Summerfield mum on next steps in de-annexation fight

Stand Up For Summerfield and Keep Summerfield Rural express frustration over the lack of new information from town leaders

by CHRIS BURRITT

SUMMERFIELD – While citizens are urging greater transparency, Summerfield leaders aren’t disclosing how they plan to proceed in fighting possible de-annexation of landowner David Couch’s 973 acres.

The council met in closed session during a special called meeting last Thursday, March 30, to ask questions and hear from lobbyists from two firms, KTS Strategies and Ward and Smith, representing Summerfield in its de-annexation fight. Mayor Tim Sessoms, other council members and Town Manager Scott Whitaker aren’t discussing publicly whether they agreed on next steps.

Two groups that have long fought Couch’s plans for higher-density development, including apartments, are expressing frustration over the lack of information from Summerfield leaders. After praising the council last month for its quick opposition to possible de-annexation, Stand Up For Summerfield and Keep Summerfield Rural are raising concerns over what Town Attorney Bob Hornik and town leaders may – and may not – be considering in negotiations with Couch’s team.

“We are feeling hopeless,” administrators for Stand Up for Summerfield’s Facebook page wrote earlier this week. “If our Council bungles negotiations, refuses to hire an attorney to lead this charge, or won’t listen to citizens, then maybe we have to take matters into our own hands. Maybe we need our own attorney to fight! We need leaders with the fortitude to fight. We aren’t afraid or intimidated! Is our Council?”

Sessoms, Mayor Pro Tem Lynne Williams DeVaney and council members Jeff Davis, Janelle Robinson, Reece Walker and John Doggett declined to grant interviews earlier this week. In an email, Whitaker said he won’t share “any communications that might’ve come out of last week’s closed session. There hasn’t been any public action taken. No new attorney has been hired at this point.”

Stand Up For Summerfield is urging residents to contact council members with recommendations for negotiating with Couch’s team on lightning rod issues. The group is seeking feedback on whether Couch’s critics may be willing to compromise on their unbending opposition to apartments.

Questions the group has posed to residents include: “Would you agree to apartments? How many? Location?”

Residents were also asked whether they would agree to apartments with restrictions, such as the requirement that they not be built near existing houses or be limited to senior citizens or only allowed over shops.

If Couch’s staunchest critics were willing to budge, it would represent a shift in their opposition to the construction of any apartments in Summerfield. Twice in the past year, the council has denied Couch’s request for a text amendment to the town’s unified development ordinance, a first step in winning permission to build apartments.

After the council denied Couch’s

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Yes, two residents living in the 6200 block of Horseshoe Drive, off Hamburg Mill Road, were victims of a fire that started around 4:40 a.m. on March 15. A man and one of the dogs in the house survived the fire after getting out on their own. Firefighters pulled a woman out of the house and administered CPR; she was transported to the hospital, where she later died. The woman’s dog also died.

According to Grady Starnes with the Guilford County Fire Marshal’s Office, the accidental fire originated in a bedroom where the woman had been sleeping and was caused by “improperly discarded smoking materials.” councilman Spencer Sullivan voted against accepting the bid. Instead, they urged the council to delay consideration of the project for another month to gain more feedback from residents now that the higher-than-budgeted bid has been publicized.

Although firefighters on the scene reported they did not hear any smoke detectors going off, Starnes said there were working smoke detectors in the house and the surviving resident said he heard them.

Sullivan said he’s still exploring questions about costs, while Kinneman said he doubts the house in Town Park will attract enough rentals to justify costs for refurbishing it.

“I’m not disputing the historic character of the building,” Kinneman said, adding that no council member wants the house to be torn down. “I’ve always questioned the likelihood that it’s going to be used regularly. The payoff I’m looking for is, will it be used extensively?”

The house at the corner of Linville Road and Lisa Drive isn’t near one of the Town Park playgrounds, a disadvantage for rental of the property for children and family events, according to Kinneman. He added that he fears children playing in the yard may dart into the street to recover a ball and that parents dropping off and picking up children may lead to road congestion.

Some Oak Ridge churches offer meeting space free of charge, as does Town Hall, Kinneman said. Some restaurants also rent space for gatherings.

Sullivan said he believes “there is merit in preserving the Redmon house as a reminder that the park was once a tobacco farm. The entire corner needs to be brought up to the standard of the rest of the park.”

Even so, town staff opened bids for the project two weeks before the council’s meeting, Sullivan said.

“That’s hardly time to do due diligence,” he said. “Perhaps these costs are justifiable, but at this point I don’t know.”

Schneider, Pittman and McClellan said more than half of the emails they received from residents endorsed renovating and expanding the house for community gatherings. The mayor cited a 2019 survey of residents who supported refurbishing the structure.

“Renovated and repurposed, the little old house on the corner becomes a community center where residents can once again gather on the porch,” Pittman said. “Its value is not that it’s magnificent or something famous happened there. Its value is that it represents the type of ordinary, everyday home that the farmers of this community lived in.”

Chester and Linda Redmon lived in the house when the town purchased the park property and were given lifetime rights to it. Following their deaths, the town took possession of the house in 2018 and then gutted it and removed asbestos.

Planning advanced in early 2021 when the town hired Hill Studio, a Roanoke, Virginia-based design firm, to work with a subcommittee of town leaders to develop a plan for the house. The group produced a design to expand the approximately 1,100-square-foot structure to 1,500 square feet with the addition of a food preparation kitchen, two disabledaccessible bathrooms and other space.

The house is listed as a contributing structure in Oak Ridge’s historic district. As a result, the town is responsible for its preservation, according to Pittman.

“We need to set a good example to other property owners in our historic district,” she said. “We need to protect the integrity of our historic district.”

Federal pandemic relief funds totaling $305,000 will lower the project’s cost for Oak Ridge taxpayers, along with $75,000 from the North Carolina Community Fund Grant.

“When we have grants to cover more than half the cost of the renovation, I’m not sure what we’re waiting for,” Schneider said. “It is important to say ‘yes’ to this project now since the building is increasingly vulnerable to damage by the elements. The need for renovation is urgent.”

Kinneman described the state and federal funds as “taxpayer money. It’s not free money; it’s not magic money. It doesn’t magically reduce the cost of the project.”

While council members didn’t debate the pros and cons, they expressed their views and sometimes disputed what other council members had said earlier.

McClellan and Sullivan differed on how the costs for the project should be tallied.

In a Facebook post before the meeting, Sullivan provided a tally of costs already incurred and anticipated by the town for renovating and expanding the house to about 1,500 square feet. He calculated expenses of $861,400, with Bar’s $630,000 bid and, in a future project, an estimated $150,000 for improving the entrance to Town Park at the house with sidewalks, parking and landscaping.

McClellan referred to Sullivan’s estimate as an example of a “lot of confusing math out there.” He said landscaping improvements at Linville Road and Lisa Drive “have nothing to do with restoration of the historic building.”

Sullivan countered, saying “the site improvements are essential for us to use that building.”

After the council’s vote, about 15 residents expressed their views about the project during two periods set aside for general public comments (see p. 24). Some criticized the council for not allowing residents to speak before the vote.

At one point, Schneider told a speaker to lower her voice.

“If you are out of order, I’m going to ask you to remove yourself or you will be removed” by a sheriff’s officer at the meeting, she said. “We don’t raise our voices here; we don’t yell out; we are going to be civil.”

Later during her closing remarks, Schneider apologized “for seeming to be heavy-handed. But we can’t have that kind of uncivil behavior in our meetings. When you are running a meeting (and) people start yelling, it does not stop unless you stop it immediately.”

During public comments, remarks by residents Terry Hammond and Carl Leybourne illustrated strong support and opposition for the project.

“To me, we’re getting a deal to be able to rehab this house as a community center,” said Hammond, citing the impact of inflation on many costs. She represents Oak Ridge on the Guilford County Historic Preservation Commission.

Leybourne said the council should have followed the recommendation of Kinneman and Sullivan to delay consideration of the project.

“While I appreciate that we’ve been working on this project for four years, we’ve had the financials on this for two weeks,” he said. “You’ve done a disservice by not at least deferring this to hear what all of these people have to say about the finances of this.’’