Following approval for the purchase of land at Scott King Road for a new school, the Durham school board has prepared a list of environmentally-friendly provisions requested by the county commissioners to seal the deal.

While DPS originally wanted to build two schools on the 47-acre site, just north of the Chatham County line, they have now agreed to a single elementary school to reduce environmental disturbance.

Some of Thursday night's approved terms will also leave portions of land that run adjacent to streams and Army Corps of Engineers/NC Game Land undisturbed. They'll also leave the area south of a power line easement undisturbed by cutting back on the number of ball fields.

A portion of the land is designated a "natural heritage area" on the
1999 Durham County Inventory of Important Natural Areas, Plants and
Wildlife. The county commissioners approved the $2.7 million sale at
its May 11 meeting.

Thursday night, Durham Public Schools brass said they may have to cut 226 teaching jobs to meet the 2009-'10 budget.

Monday night, they're going to the county commissioners for $2.9 million for two new schools.

Not schizophrenic, just ironic. The working money comes from mainly from state and county appropriations. The money for school constructon comes from a bond issue voters approved in 2003. By law, the bond money can't be used for anything but what the voters voted for.

DPS wants the money for 47 acres on Scott King Road, just north of the Chatham County line, where it proposes to build an elementary school and a middle school. This is the same request the commissioners sent back to the drawing board in March, after voicing unease with potential traffic, environmental effects and the purchase price.

According to the school system, the land's value is $3.1 million. Its assessed value is about $860,000. Part of it is within a designated "natural heritage area" on the 1999 Durham County Inventory of Important Natural Areas, Plants and Wildlife.

Advocates for restraining growth in southern Durham won a small victory this morning, winning a recommendation to put a strip of land along the Chatham County line outside the city's Urban Growth Area.

The recommendation has a ways to go before it takes effect, though, says city-county planner Joe Carley.

The land is south of Scott King Road, east of a Duke Energy substation and west of N.C. 55, and includes several designated natural heritage areas.

Some nearby residents have pushed for some time to have the UGA boundary moved north, to protect what rural character remains in the fast-developing area. At a community meeting with city-county planners in March, about 60 residents expressed unanimous support for moving the line.

The city-county planning department had recommended leaving the line as it was reasoning that , the Joint City-County Planning Committee — made up of City Council members, county commissioners, the planning director and planning commission chairman — voted unanimously to reset the UGA boundary.

"I'm just trying to protect as much of the significant natural area as I can," said Planning Commission Chairman George Brine, who moved to relocate the line.

Actually accomplishing the relocation, though, has a process:

1. City Manager Tom Bonfield and County Manager Mike Ruffin give the planning staff a go-ahead;
2. Planning staff calls a neighborhood meeting;
3. Staff drafts a zoning-ordinance change;
4. The change goes to the Planning Commission for a public hearing;
5. The City Council and County Board of Commissioners vote yea or nay.

Durham Public Schools is asking Durham County for $2.9 million to buy land for two future schools at the county's southern edge.

The money would come from the bond issue voters approved in 2003 and from two-thirds bonds previously designated for the schools' use.

A portion of one of Durham County’s natural heritage areas is being considered for a future school site, according to county commissioner Becky Heron.

Commissioners rejected a subdivision proposal for the 44-acre tract, part of the Northeast Creek Bottomlands between Scott King Road and the Chatham County line, two years ago. Durham Public Schools’ purchase of the land was a late addition to the agenda for today’s commissioners’ work session, she said.

“They pulled it on us at the last minute,” Heron said Friday. “I’m mad as hell about it.”