As requested by Grey Stone Baptist Church, the City Council agreed Monday night to close Warner Street, a little-used connector between Hillsborough Road and Main Street.

"It was only today I went on Warner Street," said Councilman Eugene Brown, a Durham native. "It is not exactly a major thoroughfare."

Warner Street carries about 194 vehicles a day, primarily traveling on church business. For its entire 850-foot length, the street runs through Grey Stone property, and the church wants to use its right of way for a new daycare and classroom building.
 

As special as Ninth Street is already, the City Hall set means to make it even more so -- with a special zoning district all its own. There's an open house on the subject Thursday evening, 6 to 8 p.m. at Asbury United Methodist Church at Markham Avenue and Clarendon Street, just behind East Campus.

This special district is an outgrowth of the Ninth Street Plan that the City Council approved, after years' deliberation among various interested parties, in late 2008. It would translate principles in the plan for the area's future development and redevelopment into law.

The City/County Planning Department is hosting the open house, where anyone may drop in at convenience and register an opinion or two; or find out what the whole thing is about.

To get an advance idea what the whole thing is about, see the plan at www.durhamnc.gov/departments/planning/pdf/ninth_street_plan.pdf; or contact planners Lisa Miller (560-4137 ext. 28270; lisa.miller@durhamnc.gov) or Aaron Cain (560-4137 ext. 28226; aaron.cain@durhamnc.gov).

An innovative plan for the Ninth Street area that has been two years in the making is going to take at least another 60 days.

Durham City Council voted 7-0 Monday to continue its hearing on the plan after property owners holding 60 percent of the area involved complained the plan amounted to a downzoning, and would cut their property values in half.