MEETING MINUTES
Project:
Oaklawn Park NIP (City project 512-01-045)
Purpose:
Public Meeting #3
Place:
First Baptist Church West
Meeting Date:
August 12, 2002
Prepared By:
Jennifer Penick
In Attendance:
Bruce Miller – City E&PM
Ralph Poindexter – City Neighborhood Development
Kate Labadorf – City Stormwater Services
Mike Davis – Charlotte Dept. of Transportation
Doreen Szymanski – Charlotte Department of Transportation
John Howard – Planning Commission
John Fishburne - Charlotte-Mecklenburg Utility
Jennifer Penick – Qk4
A Public Meeting was held on August 12, 2002 at 7:00 PM at the First Baptist Church West on
Oaklawn Avenue. The purpose of the meeting was to present the preliminary plans for infrastructure
improvements for the Oaklawn Park Community. The meeting gave residents the opportunity to participate
in the planning process through review of the preliminary plans and making comments, suggestions, and
asking questions.
Mr. Poindexter began by thanking those attending the meeting and introducing the key officials,
neighborhood representatives, and the project team. Mr. Poindexter explained that there is a program within
the city called Neighborhood Matching Grants Program whereby the neighborhood can get money from the
city to match for improving the quality of life in the neighborhood to include: crime and public safety,
recreation, educational resources and beautification projects. However, the community would have to
match those city funds with either in-kind donations, sweat equity or some other type of funding source.
There is a process that the community would need to go through to gain access to these funds beginning
with a pre-application workshop and culminating in the submittal of a complete application. The next
deadline for submittal of a completed application is September 15, 2002. According to Mr. Poindexter,
there is currently a lot of money available for this type of grant from the city and it would be a bonus to the
community for additional beautification projects in conjunction with the neighborhood improvement
project. Mr. Poindexter then introduced Mr. Bruce Miller with Engineering and Property Management to
begin the presentation of the Neighborhood Improvement Project.
MEETING MINUTES
Mr. Miller began by thanking those attending the meeting and asking how many of those in
attendance were there for the first time. Five of people raised their hands. He then presented a brief
overview of the project’s history, funding sources and a summary of the minutes from the September 18,
2001 public meeting. Some of the items discussed at the last meeting were: Drainage issues in the
Dean/Waddell area, existing drainage ditches and catch basins needing maintenance, and location of
additional sidewalks on Gunn Street and Miles Court. The time line for the project was then provided as
follows:


Preliminary Plans complete – Fall 2002
Construction start date – Fall/early Winter 2003
Jennifer Penick of Qk4 then presented the details of the preliminary plans. During the map
presentation, attendees viewed the large (1” = 40’ scale) presentation map showing the proposed locations
of new valley gutter, sidewalks, planting strips, drainage improvements, required easements and new ROW
lines.
Ms. Penick began her presentation by indicating the locations of proposed sidewalks, planting strips
and valley gutter and provided reasons for the current sidewalk placement such as: amount of pedestrian
traffic; community requests; location of community buildings, parks and/or churches; and/or engineering
judgment. She stated that the main streets accessing the neighborhood would be receiving sidewalks (i.e.,
Fairmont, Condon, and Mulberry) along with some streets accessing parks or providing access through the
neighborhood (i.e., Renner and Grier). In addition, handicap ramps would be provided on the sidewalks to
facilitate ADA accessibility in the neighborhood.
Ms. Penick indicated that the proposed stormwater pipe and structure locations were shown on the
plans. However, the locations of stormwater pipes and structures are still preliminary.
To allow for the proposed neighborhood improvements, several types of easements will be required:
Permanent Stormwater Drainage easements, Sidewalk easements, and Utility easements. Ms. Penick
explained the use of each type of easement and stated that a request would be made for the easements to be
donated to the City.
Ms. Penick then explained that several of the streets in the neighborhood that did not meet the City’s
minimum width standard of 22’ would be upgraded to meet this minimum width, turning radii at many
street intersections would also be improved to meet the city minimum standard of 20’ radii. As shown on
the map, most streets will also be receiving valley gutter and storm drainage improvements. Ms. Penick
discussed the need for additional ROW donations in several areas due to the existing maintained roadway
being outside of the existing R.O.W. or the need to widen the streets to meet the City minimum standard of
a 22’ wide travel surface. It was explained that the additional R.O.W. required would be similar to the
easements and would be requested from the residents as a donation to the City.
MEETING MINUTES
Ms. Penick stated that the Charlotte Mecklenburg School district is currently renovating the
neighborhood school, Oaklawn Elementary. The school is closed for this school year to facilitate the
renovation and site changes, but will be open for students for the 2003-2004 school year. Due to the
school’s location and the apparent lack of pedestrian connection to the west side of the neighborhood, a
pedestrian connection has been proposed to extend between the dead end of Renner Avenue and Mulberry
Avenue through the existing Renner Avenue Right of Way. Mr. Doreen Szymanski was introduced to
introduce and detail the plans for this possible connection.
Ms. Szymanski stated that CDOT was currently assessing several locations for connectivity
throughout the City of Charlotte. Due to the proximity of the neighborhood school in this neighborhood, it
appeared that a multi-functional pedestrian way that was well lighted would assist the children needing
access to the school from the west side of the neighborhood. She showed a conceptual picture of the way
the area might look with lights and the concrete walkway. The attendees were asked if this was something
that they felt was important and necessary. The attendees agreed that it might be a good idea, but they
indicated that they lived on the eastern portion of the neighborhood so it did not appear that it would affect
them.
At the end of Ms. Szymanski’s presentation, Ms. Penick opened the floor for comments and
questions then she encouraged those in attendance to view the large scale plans on which she and the City
Representatives would help the residents find their property on the plan sheets and discuss impacts to their
property(s) in detail. During this time, residents were also encouraged to view the before and “after”
photographs of selected streets in the neighborhood showing what the improvements might look like.
During the question and answer session and plan sheet viewing, the following questions and/or
comments were discussed:
Comment: The slab-type catch basin located behind the houses on the northern portion of Dean
Street needs to be cleaned out as it does not function properly.
Answer:
This drainage appears to be from the private properties within the area bounded by
Dean and Waddell Streets and Russell Avenue that traverses the properties and drains down the
fence line separating the properties fronting on Waddell and Russell until it enters the catch basin at
the rear of one of the houses along Dean Street. From this catch basin, it flows in a pipe to the
street drainage system in Dean Street. Ms. Labadorf stated that she would send a stormwater
specialist out to assess the situation; however, she stated that drainage stemming purely from
private property is not usually considered to be in the purview of Stormwater Management.
Question:
Can drainage from the area behind the houses along Dean Street be improved to stop
stormwater from crossing the properties and draining down their driveways and into Dean Street?
MEETING MINUTES
Answer:
Ms. Labadorf stated that she would send a stormwater specialist out to assess the
situation; however, she stated that drainage stemming purely from private property is not usually
considered to be in the purview of Stormwater Management.
Question:
It was stated that additional street lighting is needed along Fairmont Street for public
safety concerns by the police force. In addition, the street lights in the cul-de-sac on Dean Street are
not currently working.
Answer:
Ms. Szymanski stated that the lighting issues would be looked into for Fairmont and
Dean Streets.
Comment:
Streets.
Mr. J. A. Swain asked if speed bumps could be added to Russell Avenue and Dean
Answer:
Ms. Szymanski stated that there is a list of items that must be met in order for a street
to meet the requirements for speed bumps or other traffic calming devices. One of those is a
minimum daily car count that Dean Street would probably not meet. In fact, Russell Avenue
probably will not meet the requirements. However, she said that a petition could be circulated to
lower the speed limit on the street to 25 mph.
Comment: Can the sidewalk along Dean Street be extended southward from Waddell to the culde-sac? The residents are concerned about the number of children who walk in the street here.
Answer:
Dean Street
The city and the consultant will review the addition of sidewalk to this portion of
Comment: Mr. Johnson, who owns the property along Renner Street and fronting on Mulberry
Avenue, asked for a more in-depth discussion with Ms. Szymanski and the project team concerning
the proposed multi-use sidewalk connection between Renner Street and Mulberry Avenue. He
expressed a concern over the amount of loitering at the corner of Condon and Renner that currently
exists and felt that a sidewalk – even a well-lit one – might attract the loiterers down in front of his
home. He would like to see the ROW abandoned between the dead end of Renner and Mulberry
Avenue.
Answer:
The community police officer stated that he thought that the multi-use sidewalk would
be a positive addition to the neighborhood as the police officers ride their bikes around to patrol the
neighborhood so this would allow them to better patrol this area. CDOT stated that no decisions
are being made at this time as they are in an “information gathering” mode at this time. It was
stated that the connection could even wait to be built until all of the neighborhood improvements
have been completed to see if the connection was still a good idea.
MEETING MINUTES
The next meeting will be held in early 2003 and the exact time and location will be announced
within the neighborhood newsletter. The purpose of that meeting will be to present and discuss the final
plan design.
If you have any additions, or corrections to these minutes, please contact me by August 23, 2002.
END OF MEMORANDUM
JLP/jlp
file: 01552 – Meeting Minutes
cc:
Attendees
Tim Gibbs, CATS