I believe most Pinehurst residents would have thought it a certainty that the Village Council would never rezone undeveloped residential property in the current Old Town Overlay District to a greater density. To suggest the council would reverse its almost chiseled-in-concrete aversion to growth policy was simply inconceivable.

Surprisingly, though, the council has reversed itself with its addition of four currently residential-zoned, undeveloped acres bounded by Magnolia, McCaskill and Caddell Roads, into the originally-designated NewCore area. The publicly-stated reason for this action was that townhouses/condos are needed in the location across Magnolia from the designated NewCore area.

Unfortunately, no consideration was apparently given to the real fact that, by including this area within NewCore, the four acres' current R-10 Residential zoning went out the window -- replaced by a higher density multi-family (MF) type zoning.

Further, by including this property as it was done, all zoning protections and processes provided by the Pinehurst Development Ordinance (PDO) for rezoning were avoided, not to mention the almost certain negative public reaction at required public hearings.

The greater density might be needed. However, what is crystal clear is that the method used to include the property in NewCore rezoned is wrong. If this property is to be added to NewCore, it should go through the appropriate PDO processes for rezoning.

This property was not within the original NewCore boundary for the simple reason that its R-10 zoning protected it from unwarranted development. If this has changed, the above-board thing to do is rezone it properly.

Doug Middaugh

Pinehurst