Durham commissioner calls high school on Erwin Road "insane"

County commissioner Becky Heron has a definite opinion about Durham Public Schools' notion to build a new high school at Cornwallis and Erwin roads.

"It is just insane," she said.

"They are going to see a lot of opposition," said Heron, who lives nearby on Kerley Road.

They would have seen it, had DPS sent a representative to a neighborhood meeting Tuesday night.

The schools were invited, but if anyone was there he or she kept his or her presence quiet as an estimated 300 residents of the Lochn'ora, Arrowhead and other neighborhoods along Erwin Road jammed the music room at Forest View Elementary School and spread into the hall outside.

But former school board chairwoman Kathryn Myers was there, and she doesn't think much of the idea, either.

"Horrible, horrible," she said.

A Duke Forest tract at the intersection's southwest corner is one of several Durham Public Schools is eyeing to relieve crowding at Jordan and Riverside high schools.

The site in question, which is part of Duke Forest, has steep, wooden slopes, a wide flood zone and several creeks. A high school there would add about 500 vehicles going and coming each weekday via already heavily traveled roads.

"Erwin and Cornwallis are not built for that," said Elizabeth Vigdor, homeowners' association president of the adjoining Lochn'ora neighborhood and one of the meeting's organizers.

It's the second time this year a proposed school site has met neighborhood opposition over traffic and environmental issues. For residents along Erwin Road, it's one more instance of a development threatening the character of a stretch of Durham County that still has a sense of country about it.

Read more about the situation in this Saturday's Durham News.