GRANITE QUARRY — No matter where a relocated U.S. 52 goes through Rowan County, Denny Pandolfino knows that his home will be a casualty.
“They’ve destroyed my property,” Pandolfino said Thursday night after a public hearing at East Rowan High School.
Pandolfino’s Liberty Road house in Gold Hill sits in the middle of what some day will be a 46-foot-wide grass median.
While many others in Thursday’s night audience face similar circumstances, their houses could be spared, depending on which of 12 alternatives the N.C. Department of Transportation finally chooses. Understandably, they favor some proposed routes over others.
But Pandolfino doesn’t have a choice. The relocated U.S. 52 will take his house and the home of his nearby grandmother regardless of the final route.
“The state already made up my mind,” said an emotional Pandolfino, who found out only two nights earlier that his family’s houses were in danger.
Hundreds attended the Department of Transportation’s public hearing Thursday. For two hours prior to the hearing, citizens could view colored and coded maps taped to the school cafeteria walls to determine how their properties might be affected.
A wide array of DOT officials stood by to answer questions during that workshop. The formal public hearing then followed in the cafeteria.
“This is a complicated project,” acknowledged Leigh Lane, of the DOT’s public involvement and community studies unit. “If you feel confused, don’t feel bad.”
The new four-lane, median-divided highway will be up to 20.6 miles in length between I-85 in East Spencer to the existing five-lane U.S. 52 in Richfield.
Right-of-way acquisition is scheduled to start in 2007, with construction to begin by the end of the decade. It will provide a bypass for through traffic around Salisbury, Granite Quarry, Rockwell, Misenheimer and possibly Richfield.
The state’s environmental assessment for the project includes detailed maps going over 12 possible alternatives, but the proposed routes generally follow two paths with slight variations.
One path lies much closer to the existing U.S. 52 and was often referred to Thursday night as the western route.
The other path, or eastern route, is farthest from existing U.S. 52.
Depending on the final corridor selected, the future road construction could affect up to eight Rowan County neighborhoods and force the relocation of 29 to 45 families. As many as five businesses also could be forced to relocate.
Projected costs range from $97.7 million to $115.8 million.
After Lane reviewed where the planning process stands, 25 different people walked up to the microphone and made comments, many drawing applause from various parts of the crowded room.
But both the western and eastern routes had strong support.
People in support of the eastern route through Rowan County largely backed the comments made by Dr. Stephen
Furr, who owns a 177-acre farm on Lower Palmer Road.
Furr said the eastern route is best from an environmental standpoint in that it affects fewer streams, farm ponds, wetlands and flood plain.
The eastern route would impact fewer lives, Furr added, and it would cost less money to build.
DOT representatives told him that politics would not be a factor in where the road is built, Furr said, but he expressed concern that the mayors and aldermen of Granite Quarry and Rockwell will put pressure on the state to approve the western route because it’s closer to those towns.
“They want their money,” Furr said.
Families on Luther Barger Road said they also preferred the eastern path because the western alternatives would pass through at least two
homeplaces. One woman said her home would be in a left lane of the new road and a neighboring mobile home would sit in a right lane.
Kevin Fisher of Lower Palmer Road said he would prefer that the DOT not build the road project at all — a comment that prompted the loudest burst of applause all night. But if the road project had to come, he also favored the eastern route.
Beverly Smith, of Lower Palmer Road, said the project could cost her family two houses if the state chooses the western route. Other family properties would be cut in half. State officials shouldn’t be concerned about making the new U.S. 52 convenient to Rockwell and Granite Quarry, Smith said.
“There’s nothing to stop off there for,” she added.
Jeff Cline, who lives on Haynes Drive off Sides Road, said one of the proposed western routes would go through the middle of his farmhouse and 16.5 acres. His family wants to move, but who would be willing to buy his house now, he asked.
“The problem is, now we’re stuck for seven years,” Cline said. “There’s got to be a better way to do this.”
Both Cline and Pandolfino suggested after the hearing that a fairer proposal would be for the state to offer an early buyout to affected property owners. Pandolfino said he would like to have his property appraised now, with provisions for yearly increases until the state finally buys his property.
Pandolfino smiled at the DOT’s promise to pay him “fair market value.”
“What do you call fair?” he asked.
William Earnhardt submitted a 77-name petition that favored a western route for a relocated U.S. 52. It would protect the St. Peters Church area and be as close as possible to Granite Quarry and Rockwell, where the towns could provide water and sewer services for new industries, according to
Earnhardt.
Common sense dictates that the best route to serve the public and industry in eastern Rowan would be the one closest to the towns, Earnhardt said.
Frank King also supported a western route. An eastern alternative would divide his family-owned farm, splitting his buildings from pasture, he said. The DOT would have to build a 250-foot tunnel that would allow his cattle to walk from the pasture to the farm buildings, he noted.
Ann Ingram of St. Peters Church Road said she wants to protect her log home and seven acres that include hardwoods, deer and wild turkey. The proposed eastern route would put a four-lane highway within 200 yards of her property. Her peaceful lifestyle would vanish, and there would be no compensation, she said.
Several speakers said the state shouldn’t be building new roads when it could not maintain the roads it has.
Mike Moore of Mahaffey Drive said several of the proposed routes would shut down his street and landlock the property owners by not providing access to either Gold Knob Road or the new highway.
Lane, the evening’s moderator, said access issues will be dealt with in the next phase of planning. But she added that the DOT is required to provide properties with access to a road if they have that access now.
“That’s a major issue,” she said.
Homeowners in Gold Hill Airpark spoke for any option that would put the road farther away from the airpark. They also called for a one-mile berm with plantings on top to deflect noise and dust from a new highway.
One of the options would eliminate a house at the airpark and bring the highway closer to 10 others, ruining the retirement community’s peaceful qualities, a homeowner said.
Several Stanly County residents near Richfield spoke for the alternatives that connected directly to the existing five lanes of U.S. 52 in Richfield instead of bypassing the town and connecting to U.S. 52 farther south. A bypass around Richfield would pass through prime land and cost state taxpayers an additional $8.6 million, Tim Goodman said.
The existing U.S. 52 splits Pfeiffer College in half. Chuck Ambrose of the college said the administration strongly supports any alternative for safety and security reasons, though it favors the routes that bypass Richfield.
Planning for this new segment of U.S. 52 began in 1996. The state DOT and Federal Highway Administration will use the public comments and environmental assessment to choose one of the alternatives, and the next public comment period will probably come in 2003.
Doug Sellers, a Rockwell resident and announced Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, said the DOT process unfortunately put neighbors against neighbors.
Sellers added that DOT officials didn’t care about citizens, only the road they were going to build.
Contact Mark Wineka at 704-797-4263, or mwineka@salisburypost.com
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