By Ray Gronberg

gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648

DURHAM -- A member of the Durham Planning Commission has resigned in protest of the county and city governments' handling of zoning cases in the Jordan Lake and Falls Lake watersheds.

The member, county appointee LaDawnna Summers, announced her decision Tuesday night, less than 24 hours after County Commissioners voted 3-2 to remove watershed-buffer restrictions on a 165-acre tract off N.C. 751 next to Jordan Lake.

Elected officials in the process brushed off a unanimous recommendation from the Planning Commission that had urged them to keep the buffers in place and launch an independent survey of the lake's boundaries.

Summers in her resignation letter said she had concluded from that decision, and an earlier vote by the City Council to rezone land in the U.S. 70 corridor for a new shopping center, that "our development process is broken in Durham."

In an interview Wednesday, she said city and county officials appear to have grown more willing in the last year to disregard the advice they receive from the Planning Commission.

She said unanimous denial recommendations like the one the advisory board lodged against the Jordan Lake buffer change are rare, and merit respect from elected officials.

"When they recommend denial and it's unanimous, and there's good reason and sound science and public momentum, it's something that the council and commissioners need to take notice of," Summers said.

She also faulted the city and county governments for according less protection to Falls and Jordan lakes -- the former Raleigh's only source of drinking water, the latter a once and future source of Durham's -- than they do the city's reservoirs at Lake Michie and Little River.

"If Durham residents knew how poorly were protecting our neighbors' water and how strongly we were protecting our own, I don't think that would sit well with them," she said. "I don't think they would let it stand."

She acknowledged that the city-owned reservoirs lie in mostly-rural parts of the county, while Jordan Lake in particular was built in an area officials knew long ago would likely urbanize.

Nonetheless, "there's no rational reason" for local governments to afford the big regional reservoirs less protection, especially given the certainty that Jordan will become part of the city's water supply, Summers said.

The most vocal of the County Commissioners who voted to remove buffer protection from the tract, Joe Bowser, shrugged off Summers' decision.

"Certainly, one has that privilege; if they want to resign, they certainly can do it," Bowser said Wednesday. "I felt that I did the right thing, and only time will tell."

He also said it seems clear the N.C. 751 project would add only slightly to algae-triggering nutrient levels in the lake, and that the site's would-be developers established that the lake's boundary was far enough to the west to justify removing the buffer.

The city decision Summers alluded to in her resignation letter was the rezoning for the so-called Brightleaf Commons project, earmarked for a 71-acre site in the Bethesda area.

The Planning Commission voted 10-2 in January to advise against the rezoning, with members among other things mentioning its potential to contribute to pollution in Falls Lake.

But a unanimous City Council voted for the rezoning, after advocates for the would-be developer argued the new shopping center argued the project would allow the city to capture sales-tax revenue that's now flowing in Wake County and the stores at Brier Creek.

Bowser made the same point regarding the Jordan Lake decision.

"We've got to have a tax base in Durham County, and Durham city has to have a tax base," he said. "They both go hand in hand. If we don't allow building, we're going to go broke over here."

Summers said she'd made her decision before hearing that N.C. 751 project supporter and former City Councilwoman Jackie Wagstaff had told county leaders Monday the council in her day had routinely ignored Planning Commission denial recommendations.

Summers termed Wagstaff's comments "unfortunate" and said people have to "understand the purpose and the value of the planning process and getting citizen input, and having that advice be understood and acted upon by public officials."