SILER CITY — It was a dark and stormy night at the Siler City Commissioners meeting Monday night, August 3, 2027, as the elected city officials approved the rezoning of two separate tracts of land for development.
As tornado warning alerts blasted through every mobile phone in the courtroom, the commissioners began the meeting with the blinds halfway closed, undeterred by the threatening weather outside.
Cindy Dameron, a realtor, spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, concerned about miscommunication and confusion with regards to empty buildings that did not have active utility connections.
“My concern tonight is that I’m getting really frustrated to bring in business just as much as you are – and I need to know what the process is moving forward – I’m getting all sorts of different information – construction, road closings, all are getting confusing, and I just learned tonight that if you didn’t have an account in 2022, you can’t get your water reestablished,” Dameron said to the commissioners, “and homeowners are not getting notified of this.”
The lights in the courthouse flicked, and the wind increased, hitting against the windows as she spoke. The loud claps of thunder and the flashes of lightning only added to the feel of the meeting.
Dameron continued, “If it’s a vacant building, how long do you have before you lose that right (to utilities) again?” she asked, “to find out I can’t get my water and sewer reestablished in these empty buildings –how am I supposed to sell these buildings?"
She inquired to the commissioners about how to get approval and asked for guidance and organization on the matter, saying, “It’s hard to sell when the buyers, sellers, and agents can’t get a hard definitive answer to a process to get water back on.”
Dameron concluded by stating she wanted some concrete information to give to investors that will be accurate “without egg on my face,” as she put it.
While an answer wasn’t given at that moment, the council moved on to other items, as the rain and wind clapped against the windows of two exposed walls, that almost drowned out the voices speaking at any given time for their part of the commissioners meeting.
A public hearing for conditional rezoning R23-0602 for Village Lake Drive was held, with Courtney McQueen of Quinty Engineering presenting the request to rezone four parcels from Office Institutional / Conditional (O-I-C) neighborhood Business / Conditional (B-1-C).
The zoning amendment for Village Lake Drive was approved unanimously with a motion by Mayor Pro-Tem Bill Haiges.
A public hearing was held for the conditional rezoning for a tract of land at Loves Creek Church Rd, presented by Windsor Development Group IV, LLC, which requested to rezone eight parcels of land from Agricultural Residential (AR) and Residential 6 (R ^) to Residential 3 / Conditional (R-3-C).
Windsor Development Group IV, LLC announced a pledge of a six-figure donation to the local Habitat for Humanity to be given at a later unspecified date. Chatham County Habitat for Humanity Development and Finance Director Anna Tuell spoke in support of Windsor Development Group’s amendment request, which was approved unanimously, with the motion made by Commissioner Curtis Brown and seconded by Haiges.
Due to a recording error from the regular scheduled July 17, 2023 meeting, a vote on the budget restructuring was supposed to be a ‘nay’ from Commissioner Albert Alston, but it was not recorded as such due to an error, so the commissioners voted to change the record to reflect the actual vote, although it would not change the outcome of the overall vote, and thus the agenda passed regardless.
Before the close of the meeting, Mayor Thomas K. Price III suggested, to Town Manager Hank Raper, that there needs to be a meeting among themselves and realtors in the area to get on the same page about the water process of having utilities reestablished, to which Raper agreed.
“Somewhere information is not correctly being assimilated, put something together – somewhere, we need to do something.” Mayor Price added, speaking to Raper, thus concluding the meeting.
The Chatham County Commissioners meet every first and third Monday of the month at 6:30 p.m., in the Siler City Courtroom.