CHAPEL HILL -- It's one of the most frustrating experiences for drivers, when you park your car only to come back to find out that it's been towed.

Officials with the Town of Chapel Hill say complaints from the public about predatory towing practices prompted them to update existing towing ordinances that have been in place for a decade.

"In situations where one party is not equally balanced in the transaction, we have the authority to require reasonableness," said Matthew Sullivan, legal advisor for the Town of Chapel Hill.

The changes require tow zones to be adequately marked with signage, preventing vehicles from being towed farther than 15 miles outside of town limits. Town officials also revised the ordinance to set a cap for towing fees from private lots and required tow operators call police when towing a car away.

However, George King, owner of George's Towing, is taking a stand against that ordinance along with another ordinance: the ban of cell phone usage while driving.

We're responding to the changing landscape of technology. We felt that we needed these additional ordinances to protect our community and the tow operators, said Sullivan.

Towing is a mobile business. The towing operator does all his business from a cell phone, said Tom Stark, defense attorney for George King.

King and his defense attorney argue these ordinances give the town the power to regulate how tow truck companies operate despite concerns that towing fees are too high.

The case went before Superior Court, then the Court of Appeals and now it's in the hands of the state Supreme Court.

On Monday arguments from both sides were heard before a panel of seven judges. It's up to them to decide if the ordinances will stand.

Read this article:
NC Supreme Court to decide on Chapel Hill towing and cell phone ordinance

Richmond Hill Liberal

Theres a sense of peace along the rolling, snowy fields south of Jefferson Sideroad.

Clumps of mature trees are atwitter with early spring songbirds, muffling the sound of traffic on Yonge Street.

But the pastoral scene is misleading. Bitterness brews beneath the bucolic landscape.

Development has chewed at the edges of this quiet enclave and the few remaining residents havent felt peace for a very long time.

We are desperate people feeling like weve been forced out of our homes, Karen Trofimchuk explains, referring to the handful of neighbours who have not sold or moved away. Weve got rabbit and deer here. It will break my heart when they start cutting down the trees.

The story of the Harris-Beech neighbourhood is a stormy and complicated one. Its also a story of Richmond Hill, a microcosm of the towns metamorphosis from sleepy suburb to mushrooming metropolis.

The final chapter may now be drawing to a close with a recent council decision to pass an infill study, but those who were embroiled in it say they wont soon forget - whether they, too, pack up and leave like their neighbours before them, or hang in and watch their community transform.

The community known as Harris-Beech is tucked into secluded tract off Jefferson Sideroad. Large lots line meandering laneways. Homes are still without town water and sewer services, surrounded by busy thoroughfares and subdivisions.

Developers have been eying the area, real estate agents knocking on doors. For the past decade, this has been a community in limbo.

Read this article:
Change coming to pastoral Harris-Beech neighbourhood in Richmond Hill

Pleasant Hill keeps 'marching' along. The recent rainfall has made our hillsides awash with green, even in this drought year of 2014. St Patrick's Day beckons and some people will be donning the green.

It is also the month where you will likely see the start of some major city projects costing a total of $33 million. That's definitely a lot of green!

I am not sure the luck of the Irish has anything to do with this (though I am the grandson of Irish immigrants) but nearly 90 percent or more than $30 million of the project construction costs are being paid from regional, state and federal grants and not the city's general fund.

Other communities are surely green with envy at the resourcefulness of our city staff in identifying funding for important infrastructure improvements without negatively impacting our budget priorities or depleting our revenue.

Here are some of the improvements that are underway.

Geary Road enhancements

This $10 million project, in partnership with the city of Walnut Creek, will improve Geary Road from Putnam Boulevard to Pleasant Hill Road.

The improvements will include the construction of continuous left-turn lanes, a bike lane and new pedestrian sidewalks.

The redesign of the intersection of Geary and Pleasant Hill roads, which has already begun, will be completed with gateway monuments identifying Pleasant Hill boundaries (more on that below).

Enhancements for Contra Costa Boulevard

Read this article:
ViewPoints by Timothy M. Flaherty: Pleasant Hill roadway, sign improvements to begin

Our recent run of good weather has been perfect for getting out and enjoying a walk. We dont lack for quality parks in Gwinnett County I have four great ones within 20 minutes or less from my home but sometimes its easier, not to mention more informative, to walk around the neighborhood.

It gives you a chance to not only say hello to neighbors but to get a pulse of the area. You see who drives fast, who drives slow, whos driving something new, who has the best landscaping and who has the worst (Im always happy when it isnt me.)

There used to be a time when on those walks Id also see plenty of wildlife, mostly deer who called the unfinished part of the subdivision home. I previously wrote about those suburban deer, who have had to find new homes because of the human ones being added a bad deal for the deer but a great one for the economy.

Toward the back of the subdivision, near where a gate used to be situated to keep people from driving through the unfinished part, is a real sign. And it was a nice discovery the first time I saw it while on a walk with the dog. It marks the site where a new home will be built which isnt novel in a neighborhood that seems to be growing every day.

However, its not a for sale sign, but a for sign. The lot, you see, is for the future home of Sgt. Perry Haley and his family.

Haley was injured while serving in Iraq and Korea and is dealing with health problems due to a brain tumor. The house is being presented to the family by the PulteGroup in partnership with Operation Finally Home, a group dedicated to providing custom-built, mortgage-free homes to Americas heroes and the widows of the fallen who have sacrificed so much to defend our freedoms and our way of life.

Haley is a veteran, a hero like all the other men and women who serve our country. He has received several commendations, including the Army Achievement Medal, Army Superior Unit Award and Good Conduct Medal. He and his wife Autumn have three daughters, Georgia, Eva and Hannah and they will be present on Wednesday at 2 p.m. for the official groundbreaking at Barrington Estates in Sugar Hill.

Theyll get to see the site where Pulte Homes, with support from its trade partners and vendors will build, decorate and donate the home, which is expected to be completed by this summer. Sugar Hill Mayor Steve Edwards will be there as will folks from Pulte and Operation Finally Home. Presumably some future neighbors will stop by as well.

Programs like these that honor veterans are always nice to hear about, even more so when the donated home is in your own neighborhood. The Haleys future home is one I walk by often. This summer I look forward to waving hello, and to making sure their yard doesnt totally put my to shame.

Email Todd Cline at todd.cline@gwinnettdailypost.com. His column appears on Wednesdays.

See the article here:
CLINE: A nice addition to the neighborhood landscape

By Jenny Barwise

Published at 11:23, Wednesday, 12 March 2014

People power looks set to win as plans to build a highly controversial wind turbine near Cockermouth are likely to be refused.

Nearly 30 people living at Gilcrux, Tallentire, Bridekirk and Cockermouth have lodged fierce objections against Fine Energy Limiteds planned development at Gilcrux.

They say that the nearby land is already saturated with wind turbines and another will only add to the misery that they bring.

Next week Allerdales development panel is being urged by the authoritys planning officers to throw the plan for the 77m turbine out, who say that the landscape and visual impact of the turbine would result in significant cumulative harm to the landscape.

Last year villagers hit out after plans for a six 328ft turbines at Tallentire Hill were passed. The turbines have since been built and the experiences of this wind farm features in the majority of objectors letters.

Alan Bateman, who lives at Newton House, Gilcrux, said that the six massive, ugly and very visually intrusive turbines spoiled the rural tranquility of the area.

Another turbine nearby will only exacerbate that intrusion, he added.

Another objector, Roy Stenson of Bridekirk, near Cockermouth, said: Being sited so close to the existing six wind turbines at Tallentire Hill farm can only have significant accumulation effect. It is a planning application by stealth coming so soon when the six at Hill Farm have only been on stream a few months.

Visit link:
People power set to topple Cumbrian wind turbine plan

10.03.2014 - (idw) Friedrich-Schiller-Universitt Jena

Geographers of the University of Jena are looking into the typical landscape of Tuscany Vast fields of sunflowers, sprawling pine trees and slim cypresses, as well as vineyards as far as the eye can see these are typical memories of Tuscany for all those who have been there. By contrast, Professor Dr. Beate Michalzik from the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena and her colleagues are interested in the more barren aspects of the region in Central Italy: In a study the Jena geographers analyzed the condition of the soil in the region known as Crete Senesi between Florence and Grosseto, whose hills are typically characterized by erosion for the moment at least, because the so-called badlands of Tuscany are acutely endangered.

Erosion is threatening the many small peaks known as biancane due to their whitish color. They are marked by a bleak, strongly declining south side and a less declining north side, overgrown by herbs, Prof. Michalzik explains. Every year one to two centimeters of the loose bare ground on the south side of the slope are being eaten away by wind and weather. But why, asked the chair of Soil Science, is there a protective blanket of sage brush, orchard grass, wild rye and curry plant only on one side of the hill and not on the other one? Michalzik and two former students from Jena tried to literally unearth the answer to this question. As Peggy Bierba, Michael Wndsch and Beate Michalzik write in the science magazine Catena: this typically Tuscan landscape is the result of an intense interplay of the condition of the soil, the vegetation and the land-use (DOI: 10.1016/j.catena.2013.08.003).

In the Val dOrcia, about 30 kilometers south of Siena, the Jena students and their supervisors took 12 samples of the soil of a biancana hill within the context of fieldwork. In the laboratory they analyzed their chemical, physical and hydrological qualities and discovered that the concentration of sodium in the soil is crucial for its stability. In the barren part of the hills the concentration of sodium is distinctly higher than on the vegetated side, Michael Wndsch explains the central finding. The high concentration of sodium lowers the coagulation of the individual layers of clay and therefore they are more easily affected by the rain. The result: less stability and more erosion.

A targeted greening of the barren surfaces of the biancane hills could possibly stabilize them. However, Beate Michalzik explains, this wouldnt stop the gradual disappearance of this landscape either, as can be seen by the growing agricultural use of the region. In the last decades bigger and bigger stretches of land have been used for wheat growing, which takes away the unique character of this landscape, states Michalzik. According to todays estimates, the badlands of Tuscany will have disappeared completely in 35 to 40 years.

Contact: Prof. Dr. Beate Michalzik, Michael Wndsch Institute of Geography Friedrich Schiller University of Jena Lbdergraben 32, 07743 Jena Germany Phone: ++49 3641 948820, ++49 3641 948807 Email: beate.michalzik[at]uni-jena.de, michael.wuendsch[at]uni-jena.de Weitere Informationen:http://www.uni-jena.de

Read the rest here:
Where nothing grows anymore

The sun rose near a tobacco barn in the Jessamine County community of Pink, which was named for the first postmaster, James Pink Overstreet. The head of the Kentucky Heritage Council said old barns are disappearing from the countryside "at an alarming rate." CHARLESBERTRAMLexingtonHerald-Leader|BuyPhoto

Kentucky has more old barns those built before 1960 per square mile than any other state.

Craig Potts, executive director of the Kentucky Heritage Council, said the number comes from a 2007 U.S. Department of Agriculture census. Kentucky is ahead of Ohio, Tennessee and Pennsylvania.

Many of those are tobacco barns, which Potts said are iconic.

"They are very, very important cultural landscape features," Potts said. "We do see them being lost at an alarming rate. They are like any historic outbuildings. ... If they're not maintained regularly, they're going to fall into disrepair."

A rural resource survey on the heritage council's website catalogs some of the rural structures throughout Central Kentucky.

The study found that, although rural houses were taken care of because they continued to be family homes, outbuildings were often left to decay.

It appears that there are no formalized statewide efforts to preserve Kentucky's barns. Saving them is left to individual owners.

Potts said he attended a concert in a re-purposed tobacco barn now being used for gathering at the Shaker Village of Pleasant Hill in Mercer County.

Such public uses for tobacco barns are not unusual, even when the barns were still being used in-season for tobacco, Potts said, because of their wide-open interior spaces.

Read the original here:
In Kentucky, part of the 'cultural landscape' is in peril

Activists and authorities are still at loggerheads over the future of the green sanctuary.

FMT FOCUS

KUALA LUMPUR: Adjacent to the affluent neighbourhood of Taman Tun Dr Ismail lies a green sanctuary that nature lovers have been struggling to keep intact against the authorities intention to turn it into a world class park.

Bukit Kiara, a secondary forest that covers 188.93 hectares of land, boasts a leafy woodland experience with tall trees shading jungle trails and small animals roaming free.

It is a favourite place for joggers, mountain bikers and others seeking relief from the noise and polluted air of the surrounding areas, but they are worried that ongoing efforts by the National Landscape Department (NLD) to turn it into a park might kill its pristine beauty forever.

Once a rubber estate, Bukit Kiara was acquired by the federal government in the 1980s to build public parks and a national mausoleum.

Since then, however, tracts have been given away for golf courses and an equestrian club.

On paper, the hill is divided into seven parcels, with Berjaya Corporation owning 25.1 hectares of it, Measat owning another parcel and the rest belonging to the NLD.

Berjaya wanted to develop its land into real estate, but the bid was blocked by Kuala Lumpur City Hall. At the same time, however, NLD has embarked on a series of efforts to upgrade the hill with built structures.

A perimeter fence 3.5m high and 4.7km long is being erected and is 80% complete. NLD has claimed that the purpose is to demarcate Bukit Kiara from neighbouring private lands.

View original post here:
Bukit Kiara lovers strive on

There is no park equipment more powerful than a childs imagination, and that is exactly what MIG landscape architects want to harness in their new South Park design ideas.

MIG, the firm hired to translate nearly a decade of South Park redesign talks, which were led by community activist Jessica Guheen and attended by dozens of Hermosa Beach residents throughout the years, presented two conceptual plans last Thursday honing in on the community groups primary goals: natural elements and accessibility. Complete with renderings and photos of similar projects, they left the City Council chambers buzzing with energy at the possibilities, and the satisfaction of seeing a faint light at the end of the tunnel.

By the end of the meeting, community members had expressed a preference to dismiss the second conceptual plan a beachy theme and concerns it would be a novelty that would eventually wear off. Instead, they opted for a free play theme powered by imagination.

The design includes winding dry creek beds, designed to catch run-off in the rains, and inspire hours of adventure even on dry days, trekking along the river bed in search of treasure or on safari.

At the highest point on the hill, where new fencing will keep cars out and kids in, will perch bird cage-shaped metal frames. The cages serve as the framework for children to build their own communities. One day, the frame may be covered by a blanket for a fort, another day by sticks for a teepee, another day an igloo, an African village, an animals cave. It is a framework for possibility, and according to MIG designers, inspires an innate feeling of security for children, who like to play in small spaces.

From the village, children may continue along their winding path to two hilltop slides, built into the natural slope of the park. As with many elements of the park, there will be more than one way to reach the slides there is the pathway, or stairs along the eastern side, or large rocks secured into the hillside to climb along the western side.

The design includes a play area for young tots, and a separate play area for bigger kids, filled with natural elements such as logs, sand and water, trimmed by winding edges, as well as more traditional swings and recognizable playground equipment.

In the center of the plan sits a pavilion, ready for birthday parties, picnics, or a parent hangout to oversee kids playing all around. The pavilion connects to a raised platform for children via a bridge, accessible by a pathway and a rope course.

It is a design that challenges childrens minds and bodies, as they navigate elements and engage in make-believe play. A ground labyrinth would allow for meditative time, or following a maze an activity found to be very soothing for autistic children while a childrens garden will give young gardeners a safe way to experience the natural flora of California. MIG will explore ways to tie the garden into the larger adult community garden, and was inspired by comments at last Thursdays meeting to explore a sensory garden concept.

While Guheens inner child popped alive with possibilities, ways for kids and their parents to climb and explore, residents shared positive feedback on the plans, and encouraged MIG to stick to as many natural elements as possible, and keep the community gardeners and dog owners in mind when defining the space.

See the rest here:
A park where dreams take root

There's nothing conventional in the management of the Marshall family's farm at Reidsdale, NSW, and nothing conventional about the results, either.

Willows, poplars, chestnuts, oaks and bamboo are used as fodder and to regenerate farm soils and streams, running against the official preference for native speciesand yet by any measure of health, the landscape is flourishing.

Soils are friable and well-structured, ensuring that any moisture that falls on the farm stays there.

Streams flow permanently, in contrast to when Peter and Kate Marshall and their children Keith, Gus and Rita, bought the former dairy farm 'Woodford Lagoon' in 1990.

At the time, the farmnow 250 hectareswas "ruined", Mr Marshall said, with no permanent water; compacted, acidic soil with no 'A' horizon, and dozens of hectares infested with broom bush.

In one spot, water penetrated only about two centimetres deep during a 10 hour immersion under a flood.

For much of the property, the first step toward health has been a Yeomans plow towed behind a low-ground pressure Antonio Carraro 4WD tractor. With a seven-tonne break-out on the tynes, the plow rips to 700 millimetres deep, shattering compaction and opening up the soil volume available to plant roots.

"We've got some areas where we excluded the stock 20 years ago and the soil still hasn't loosened up," Mr Marshall said. "But the minute we've passed a Yeoman's through it, everything comes to life."

Only sheep and goats are allowed back on the uncompacted soil, because the Marshalls have found that cattle hooves apply enough pressure to cause the farm's soils to "plastically fail", or compact beyond a point where natural processes can undo the damage.

Goats have been an essential tool in the farm's regeneration. Killing the broom with chemical wasnt an option, Mr Marshall said, because it encourages the seeds scattered beneath the bush to germinate, requiring another dose of chemicalan ongoing vicious cycle.

Read the rest here:
Marshall plan for farming regenerates the landscape