Say Goodbye to the Garrett Farm
The City Council approved the 308 unit subdivision atop the old Clifton and Leah Garrett farm last night, and did not think it wise to push the developer to save one of the few remaining farmhouses along the Garrett Road corridor. Per the Herald's reporting (unfortunately I couldn't make the council meeting) the loss of context was one reason to not save the farmhouse. Which has a kind of perverse logic to it - after landscape horrors like Mark Jacobson Toyota have been approved across the street, it evidently makes less sense to save the farmhouse.
I thought averting the complex was a lost fight from the get go. Durham isn't about to stop building atop its farms and forests, despite our environmental woes. And there is some credence to the idea of building density near already busy corridors like 15-501 - if you then hold the line at some other location that is still un-sprawled. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem that we are building useful density - the kind that promotes public health by increasing walking trips and lessening car trips. The lack of interconnectivity in these suburbs and the miserable transportation landscape just mean that the upcoming widening of 15-501 just west of this location will be full before it begins.
The loss of the farmhouse seems most avoidable to me. It's unfortunate that the developer couldn't see the economic benefit of distinguishing their product with some authenticity - and the council didn't feel that saving this little farmhouse was a worthy concession to see a bit of rural Durham preserved.
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7 comments:
With the loss of the farm we also will lose the last vestige of the Fayetteville Pike Road in Durham County as at Muddy Ck you can still see a trace of the old roadbed climbing up toward the farmhouse. Maybe it is time to start asking what it is in Durham's history that makes its leaders want to erase every visual vestige of its past.
trm
Perhaps in the future the City could offer developers incentives for preserving historic buildings that stand on the land the developers want to develop. Unfortunately, in my experience it seems that developers want to eradicate anything old in their path.
I think it all boils down to Durham's short-sightedness with its history in their (I say "their" because it's the PEOPLE who run the city) greed for any amount of money.
In my opinion, the only thing cool about Durham really is its history (i.e. structures, music, etc.), but one day much of that will be gone and the idiots in charge will be left standing there with nothing but a sorry legacy and there will be nothing worth seeing or doing in Durham.
I thank GOD every day that I live in Orange County, instead of moving to Durham like I almost did...
Maybe it is time to start asking what it is in Durham's history that makes its leaders want to erase every visual vestige of its past.
Well, the leaders haven't really changed much. But blame the people too for reelecting the status quo. By the time we get good people in office saving what's left, there won't be anything left but structures not worth saving. Durham, the Disposable City! Hmmm, I wonder if that would make us a green city?
Like Catotti the Care Bear? Demolishing structures will save the world - spare the whales and rain forests, end homelessness, reverse global warming, cure AIDS, eliminate poverty, cure people of spiteful natures, quiet restless legs, and cause everyone to drive the speed limit.
Since I am a Garrett, suppose they would offer free rent at these apartments in exchange of destroying family history?
L. Garrett
They should have left the old Garrett liquor still, since they were moonshiners after all.
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