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Monday, June 22, 2009
Boomer with Attitude / News Great. Another friggin’ racetrack
Posted By John Grooms on Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 12:53 PM
There are people in the Derita neighborhood who are worried that a planned Metrolina Speed and Sports Center will bring traffic jams and intolerable noise levels. I’d say they’re probably right, and I’ll just add that if history is any guide, those people will find themselves either suing the city and developer, or moving away, or both, in the next few years.
Tonight, City Council will rezone 135 acres at the Metrolina Tradeshow Expo so a private developer can build, that’s right, another friggin’ racetrack. The nearby Derita neighborhood generally supports the project, at least according to the Observer, which says the site “will include a 40,000-square-foot facility with retail and rooftop skateboard park, a 200-room hotel and a banked race track and karting facility.” How imaginative. How creative. Cities all over the world are finding new, productive, “green” ways to revitalize areas, and all the city can manage for Derita is — yep — another loud “sports/entertainment complex.”
The developer has reacted to concerns about noise by promising a 3-acre community garden that’s supposed to soften the noise (how does that work again?), and a 100-foot buffer between the facilities and property lines. Wow, how sensitive to the neighbors can you be? “Hey, we care about you, and that’s why we won’t let cars race any closer than a whopping 100 feet from your property.” How can developers and city officials present proposals like this with a straight face?
OK, OK, Derita is an area that could use some intelligent, creative development to spur its economy, and if the good folks there support the project, fine. No one’s forcing anyone to go if they don’t want to. But it sure would be nice if those folks who are worried about the noise were actually taken seriously. And it would be real nice, too, for city planners to have something in mind for neglected neighborhoods other than just waiting around for a developer to tell them what to do.
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