| October 10, 2002
Dear Dr. Morrill
The purpose of this letter is to outline JAGCO’s proposal for a possible
agreement between JAGCO and the HLC that would allow the Washam home place
and its most significant outbuildings on the immediate surrounding land to be
designated as an historic landmark without opposition by JAGCO. Because
there are several key "unknowns" still to be resolved, this proposal is not as
specific as it will need to be in order to be fully agreed upon; however, we
believe that it can provide the necessary framework for further discussions
and more specific agreements.
In summary, JAGCO is proposing the following:
JAGCO will not oppose the Washam family’s offer to designate its home
place property as an historic landmark;
JAGCO will offer certain of its land to the rear of the Washam family
property as an addition to the historic landmark so as to include in the
designated area the larger outbuilding behind the house;
JAGCO will permit the small outbuilding to the left of the house to
be moved to the home place property owned by the Washam family;
The carport to the right of the home place could also be moved by HLC,
if HLC so desires;
JAGCO will permit the HLC to restore and move the barn that is
located some distance behind the Washam home place property and to move
it to the Washam home place property or other site;
HLC will agree that, should JAGCO or its successors become the owner
of the Washam home place property, JAGCO or its successors will not be
precluded from using the road frontage area for access to the remaining
JAGCO property;
HLC will agree not to pursue any further historic designations on the
JAGCO property; and
HLC will agree to maintain any outbuildings should it elect to
restore and/or move them.
I have spoken on several occasions with representatives of the
Huntersville Planning Department to determine the probable effect on the JAGCO site of designating part of the property as an historic landmark. As
you know from our previous conversations, JAGCO must be sure that such
designation will not adversely affect its future development opportunities
(and, therefore) possible sales opportunities and property values). As you
may know, Huntersville continues to have in force a moratorium on
residential development, and the Planning Department is in the midst of
reviewing all of the Huntersville land plan, zoning classifications and
proposed uses of various portions of the Huntersville zoning jurisdiction.
Therefore, we have not been able to obtain certain information that we are
interested in. For instance, we are interested to know whether any
commercial uses are likely to be permitted along the street frontage and
whether any land that might be designated as an historic landmark might
"count" toward future open space requirements. We have also inquired of
private developers, homebuilders and landowners in the area of the property
to try to obtain answers to our questions regarding the effect that an
historic designation might have on the property. Given the unsettled nature
of the Huntersville plans and future requirements, no one has been to give
us definitive answers to these questions at this time. If Huntersville is on
a schedule to finish its work in a reasonable period of time, it would be JAGCO’s preference to get answers to these questions before finalizing any
Historic Landmarks Commission designations.
It is very clear to us that significant open space requirements will be
included in the new Huntersville regulations and that most of this required
open space will, in order to permit appropriate development of the property,
need to be located in the natural gas easement area, low geographic areas
and other unbuildable portions of the property. Therefore, even if JAGCO is
able to obtain "credit" for historically designated land around the Washam
house, it is likely to be an incremental open space requirement. It is also
unclear where the best access points to this property will be when the
property ultimately is developed. In addition, JAGCO likely will need
portions of the Washam home place frontage for access. Any designation of
property to the sides of the Washam home place would likely impair the
access point that are needed to service future development of the JAGCO
site.
The second uncertainty at this time is exactly how to locate the
boundaries of any designated area on the JAGCO site. I had preliminary
discussions with Stuart Gray in the spring about whether the Historic
Landmarks Commission would engage a surveyor to provide us with more
detailed information. He suggested that JAGCO hire a surveyor. Given the
Historic Landmarks Commission is the party making the request, JAGCO has not
felt it appropriate to engage a surveyor at its cost. Our suggestion is
that, if we can reach a conceptual agreement, the Historic Landmarks
Commission engage a surveyor to work with the parties to arrive at some
mutually acceptable boundaries consistent with our conceptual agreement. As
a way of generally depicting the boundaries that might be agreed upon based
on the concepts outline above, we have attached a "nonsurveyed"
drawing. (Click here to see).
Please let me know how you would like to proceed from this point. I know
that I will be out of the office on October 14 and that Dr. Paul Jaszewski,
the representative of JAGCO who is working on this issue, is on call at the
hospital that evening. Therefore, perhaps this matter can be placed on your
agenda as a "discussion" item and that no formal action on the survey
committee’s previous recommendation be taken at the October meeting. We
agree with the HLC’s prior suggestion that a small subcommittee work with us
to pursue our discussions. I could meet with the subcommittee prior to your
next meeting. (When I mentioned to Amy Hockett the possibility of meeting
with the subcommittee before the October 14 meeting, she mentioned that at
least one member of the subcommittee has resigned from the HLC and that the
HLC Committee memberships had changed or were changing.) If the Historic
Landmarks Commission agrees at its October 14 meeting to engage a surveyor,
then more specific boundaries can be worked on prior to the next Historic
Landmarks Commission meeting.
I look forward to working with you further as we try to reach agreements
on these matters.
My best personal regards.
Rober G. Brinkley
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