Hold That Thought

...and Your Yard Sign.

Five Council members expressed opinions last night about the rezoning vote, three for (Kirlin, Gallagher, and Pierceall) and two against (Humphries and Kellogg), before a substitute motion tabled a final vote on the matter until November 21 so that City staff might provide more information on water issues at the parcel. The vote starts afresh then, so your continued lobbying and support is appreciated. The current Council will be voting on the matter then, no matter the results of the election. We will post a curated link to a tape of the meeting in the next day or so.

A video summary of the meeting is at this WCCB newslink.

Thanks to the dozens who showed up September 19, the several who spoke on our behalf, and the over two hundred of you who so far have signed our online petition.  Let's use the delay opportunity to be civil, and share respectfully with those who might differ with us why commercial zoning is not a good solution for this parcel. A better path for the whole City is to "Keep Franklin Woods." 

Thanks for your encouragement. 

A curious placement for the news, but grateful for the word being shared

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gastonia, ask for something better

Image
Duharts Creek, January 2010, photo by Thomas Hopkins The City has spent $4 million securing land for the FUSE district. Stopping neighborhood decay while adding commercial value can be a good use of community resources. The City is working with developers and private citizens to come up with an additional $15 million for investment in a multi-use stadium and surrounding commercial development to inject life into a stagnant part of our place. This guest editorial was published as a letter to the editor in The Gaston Gazette on July 5, 2017 While we are looking at ways in our historic downtown to improve its vitality, I believe it’s time to ask for something better in our current commercial downtown at a fraction of those other costs.   April 20,2016 Gazette reporting on the 7-0 Council vote to reject commercial zoning in Franklin Woods A year ago City Council rejected plans to build a big box store on wooded land south of Franklin Square.    A local dev
Read more

Gaston Outside, City Version: Rewarding Threats to Clear-Cut Woods by Giving those Threatening a Shopping Center

Image
Notes from Gastonia Planning Commission Meeting, August 3, 2017 Despite assurances from their first meeting with neighbors in January that they would do a commercial project and help with flood control, Pearson Properties made clear early on Thursday that flooding was not their concern.   Charlie Pearson gave the initial presentation for the developer and said that “neighbors had purchased into floodplains and that floodplains flood.” I pointed out that last year’s Commission spent a long time during the Academy Sports review talking about increased flooding concerns.   Seventy minutes of our required neighbors meeting with the developer had been filled with people worried about greater frequency and intensity of flooding.   We were worried that we did not know any details of Pearson’s solution that they proposed to us and city councilmen - the building of a retention pond of unknown dimensions on the city-owned land upstream and buffering the Lineberger parcel from neighbor
Read more