press release on the award, Planning Director Jason Burdette had this to say about the "award winning" plan.

“As the Rural Area Plan was a wholly collaborative effort to create a framework to proactively balance conservation and development in the years to come, this award belongs to all of us,” said Davidson Planning Director Jason Burdette. “I'd like to specifically thank the Davidson Mayor and Board of Commissioners for their leadership, Town Manager Jamie Justice for his direction, guidance, and support, Senior Planner and Rural Area Plan Project Manager Trey Akers for his proactive project management, our citizens and stakeholders for their invaluable input, and Craig Lewis of Stantec for leading the team. All of us carried this across the finish line.”

The cognitive dissonance generated by these comments from Town Hall and the pushback from the public against the wholesale implementation of this "award winning" plan is hard to miss.

However, that kind of tone deafness appears to be common practice from Sustain Charlotte.

The group's Executive Director Shannon Binn recently wrote a piece for the Charlotte Observer titled "We should make driving in Charlotte less convenient" where he espoused the idea of jettisoning municipal parking requirements to achieve that goal.

Let's hope Sustain Charlotte doesn't give the town any awards for how it manages parking in town.  It's doubtful the citizens of Davidson could stand any more of their "award winning" plans.

Bonus Observation: Here is another article where Mr Binns laments the availability of parking.

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