The Greensboro City Council voted to deny a rezoning request in East Greensboro at the Tuesday, Sept. 21 meeting.
The Sept. 21 meeting was the first in history with a majority of black city councilmembers, and the vote to deny the rezoning request was on straight racial lines.
All five black city councilmembers – Yvonne Johnson, Sharon Hightower, Justin Outling, Goldie Wells and Hugh Holston – voted to deny the rezoning request. All four white members of the City Council – Mayor Nancy Vaughan and Councilmembers Marikay Abuzuaiter, Tammi Thurm and Nancy Hoffman – voted against the denial.
The City Council constantly advocates for increased economic development in East Greensboro. District 1 City Councilmember Hightower and District 2 City Councilmember Wells, who represent the bulk of East Greensboro, also constantly advocate for less affordable housing and more market rate housing in East Greensboro.
The request was to rezone 12 acres of land at the intersection of Vivian Lane and South Elm Eugene from Residential Single-Family-5 (R-5) and Conditional District-Residential Multi-Family-12 (CD-RM-12) to Planned Unit Development (PUD).
The heavily conditioned PUD zoning would have allowed a convenience store on the corner of Vivian Lane and South Elm-Eugene Street and 150 multi-family units to be built on the property. The current CD-RM-12 zoning is conditioned to allow 56 multi-family and mobile home units on the lot and is the site of a former mobile home park. It is also adjacent to a mobile home park to the south.
The most vocal opponent to the rezoning request was Hightower, who also spoke against the rezoning request at the Planning and Zoning Commission meeting. It is extremely rare for a city councilmember to speak at a Planning and Zoning Commission meeting.
Hightower spoke against bringing another convenience store to East Greensboro and said, “Bring us a Whole Foods and bring us a Fresh Market.”
Wells said, “You have trailers, you have a convenience store, you have lots of people and the potential for creating a ghetto.”
Wells added, “Think about the 150 homes back there, trailer homes that will be trotting to the convenience store getting food they don’t need, buying cigarettes and wine then they get tanked up and then they start shooting each other and that increases crime.”
Vaughan noted that this would bring more market rate multifamily housing to the area.
Talk about holding your people back!
Just call them cigarette smoking wino’s who shoot each other.
Why would Whole Foods place a store in E. Greensboro? Hightower seems to forget it was a BLM protest that shut down the store in Friendly Center. I certainly wouldn’t go where I’m not wanted or would be targeted.
Right! Some council members and parasites have enriched themselves at taxpayer expense, YVONNE. Why don’t you invest your own money to open a supermarket in these areas? Hmmmmm?
LOL..Whole Foods and a Fresh Market.
Better go to school so you can study the investment cost of such a brilliant idea.
Holy cow, did Goldie Wells really say that?
I like the idea convenience store give them free booze get them tanked up as wells said let them shoot each other soon Gso. will have less of a problem
Comes down to culture, belief system and the political party that keeps you down.
That is delusional.
The customers that go to Whole Foods and pay $22/Pound for Swordfish Steak do not live in mobile homes.
There is already a Walmart Supercenter within walking distance on Elmsley Drive with continuous sidewalks the entire distance. What is the problem?
And people buying cigarettes are the cause of the shootings in Greensboro? Seriously? This is an incredibly unfortunate stereotype.
I could see hoping to get a Walmart food center or something…I am solid middle class and can’t afford Whole Foods (two kids in college really hurts). What in the world is she thinking. She is right about food access in lower income communities being an issue but damn….Whole Foods. Now that is a nutter.
Liberals! What a hoot!
Yeah, don’t let people trot to the c store and buy cigarettes and wine.And food they don’t need.
Brilliant.
Oh, this is hilarious!
Hightower demands that they be brought a Whole Foods, or a Fresh Market – as if such people would ever become the clientele of such stores! Why not a Neiman Marcus? Here is a reality check for you, dear : you tried a semi-upmarket cute grocery store on Phillips Avenue, and it was subsidised with a bunch of taxpayer money – remember? It was called The Renaissance Store, or some such thing. It never turned a profit, was a continuous drain on the taxpayer, and flopped within a couple of years. Goldie Wells can tell you all about it. She helped subsidise it.
Speaking of Goldie Wells, I don’t know whether to condemn her for being patronising, or commend her for being honest. She reckons her people would invariably get drunk and become violent. Well….there you have it, straight from the horse’s mouth. At least she understands the people she’s dealing with.
Sad… but true.
There used to be a nice grocery store on Phillips Ave a long while ago I used to shop there when l lived on Ball St. I could walk there they gave up trying to make money because of no business and shoplifters. Then the co-op came along 20 or so years later and again the neighborhood didn’t support them so why in the heck would a Whole Foods or Fresh Market want to go there just to get robbed shot up or get shoplifted out of business you liberal idiots on the council are total morons
Yes you’re right, Will. There was a large Winn-Dixie store on Phillips Avenue. When it was closing, WFMY reported it in the evening news and I’ll never forget what the reporter said. He said Winn-Dixie told him that that store had a problem with bad checks and shoplifting. I remember cringing, because he’d told the truth.
I never saw that reporter ever again on WFMY…
They need to consider a Trader Joe’s. It’s reasonably priced, more upscale food. I’d love to have one on this side of town. Aldi would be a distant second choice. Or, they might consider moving the Starbucks from the other side of the street. It’s always slammed and the drive thru lane always backed up into the road way.
Why do you bring up race in how the Greensboro City Council voted on the rezoning issue.The residents in the South Elm-Eugene area do not want this in our community.We already have enough convenience markets and low income housing in South Greensboro. Stay in the your lane and your systemic opinions about what is good for a neighborhood where you probably don’t want to live.
Cry me a river miller. Here you are exercising White privilege trying to help keep minority’s down anywhere but in your neighborhood
That parcel has been growing weeds for quite some time now, thinking there may be something that’s not obvious to the casual observer going on. I’ll be watching for future rezoning requests there
I have to point out that this is another “Miller”. Imitation is flattery.
I guess with a board that is 100% minority and female plus white females ,this could be the only minority board in the star.What have we gained by having an only minority board in the state. #1 they don’t know the first thing about adhering to a budget or cutting cost.It seems that annually a notice comes from the board”we have to raise taxes or we have to increase water rates”.#2 was Goldie really throwing off on her constituents?If a Republican had even had thoughts of making such a statement they would have been tarred and feathered on the square at high noon.
In the future do not say that minorities are in anyway muzzled from speaking what they want with NO repercussions from anyone.Minorities can do and say what they want anytime/anywhere.You Go Goldie,keep up the good work.
Wait just a doggone minute now. It is because of convenience stores that people are running around willy-nilly shooting each other and not the evil guns like we’ve been told? Only thing to do is demand that only those who pass tests proving themselves worthy, responsible and over 21 upstanding individuals to enter such dens of iniquity. Prints on file. That sort of thing.
I have a suggestion: Perhaps the Council pool their money and open a little greenie type food market in that exact spot. Put their money where their mouth is. Who knows. If we don’t have to wear masks, I might even shop there.
Hightower must be smokin’ some wacky weed. Whole Foods nor Fresh Market nor any other chain will go into that area. Guess she has forgotten about that co-op grocery that came and went several years ago.
There has been an empty Harris Teeter on Church Street for 20 years. Harris Teeter used to be on Randleman Road. Guess what, Sharon? Businesses do not go where they are not going to have business. And although I was initially shocked by Goldie Wells’ comments, upon more thought she is correct.
HaHa, New Dollar General store on Randleman Rd, S Elm extension. Another older Dollar General on Randleman Rd up from Glendale Dr. Couple Dollar Trees on Randleman Rd around Vandalia Rd, and They are worried about one more on South Elm at Vivian Ln. Maybe Wells has something. I know Randleman Road has changed and not for the better. Just check out the black tire donut marks on the road. Or watch ATV and Dirt bikes running on city streets. I won’t even mention a couple of shootings on Randleman Rd. I guess building houses will stop all this shenanigans.
I couldn’t help but laugh at the comments by Goldie Wells, does she even know what she’s admitting to.
and poor Yvonne “Whole Foods” in that area?
When I read that the zoning request was voted along racial line I knew then that we were talking about a council meeting where the air would be thick with Brain Farts…
Is it just me or are there others out there that are tired of hearing “The first this or that”? I don’t care who or what color anyone is, the question is “is it better because of this first what ever”?
This Council is excellent at two things:
Discrimination and Racism.
In a related event, YouTube (Google) has declared “national Hispanic month”. And our Veterans get one day every November.
Why are so many zoning cases being appealed to Council? What’s going on with the Zoning Commission?