Appeals court finds aldermen erred in shopping center case

BY BETH VELLIQUETTE

bvelliquette@heraldsun.com; 419-6632

CARRBORO -- The Northwest Property Group, which was denied a permit to build a shopping center on Jones Ferry Road by the town of Carrboro, may get another chance to get the permit after the N.C. Court of Appeals sent the case back to the trial court.

The appeals court said Superior Court Judge Allen Baddour, who heard the case in Orange County Civil Superior Court, erred when he failed to find that the Board of Aldermen committed an error of law due to its failure to make a list of facts to support its decision to require the developer to meet certain conditions.

The appeals court remanded the case back to Superior Court saying that the case should be sent back to the aldermen to reconsider the developer's application and make a new decision that addresses all the issues that arise from the application.

Northwest Property Group submitted plans to the town of Carrboro in June 2006 to build a 77,000-square-foot shopping center that would include a Harris Teeter grocery store and a number of other stores. The grocery would be on the back of the 7.7-acre tract of property, and there would be two buildings of retail space along Jones Ferry Road and Barnes Street. Parking would be in the center between the three buildings.

After hearing from some neighbors in the Barnes Street neighborhood who said they were worried about the amount of traffic on Barnes Street and the danger of the Barnes Street-Jones Ferry Road intersection, the aldermen set out a list of conditions for the project, with one of them being that there not be an entrance/exit onto Barnes Street, except for emergency use.

The developer objected to that condition, saying its prime tenant, Harris Teeter, required two entrances/exits, one on Jones Ferry and one of Barnes Street.

The case went to Baddour who ruled in favor of the town.

Now the Court of Appeals says the Board of Aldermen were "required by well-established principles of North Carolina law to make findings of fact justifying its decision to impose the challenged conditions."

"A careful examination of the board's decision disclosed that it completely failed to make any factual findings justifying its decision to adopt the challenged conditions over [the] petitioner's objection," the decision said.